Study information and your data
The full details of the study and how your data is handled. Who’s running it: about the researcher. For a plain walk-through of what your AI is asked and what the report contains, see what goes in and what comes out.
Consent version 2.5. Questions: use the contact page.
Who runs this study?
Tim Wickham, an independent researcher. The study is not run or funded by any employer, university or AI company, and it is non-commercial. The data is never shared with or used for the researcher's employer or clients. Once findings are published they're public, and, like anyone, he may draw on them in his work. If you know him through work, taking part is up to you, and whether you take part won't affect any work relationship with him.
Ethics review: none so far, because this is an independent study with no university ethics committee. The standards it follows instead are listed at the end of this page.
Why is it being done?
To learn what separates people who get real results from AI at work from everyone else: how they brief it, check its work and build on it. Findings are intended for an academic paper and a public summary on this site.
What will I do?
- Answer 6 questions: your role, industry and organisation size; which AI tools you use, what they can do and whether your employer provides them; what support for AI your workplace gives you; how long and how often you've used AI; whether it has made your work better or worse and roughly how much time it saves you; and whether you'll run the prompt.
- Copy a research prompt into your own AI tool. It writes a report on how you work with AI. Your conversation with your AI is covered by that AI provider's own terms, not by this study.
- Read the report, delete anything you don't want to share, and upload it. The site warns you if it spots something like an email address or a password.
- Save the private code you're given. It's the quickest way to delete your submission.
What is kept, and what isn't?
| We keep | We don't ask for or store |
|---|---|
| Your answers | Your name |
| The report you upload | Your email, unless you contact us or sign up for study updates (see below) |
| Which of two versions of the home page you saw (we're comparing them) | Your IP address (our web host may briefly record it in its own logs) |
| The date and time you agreed, and this consent version | Tracking or analytics cookies |
| A scrambled form of your private code (we can't read the code itself) | Direct access to your AI account (we see only the report you choose to upload) |
One cookie remembers your private code on your device for up to 7 days, or until you upload. The home page version isn't stored in a cookie: it's passed along in the page address, and we count visits to each version per day without recording anything about the visitor.
Contacting us
If you use the contact page, we keep your message, the email address you give so we can reply, and your name if you give it. They're stored with Supabase in the United States, kept apart from submissions (except that a deletion request is used to find yours), read only by the researcher, and deleted once your message is handled, or after 90 days at the latest. The researcher gets a short email alert that a message arrived; the alert doesn't include your message, name or address. If you email the researcher directly instead, your email stays in his mailbox and is handled the same way, but isn't covered by the 90-day limit.
Study updates by email
Optional, and separate from taking part: you can sign up whether or not you take part. If you do, we keep your email address, the month you signed up and which sign-up wording you saw, in a separate list. It holds no code, answers or report, and the researcher never tries to match it to them. We use it only to send a few emails about this study: occasional progress notes, then the findings when they're published. The researcher sends them from his own email address, with every address hidden from the others. The list is stored with Supabase in the United States, is never shared, and is deleted after the findings email, or 3 years after the study closes at the latest. To stop, use the Stop updates page or reply to any email.
Who can see my submission?
Only the researcher. It is stored with Supabase (database) and Render (website hosting), both in the United States. Before analysis, emails, phone numbers and things that look like passwords or keys are hidden automatically. An AI tool (Anthropic's Claude) then helps the researcher check each report for names and other identifying details, and helps with the analysis. Claude is used on the researcher's personal plan with model training switched off, so your report isn't used to train it; Anthropic keeps those conversations for up to 30 days, then deletes them. No other person sees your submission.
What if my report mentions something sensitive?
We don't ask about health, religion, union membership, politics or similar topics. If your report mentions them, or names a colleague or client, the researcher removes or generalises those details in the copy used for analysis and never quotes them. The researcher may remove passwords or other people's details from that copy without asking you first.
What are the risks?
Low. Someone who knows you, including the researcher, could recognise a detail. To prevent that in published results, examples are paraphrased, descriptions stay general ("a manager in finance", never a job title at a named firm), and when results are broken down by group (for example, by industry), any group with fewer than 5 people is combined with others or left out of that breakdown, so no one can be picked out. Your answers are still used in the analysis, and appear in overall totals wherever those are large enough to publish safely.
Please follow your employer's rules
Some employers limit which AI tools you can use or what you can put into them. Please check before you take part. We can't check this for you.
How long is my data kept?
Until 3 years after the study closes to new submissions, then it is deleted. The close date will be posted on this site.
Can I change my mind?
Yes. Use your private code on the Delete page until findings are published. Your submission is deleted from the study database straight away, and from the researcher's own copies the next time he updates them, always before any further analysis. Backup copies held by our hosting providers and on the researcher's computer expire on their own schedule.
If you lost your code, use the contact page and choose "Delete my submission". Give the approximate date you took part and your answer to the role question, and we'll delete your submission if we can find it. Contacting us links your email to your submission; we use it only to handle your request, then delete the message.
Results already published as totals can't be changed.
What are my rights?
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to see the data we hold about you, to correct it, to have it deleted, to restrict how it's used, and to object to its use. Use the contact page to use any of them; we reply within one month. If you're in the UK or the EU, you can also complain to your data protection authority.
Nothing here is required by law or contract: if you don't provide your answers and report, you simply don't take part. No automated decisions are made about you.
Will my data be used for anything else?
Only for this research and follow-up analysis by the same researcher, in de-identified form. It is never sold, and never shared with employers or AI companies. If a journal asks, only summary tables may be shared, never individual reports.
Is the report professional advice?
No. Your AI writes it, so it may be wrong. Use it as a starting point.
Legal basis and standards
Show the details
This is an independent study, so no university ethics committee has reviewed it, and a lawyer hasn't checked this information. Instead, the researcher wrote it to follow the standards below; where they differ, it follows the stricter one. If you think something here falls short of them, please tell us on the contact page.
United States
- What applies: the research-ethics standard for human-subjects research (the "Common Rule", 45 CFR 46). It binds federally funded research.
- What this study does: follows its consent requirements: key information first, voluntary participation, no wording that waives your rights, and the risks, confidentiality and contact stated. It has not been reviewed by an ethics board (IRB).
UK and EU
- What applies: UK GDPR and EU GDPR, which may apply when people there take part.
- What this study does: the researcher is the data controller. The lawful basis is legitimate interests in non-commercial research (Article 6(1)(f)). Contact messages are handled on the basis of legitimate interests in answering you (Article 6(1)(f)). The study-updates list is based on your consent when you sign up (Article 6(1)(a)), which you can withdraw at any time. Sensitive details aren't sought; any that appear are removed or generalised before analysis, and your explicit consent, given with the checkbox, covers holding them until then (Article 9(2)(a)). Research safeguards are data minimisation, masking and de-identification (Article 89). Supabase and Render have data-processing terms that cover transfers to the US (standard contractual clauses); you can ask us for details. Claude is used on a personal plan with training switched off and no separate data-processing agreement. As occasional, small-scale research, the study has no appointed EU or UK representative (Article 27(2)).
Canada
- What applies: PIPEDA covers commercial activity; non-commercial research generally falls outside it.
- What this study does: follows its principles anyway: meaningful consent, limited collection, safeguards and access.
Everywhere
- What applies: research-ethics codes for online and survey research (AAPOR, ESOMAR, British Psychological Society).
- What this study does: paraphrased examples only; any group with fewer than 5 people is combined with others or left out of that breakdown in published results; and no selling of data.
Ticking the box is your agreement to take part. That's separate from the legal basis for handling your data above. Either way, if you change your mind, your submission is deleted.
Changes to this information
If this information changes, the version number changes. Your submission stays under the version you agreed to.