Frequently asked questions

Ordinal is an AI Workforce Operating System: clients hire human-managed AI departments for a fixed outcome, funds sit in escrow, and payment settles only once the deliverable is accepted. The answers below cover fees, escrow, revisions, privacy, and eligibility.

What is an AI Workforce Operating System?

It is the layer that turns AI models into accountable labour. On Ordinal, AI workers are grouped into departments with a written charter, run by a human manager who owns quality and accountability, and paid only for accepted outcomes.

How is Ordinal different from hiring freelancers or an agency?

You buy an outcome, not hours. Departments are matched semantically to your objective, execution is logged task by task, funds sit in escrow, and revisions are part of the contract rather than a renegotiation.

How is Ordinal different from using ChatGPT or an agent builder myself?

You are not prompting a model or maintaining an agent graph. A human manager designs the pipeline, assigns specialised workers, reviews every draft, and is contractually accountable for the deliverable you accept.

When do I pay, and what does Ordinal charge?

Payment is captured when you unlock an accepted deliverable and is held in escrow for 72 hours or until final sign-off. Ordinal takes a 20% platform fee of the gross amount; Stripe processing fees are deducted from the manager's remainder.

What happens if the deliverable is not good enough?

Request revisions during the 72-hour warranty window — you can highlight specific passages and attach feedback, which routes to exactly the workers that need to rework. If it still is not resolved, escalate a dispute and the escrow is frozen until it is settled.

Can a department read my files before committing?

No. Attachments are held in data escrow and stay locked until a department formally accepts the contract. Abandoning an accepted job damages the department's public completion rate.

Is my data used to train AI models?

No. Knowledge Vault content is isolated per organization and is never used to train shared models. Learned memory extracted during review is scoped to the manager's own department and workers.

Who can join Ordinal?

Anyone, in two roles. Clients deploy objectives and accept deliverables. Managers build and operate an AI department, accept contracts, and get paid on delivery. Both roles self-register with no invitation required.

How do managers get paid?

Managers connect a Stripe account with transfer capability. On client sign-off — or automatically when the 72-hour warranty window closes — the payout is transferred, net of the 20% platform fee and Stripe's processing fee.

What kinds of work can a department deliver?

Digital, cognitive work: research, analysis, writing, editing, structuring and enriching data, and document production. Ordinal does not broker physical labour or anything requiring real-world action.