AI that helps you act, grounded in real data and honest about its limits.
Earth United uses AI where it saves you real time: turning your situation into a plan, reading a photo of a sick plant, explaining the research on your site, or telling the ecological story of a place. Here is exactly where we use it, in both of our apps, what feeds it, and where we deliberately don't.
Our principles
These apply to both apps.
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Grounded, not guessed.
- Mobile plans use your local forecast. Garden advice uses soil, climate and biodiversity data for your location.
- Place stories are written only when we have enough real environmental data. If we don't, we don't write one.
- In EcoDesign, AI works from your site's own mapped climate, soil, terrain and water data, and research findings cite their sources.
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Safety is never AI-generated.
In the mobile app, safety guidance for heat, smoke and flooding comes from WHO, EPA and civil-protection sources. It is fixed text, pinned on top, and the AI cannot change it.
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Honest about uncertainty.
The Plant Health Scanner gives a likely diagnosis with a confidence level, and tells you when the evidence is weak. EcoDesign labels floor plans as concept plans and renders as illustrations.
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You see the price first.
Every AI feature that uses credits, in either app, shows its cost before you run it. Nothing is charged without your action, and a failed AI request is refunded or not charged.
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People stay in charge.
Our Did You Know deck is written and fact-checked by our team. In EcoDesign, AI suggestions such as plant guilds are applied only when you approve them. AI suggests; you decide.
Where we use AI: Earth United mobile app
| Feature | What AI does | What grounds it | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Action plan (Problem is the Solution) | Writes your personal plan from your answers | Your answers + your local weather forecast. Knowledge-base links and safety text are added by fixed rules, not by the AI | Free, 3 a day |
| Full Resilience Plan | A deeper, longer plan with a PDF | Same as above | 2 credits |
| Plant Health Scanner | Identifies the likely problem from your photos and writes organic treatment advice | A specialist plant-health recognition service, plus confidence thresholds | 1 credit |
| Garden Smart Actions | Analyses your garden (ecosystem, planting, risks, harvest timing) | Your garden's plants and notes, plus local soil, weather, climate and biodiversity data | 1 credit |
| Garden Visual Creator | Generates a design image of your planned garden | Your photo, plants, season and climate zone | 1 credit |
| Place Reveal | Writes the ecological story of a place | Climate, soil, land-cover, biodiversity, agriculture and climate-vulnerability datasets. No story is written without enough data | 1 credit per new place; reopening is free |
| AI learning sessions | A guided, conversational lesson with quizzes | Lessons cite chapters from our curated knowledge base | Pay-as-you-go, typically about 50 exchanges per credit; 2 welcome credits for new learners. Free accounts: up to 10 exchanges a day. Subscribers: no daily limit |
Where we use AI: EcoDesign web app
| Feature | What AI does | What grounds it | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Research Hub findings | Writes topic-by-topic findings about your site (environment, soil, water, climate-smart practice, fire, land use and more) | Your site's mapped data plus cited web and literature sources | AI credits, shown before you run it |
| Site reading and analysis | Summarises what the site's conditions mean for design | Your site's climate, soil, terrain and water data | AI credits |
| Project Guide | Answers questions about your project and suggests the next step | Your project's own data and progress | 2 credits per message |
| Plant guild designer | Suggests plant guilds for a zone | A library of 600+ plant records checked against your site's climate. Nothing is applied until you approve it | AI credits (Design unlock) |
| Seasonal planner and practice transition | Drafts a seasonal plan or a step-by-step transition plan | Your design, your site's climate and your stated goals | AI credits (Design unlock) |
| Passive solar: building programme | Proposes how rooms connect (the room topology) from your building programme | Your programme and the site's sun path. Room geometry is then produced by rules-based geometry, not by AI | AI credits (Design unlock) |
| Building and site visualisation | Generates exterior and site renders that illustrate the design | Your design, your accepted plan and a picture of the site layout | Renders 4, 6, 10 or 16 credits; failed renders are not charged (Design unlock) |
| Plant identification | Identifies plants from photos | A specialist plant-recognition service | AI credits |
| Farmer Hub pest and disease help | Identifies the likely problem and suggests prevention-first (IPM) actions | Your description and photos, your crops and local conditions | Included Farmer Hub credits |
| Farmer Hub transition coach | Coaches the move to regenerative practice | Your farm's data and practices | Included Farmer Hub credits |
| Client reports | Writes report sections from your research and design | The findings and design already in your project | AI credits |
Mobile-app credits and EcoDesign credits are separate. They are bought and spent in different apps.
Where we do not use AI
Earth United mobile app
- Safety guidance: official sources, fixed text.
- Gaia in Distress globe: live public data (USGS, NASA, GDACS, OpenAQ, NOAA and others), shown as reported.
- Did You Know cards: written and fact-checked by people.
- Weather, frost and heat alerts: forecast data and calculations, not AI.
- Quiz grading: done on your phone.
- Read-aloud: your phone's own text-to-speech voice.
EcoDesign
- Floor-plan geometry: rooms are laid out by rules-based geometry and checked against solar, structural and safety rules.
- Crop water needs and irrigation: calculated from weather data (ET₀ × Kc), not AI.
- Weather, flood and air-quality data: shown from the data services, as reported.
- Map work: boundaries, zones, sectors and measurements are your own drawing.
- 3D terrain view and orbit: built from elevation data.
- Implementation Dashboard: your own phases and tasks.
- Share links and Present mode: they show your project as it is.
- Credit pricing: every credit cost is calculated by fixed rules and shown before you run it.
Data sources we rely on
Earth United app
Open-Meteo, ISRIC SoilGrids, NASA POWER, GBIF, ESA WorldCover, FAOSTAT, ND-GAIN, plus the Gaia sources: USGS, NASA (EONET and FIRMS), GDACS, OpenAQ and NOAA.
EcoDesign
Open-Meteo (weather, flood and air quality), ISRIC SoilGrids, public elevation data, and MapTiler maps.
Which AI providers we use
AI features run on our servers. Neither app sends your data to an AI provider directly from your device. Only the information a feature needs is sent: for example, your plant photos for a scan, or your site's data for a research finding. We do not use your content to train our own AI models.
- Earth United mobile app: OpenAI (plans, garden analysis, place stories, learning sessions, treatment advice), Google Gemini (garden visuals) and Kindwise (plant health recognition).
- EcoDesign: OpenAI and Anthropic (research findings, analysis, planning and reports), Google Gemini (renders and visualisations), Perplexity (web research with sources) and Kindwise (plant identification).
Your data and AI
Mobile app
- Photos you send for a plant scan or a garden visual are used to answer that request.
- Garden visuals are returned to your phone and are not kept on our servers.
- Your plans, gardens and saved places are private. Nothing is published unless you share it, and you can delete any of it, or your account, in the app.
Read the Earth United Privacy Policy and how to delete your account.
EcoDesign
- Your projects are private to your account. A project is visible to others only through a share link you create, and you can turn that link off.
Read the EcoDesign Privacy Policy.
Limits we want you to know about
- AI can be wrong. A plant diagnosis is "likely", not certain. For valuable crops, or if a problem spreads, consult a local expert or extension service.
- An action plan is practical guidance, not professional engineering, medical or legal advice.
- EcoDesign floor plans are concept plans, not construction drawings. Work with an architect or builder for construction.
- Renders are illustrations of a design idea, not accurate pictures of the finished site.
- Fire, flood and climate information in EcoDesign supports planning. It is not a safety assessment, and it does not replace local authorities or professionals.
- Earth United is not an emergency service.
