Terms of service

Last updated 23 October 2026

Agreement

These terms are an agreement between you and Anirudhan Vijay ("Otto", "we", "us"), an individual based in the United Kingdom. They cover the Otto app for macOS and Windows, its online services (accounts, shared projects, the cloud assistant and reading aloud), and the website at tryotto.work (together, the "Service").

By installing or using the Service, you agree to these terms and to our privacy policy. If you use Otto on behalf of an organisation, you confirm you are allowed to accept these terms for it. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.

Who can use Otto

You must be at least 16 years old. While Otto is in early access, the app opens only with an invitation code. Codes are personal: each one works on the computer or computers it was issued for, and must not be sold or published.

Early access

Otto is in early access and is provided free of charge. Features may change, stop working or be removed. Online services may be unavailable at times, limited or withdrawn, and we may end early access or the Service with reasonable notice where we can. Keep your own copies of anything important. Otto makes local backups, but no software can guarantee your data will never be lost.

Your licence to use Otto

We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to install and use Otto for your own research, study or work, in line with these terms. You may not:

• copy, sell, rent, sublicense or redistribute the app, except as the law expressly allows;
• decompile, reverse engineer or attempt to extract its source code, except to the extent the law allows despite this restriction;
• remove or alter any notices, or present Otto as your own product.

Otto, its name, logo, design and software belong to us or our licensors. Open-source components are provided under their own licences, which take precedence for those components.

Your content

Your papers, highlights, notes, pages, tasks and other material you create or bring into Otto ("Your Content") remain yours. We claim no ownership of them.

When you share a project, you give us the limited permission needed to store that project's shared content and show it to the people you invited, and nothing more. When you use the cloud assistant or reading aloud, you give us permission to send the text needed for that request to our AI providers, as described in the privacy policy.

You are responsible for Your Content and confirm you have the right to use it as you do in Otto. That includes respecting copyright, publisher licences and your institution's rules. PDFs you add stay on your computer. Do not share material you have no right to share.

Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• use Otto to get round paywalls, technical protection measures or access controls, or to download content in bulk that you are not entitled to;
• upload, share or send material that is unlawful, infringing, defamatory or harmful, or that contains malware;
• harass other people, or use people search to collect contact details or send unsolicited messages;
• attempt to probe, overload, disrupt or gain unauthorised access to the Service, other accounts or our providers. Good-faith security reports to care@tryotto.work are welcome.
• get round usage limits, rate limits or invitation controls, or use automated means to access the online services, except through the app;
• use the Service to develop a competing product, or to train AI models on our services or outputs;
• use the Service for anything unlawful, or in breach of the terms of the AI providers it relies on.

The assistant and AI output

Otto's assistant uses AI models, including models run by OpenAI and Anthropic, and a decision model run by TypeSafe that routes short requests and checks cited passages. AI output can be inaccurate, incomplete or out of date, even when it cites a source. Otto checks citations against what it read, and may mark one whose passage may not say what was written, but these checks are automated and cannot guarantee correctness. You are responsible for verifying anything before relying on it, publishing it or submitting it for assessment, and for following your institution's rules on the use of AI. Otto is not a substitute for your own academic or professional judgement. It does not give legal, medical or financial advice.

Cloud models are paid for by us and come with usage limits, including a monthly allowance per account. We may change the models offered, the limits or the features at any time.

Accounts

An account is optional. If you create one, give accurate details, keep access to your sign-in secure, and tell us promptly at care@tryotto.work if you think it has been misused. You are responsible for what is done through your account.

You can delete your account at any time from Settings. We may suspend or close an account, or withdraw an invitation, if it breaks these terms, puts the Service or other people at risk, or if we must by law. Where reasonable, we will tell you why first.

Other services

Otto connects to services run by others, such as Google, Zotero, Mendeley, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, publishers, open-access repositories and scholarly databases. Your use of them is governed by their own terms. We are not responsible for their content, availability or practices. Papers and metadata found through Otto belong to their respective rights holders.

Feedback

If you send us ideas or feedback, we may use them to improve Otto without owing you anything. We will not identify you publicly without your permission. Reports you send may be copied, without your name or email, into the tools we use to track work on them.

You can also let Otto report problems and anonymous usage counts in the background (“Let Otto keep track of problems in the background”, in Settings and the feedback form). It is off unless you turn it on, Otto works the same either way, and you can turn it off at any time. What it sends, and to whom, is set out in the privacy policy.

Our research and results

We publish research and benchmark results about Otto at our discretion. Unless the law requires it, we have no obligation to disclose, on request or at all, our research and development figures, evaluation methods, datasets, model outputs, prompts, source code, or other internal materials, including those behind anything we publish. Published results describe the conditions under which they were measured and are not a promise about how Otto will perform for you.

Updates

Otto checks for updates and installs them the next time it starts. Updates may add, change or remove features. Keeping Otto up to date helps keep it secure.

Disclaimer

To the fullest extent the law allows, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied. These include warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy and non-infringement. We do not promise that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free or secure, or that data will never be lost.

If you are a consumer, you have legal rights that these terms do not affect, including under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 where it applies to digital content.

Limitation of liability

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot be limited or excluded by law.

Subject to that, we are not liable for any loss that was not reasonably foreseeable, or for loss of data, work, profits, business or opportunity, arising from your use of the Service. Our total liability to you for any claim relating to the Service is limited to £100. If you use Otto for business purposes, we are also not liable for any indirect or consequential loss.

Ending these terms

You can stop using Otto at any time by uninstalling it and, if you have one, deleting your account. We may end these terms or your access as described above. Sections that by their nature should continue, such as those on content, disclaimers and liability, survive the end of these terms.

Changes

We may update these terms as Otto develops. If a change is material, we will give notice in the app or on this website before it takes effect. If you keep using the Service after a change takes effect, you accept the new terms. If you do not agree, please stop using the Service.

Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction. If you are a consumer living elsewhere in the UK or in the EU, you keep the protection of the mandatory laws of your country and may bring proceedings there. Please contact us first: most problems can be solved quickly.

If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect. Not enforcing a right straight away does not waive it. These terms and the privacy policy are the whole agreement between us about the Service.

Contact

Help and support: care@tryotto.work. Everything else: hello@tryotto.work.