Terms

1. Who we are

The AI Stairway™ is made and sold by Scorchsoft Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 07246693), at 13 Portland Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B16 9HN. You can reach us at andrew@scorchsoft.com or on 0121 724 0447. “We” and “us” in these terms mean Scorchsoft Ltd.

2. Words we use

• The course means The AI Stairway™: its modules, films, words, images, exercises, cheat sheets, resource packs and the AI Stairway™ to Success model.
• You means the person using the course or this site, and, where an organisation buys places, that organisation too.
• An individual (a consumer, in law) means someone buying for themselves, not for a business, trade or profession.
• A business means anyone buying for a business, a public body, a charity or another organisation.

3. What the course is, and isn’t

The course is general training in good practice for using AI at work. We’ve taken care over it, and every module sets out what you’ll be able to do by the end. But please read it for what it is:

• It isn’t advice. It isn’t legal, data protection, security, HR, clinical, financial or technical advice for your situation. For decisions in those areas, follow your organisation’s policies and ask the right specialist. Scorchsoft’s consultancy and development work, if you ever use it, is a separate service under its own contract.
• It doesn’t promise results. We can’t promise any particular result, saving or outcome from using AI. That depends on your tools, your data and how you use them.
• It doesn’t make anything safe or compliant on its own. Following the course doesn’t by itself make any use of AI safe, secure or compliant with UK GDPR, the EU AI Act, sector rules or anything else. Nothing in the course is a statement that it meets any legal requirement for AI training or AI literacy.
• Dated where it matters. What AI tools can do changes quickly. Where a detail can date, such as what a tool can do, a figure or a study, the course shows its date. We review the content every six months, but between reviews some details will be out of date.
• Products and people. Products named in the course are dated examples, not endorsements, and we aren’t connected with any of them unless the course says so. The people and organisations in the scenarios are invented.

4. AI tools and your organisation

The course asks you to try things in an AI tool you already have. Those tools are run by other companies under their own terms and privacy policies, and we’re not responsible for them, what they produce, or what happens to what you put into them.

Every exercise uses invented or public examples. Please don’t put confidential, personal or client information into an AI tool for an exercise. At work, your organisation’s policies come first: where they differ from the course, follow them, and if there’s no policy yet, ask whoever decides. Choosing to use AI for real work, connecting it to your systems or data, or letting it act for you (as the Advanced modules discuss) are decisions for you and your organisation, including any risk assessment or data protection impact assessment they need.

5. Your account

You need an account to take the course. Give us accurate details, keep your password to yourself, and tell us straight away if you think someone else has used your account. An account is for one person.

If we have good reason to think an account is being shared, used to copy the course, or used against these terms, we may suspend it. Unless it’s urgent (to stop copying in progress, for example), we’ll tell you first and give you a chance to put it right. If we close an account you’ve paid for because of something you’ve done, we’ll explain why. If we close it for any other reason, we’ll refund you for the access you lose.

6. What you may do with the course

When a module is unlocked for you, we give you a personal, non-transferable right to use it for your own learning, for as long as you have access (section 10). You may print or save the cheat sheets and resource packs for your own use, and use what you learn in your work.

Places bought by an organisation are for the named learners the organisation gives us. The organisation’s managers can see their learners’ progress, as the sign-up page and privacy notice explain. If a learner leaves before they’ve started a module, ask us and we’ll move their place to someone else. Once a learner has started, the place is theirs.

Please don’t:

• share your account or the course with anyone else, or let others watch it as a group unless we’ve agreed that;
• copy, download, record, scrape or re-host the course, its films or its packages, beyond saving the cheat sheets and resource packs for yourself;
• use the course, or the AI Stairway™ to Success model, to make your own course, training material or product;
• put the course into an AI system to train it, or to make something that competes with it, except where the law allows that and doesn’t let us stop it;
• remove or hide our name, the author credits or our copyright and trade mark notices.

Partners, and organisations that host the course in their own learning platform (SCORM), use it under a separate written licence. Where that licence says something different from these terms, the licence applies.

7. Who owns the course

The course and everything in it, including the AI Stairway™ to Success model, is © 2026 Scorchsoft Ltd, all rights reserved, or used under licence from its owners. The AI Stairway™ is a trade mark of Scorchsoft Ltd. Using the course doesn’t give you any rights in it beyond those in section 6. If you’d like to quote or reproduce the model, ask us: we’re usually happy to agree something reasonable.

8. Certificates

When you complete a module, and when you complete a series or the whole course, you can download a certificate. Anyone with its code can check it on this site. A certificate records that you completed the training. It isn’t a qualification, a licence to practise, or evidence that you or your organisation meet any legal or regulatory requirement. We may withdraw a certificate that was earned by breaking these terms (by sharing an account, for example).

9. Buying modules

There’s no online payment. When you ask for modules on this site, you’re sending us a request, not placing an order. A contract starts only when we confirm your purchase in writing (by email), and that email will set out what you’re buying and the price. If we can’t accept a request, we’ll tell you.

Prices. Prices are per learner, in pounds sterling. For businesses, prices are shown before VAT, and VAT is added at the standard rate. If you can’t reclaim VAT (you’re an individual, or your organisation isn’t VAT-registered), we reduce the price so that the total, VAT included, is the price shown: a £100 module costs you £100 in all. If you tell us you can’t reclaim VAT and that turns out not to be the case, we may invoice the difference. Bundle prices apply when you buy the bundle in one go. A discount code applies only as its terms say, and can’t be exchanged for cash.

Paying. We invoice you once we’ve confirmed. Please pay within 30 days of the invoice, unless we’ve agreed something different in writing. For businesses: if an invoice is unpaid, we may charge interest and compensation under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, and if it’s more than 14 days overdue we may pause access to the modules on it after telling you. We usually unlock modules when we confirm, before payment.

Businesses. For a business, the contract is our written confirmation, these terms, and any written agreement we’ve both signed, which comes first if they differ. Your own purchase terms don’t apply unless we’ve agreed to them in writing.

10. How long you keep access

Once a module is unlocked, you keep access for as long as we offer the course, and for at least 12 months from the day it was unlocked. If we ever stop offering the course, we’ll give you at least three months’ notice by email, so you can finish what you’ve started and download your certificates and resource packs. Updates to the modules you have, from our six-monthly reviews, are included while you have access.

Places bought by an organisation last as long as the learner is part of that organisation’s group on this site. If the organisation removes a learner, their access to those places ends, but anything they bought themselves stays theirs.

The course works in an up-to-date web browser on a phone, tablet or computer, with an internet connection.

11. Cancelling within 14 days (individuals)

If you’re an individual, you can cancel a purchase within 14 days of the day we confirm it by email, for any reason, and we’ll refund what you’ve paid in full. This applies even if you’ve already started the modules. Cancellations are handled by a person, not the website, because we invoice you separately. To cancel, tell us clearly by email to andrew@scorchsoft.com, by phone on 0121 724 0447, or by post to 13 Portland Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B16 9HN. You can use the form below, but you don’t have to. We’ll refund you within 14 days of hearing from you, by the same way you paid unless we agree otherwise, and the modules will be locked again. If you haven’t paid yet, the invoice is cancelled.

This right is for individuals. It doesn’t apply to businesses, which have our 30-day refund instead (section 12).

12. Our 30-day refund

If your first paid module isn’t worth it, tell us within 30 days of it unlocking and we’ll refund it. If you bought a series or all ten and haven’t started a second module, we’ll refund the whole purchase. This is our own promise, for individuals and businesses alike, and it’s on top of your legal rights, not instead of them. Once a second module has been started, the 30-day refund no longer applies (your legal rights, including the 14-day right in section 11, still do). Tell us by email at andrew@scorchsoft.com; you don’t need to give a reason, and a person will arrange the refund. For a team purchase, the same applies to each learner’s place.

13. Changes to the course and these terms

We review and update the course every six months, and sometimes in between, to keep it accurate. We may change exercises, films and examples, but we won’t take away what a module sets out to teach, or make a module you’ve paid for significantly worse. If a change would, you can ask for a refund for that module.

We may update these terms, for example when the law changes or we add a feature. The terms that applied when we confirmed your purchase apply to that purchase. If a change would affect something you’ve already paid for, we’ll email you first.

14. Our responsibility to you

Things we never limit. Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law doesn’t let us limit. If you’re an individual, nothing here affects your legal rights.

If you’re an individual, we’re responsible for loss or damage you suffer that’s a foreseeable result of our breaking these terms or failing to use reasonable care and skill. Loss is foreseeable if it was obvious it would happen, or if we both knew it might when the contract was made. We aren’t responsible for loss that wasn’t foreseeable, or for business losses: the course is sold to individuals for their own learning, so if you use it for a business, we’re not responsible to you for lost profit, lost business or business interruption. If something we supply damages your device or other digital content because we didn’t use reasonable care and skill, we’ll repair the damage or pay you fair compensation.

If you’re a business, then, except for the things we never limit:

• we’re not liable for loss of profit, revenue, business, contracts, goodwill or anticipated savings; loss or corruption of data; business interruption; fines or penalties; or any indirect or consequential loss;
• we’re not liable for decisions you or your people make about using AI, for what an AI tool produces or does, or for how you set up or connect AI tools, including anything that happens after you act on the course;
• our total liability to you for everything arising from the course and these terms, in each year, is limited to the greater of the fees you paid us for the course in the 12 months before the claim arose, and £5,000;
• the course is supplied on these terms only, and any terms implied by law about quality or fitness for a purpose are excluded as far as the law allows.

The free module and free material (the introductory module, sample content and anything on this site we don’t charge for) are provided as they are. We’re not liable to a business for them at all, and to an individual only as section 14’s individual rules say.

Links. Links to other sites are for your information. We don’t control those sites and aren’t responsible for them.

Events outside our control. We’re not responsible for a delay or failure caused by something outside our reasonable control, such as a failure of the services this site runs on. If that happens, we’ll tell you and do what we reasonably can to limit the effect. If access is lost for more than 30 days, you can cancel and we’ll refund you for the access you’ve lost.

15. Other things

• Privacy. The privacy notice explains what we keep about you and why.
• Passing on the contract. We may pass our rights and duties to another organisation if, for example, the course is sold, and we’ll tell you. If that would make things worse for you, you can end the contract and we’ll refund you for the access you lose. You may not pass on your rights without our written agreement.
• Only us and you. Nobody else has a right to enforce these terms (under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999), except that an organisation’s learners may rely on section 6.
• Notices. We’ll write to you at the email address on your account. Please write to us at andrew@scorchsoft.com.
• If part doesn’t apply. If a court decides part of these terms can’t be enforced, the rest still applies.
• Waiting isn’t giving up. If we don’t enforce something straight away, we can still do it later.
• The whole agreement (businesses). For a business, these terms, our written confirmation and any agreement we’ve both signed are the whole agreement about the course, and neither of us relies on anything said that isn’t in them. This doesn’t limit liability for fraud.

16. Which law applies

These terms, and any dispute about them or the course, are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction. If you’re an individual living in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you can also bring proceedings in your local courts, and you keep the protections of your local law that can’t be signed away.

17. Questions and complaints

If something isn’t right, please tell us at andrew@scorchsoft.com or on 0121 724 0447. We’ll reply within 5 working days and try to put it right. If you’re an individual and we can’t settle it between us, you can go to court or use another dispute resolution service.