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, VAT number GB124720540), at 13 Portland Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B16 9HN. You can reach us on 0121 724 0447, or by any of the ways on our contact page. “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.
• The buyer means whoever paid us for access to a module: you, if you bought it yourself; your organisation, for a place it gave you; a partner, for an access code it gave you.
• A partner means a business we’ve agreed in writing may resell the course, whether it has us set up your account or gives you an access code.
• Free access means anything nobody has paid us for: the introductory module, sample content, a gift from us, a complimentary place or code, and a module or gift code earned by recommending the course.

3. Accepting these terms

You accept these terms when you create an account, accept an invitation or redeem a gift (the form says so, beside its button), or when the site asks you to and you select I accept the terms. We keep a record of which version you accepted and when. If you don’t accept them, please don’t use the course.

When we change these terms in a way you should agree to (section 17), the site asks you again the next time you use it, and you can carry on once you’ve accepted. If you’ve paid us for modules and don’t want to accept a change, tell us instead: you can end the contract, and we’ll refund you for the access you lose.

If you accept these terms for an organisation (buying places, managing its team, or redeeming a gift to it), you confirm that you’re allowed to agree them for it, and they bind it as well as you.

4. 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.

5. How we and you use AI

How the course is made. Andrew Ward and the Scorchsoft team combine their own writing, practical experience and recorded material with AI-assisted production. Hours of recorded and transcribed material have helped inform the training, and Andrew has reviewed the course content. We apply the practices taught in the course to our own production, including human judgement, checking AI outputs and refining the material before publication.

Our use of AI. We use generative AI, AI agents and other production tools to help create, produce, maintain, update and deliver the course and website. This includes drafting and editing text, exercises, questions and resource packs; generating or editing images, diagrams, narration, music, audio and video; and assisting with software development, testing and course packaging. Course material may therefore include AI-generated or AI-assisted elements.

Your agreement. By accepting these terms before we provide access to the course or fulfil your order, you agree to Scorchsoft and people working on our behalf using generative AI and AI agents for the purposes described above, including when preparing future updates. If you buy on behalf of an organisation, you confirm that you have authority to agree to these terms for it. This permission concerns how we produce and supply the course; it does not authorise us to use your personal information, private learning notes or confidential material to train AI models, or to act in your organisation’s systems.

Human review and responsibility. We review AI-assisted course material before publishing it and remain responsible for what we supply under these terms. We use these tools subject to applicable law and their licence terms. AI use does not reduce your legal rights, our responsibility under section 18, or what we promise about the course. The course remains general training, as section 4 explains.

Your use of AI tools.

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.

6. Your account

You need an account to take the course, and you need to be 16 or over to have one (18 or over to buy). 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.

An invitation, a gift, an access code or a password link is for the person it was sent or given to. Please don’t pass one on unless it’s meant to be passed on (a gift code you’ve earned, for example). If one reaches the wrong person, we may cancel it.

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.

7. 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 12). 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 hasn’t started any of the paid modules the organisation bought, the organisation’s manager can take their place back and give it to someone else, from the team page (or ask us to). The same goes for a manager’s own place. Once a learner has started, the place is theirs.

Who can invite people into an organisation’s places. The organisation’s managers decide, on the team page, and can change it at any time: learners may invite colleagues at the organisation’s own email domains (this is what a new team starts with, and the manager is asked to keep or change it the first time they open the team page), anyone, or nobody. An invitation from a learner only ever uses a place the organisation already has, and the managers are emailed about each one; they can cancel it until it’s accepted. Learners can’t buy anything for the organisation. When there’s no free place, or the address isn’t one the managers allow, a learner’s invitation becomes a request, and nothing is sent unless a manager approves it. Only managers buy places, and only when they choose to.

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;
• use the site against the law, or in a way that harms it or anyone else’s use of it, such as trying to get round its security or access checks, or reaching it with automated tools;
• send us anything unlawful or offensive, or anything you don’t have the right to share, in feedback or a comment.

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.

8. 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 7. If you’d like to quote or reproduce the model, ask us: we’re usually happy to agree something reasonable.

If the course name changes. We’ve applied to register “AI Stairway” as a trade mark. An application doesn’t guarantee registration: an objection, or someone else’s rights, could mean we have to change the course’s name or branding. If that happens, we’ll tell you what’s changing and when, and keep your links working where we reasonably can. A new name doesn’t change the modules you have, how long you keep access, or your legal rights, and you won’t need to buy anything again. Certificates you’ve already earned remain a record of the training you completed.

9. 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 stays a record that you completed the training after your access ends, so please download a copy while you have access. We don’t promise to offer the online check for ever: before we stop it, we’ll email you so you have time to download your certificates. Your learning records are kept as the privacy notice explains. 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).

10. Buying modules

There are two ways to buy. Paying by card, where the site offers it: you place an order and pay on Stripe’s secure payment page, and the contract starts when the payment goes through. We email you to confirm what you’ve bought and the price, and Stripe emails your receipt and VAT invoice. Paying by invoice: 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 UK VAT is added at the standard rate. A business in the EU whose VAT number we confirm with the EU’s VIES service pays no UK VAT: the reverse charge applies, and the business accounts for any VAT itself. An individual in the EU who pays by card pays the price shown, with their country’s VAT included in it. Where we can’t yet take card payment from your country, you can buy by invoice, and we charge tax as the law requires. 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 by card. Your modules, or your team’s places, unlock as soon as the payment goes through. Team places paid by card are for the whole AI Stairway™; anything else for a team is by invoice. Places added to a team are priced at the team price for its size after they’re added; places already bought keep their price.

Paying by invoice. 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.

11. Access someone else gives you

You may have modules you didn’t buy from us yourself. These terms still apply to how you use them, along with the rules below. Whoever gave you access isn’t acting for us (section 16).

A place from your organisation. Your organisation is the buyer. Prices, invoices, cancelling and refunds are between your organisation and us, not you. Your organisation decides who has its places, and its managers can see your progress and scores on its modules (section 7). If it removes you, or its places end, your access to its modules ends (section 12); anything you have yourself stays yours. Your organisation is responsible for its managers, for the people it invites, and for having the right to give us their names and email addresses.

A gift from us. A gift is free access. It’s for the person or organisation we sent it to, can be redeemed once, by its redeem-by date if it has one, and has no cash value. We may cancel a gift until it’s redeemed. A gift to an organisation gives it the places we said, and the person who redeems it becomes the organisation’s manager.

A partner’s access code. The partner is the buyer: it bought the code from us and sold or gave it to you. What you paid the partner, and anything the partner promised you, is between you and the partner, so ask the partner about a refund: our own 14-day and 30-day refunds are for purchases from us. A code can be redeemed once, by one person, by its redeem-by date if it has one. Once it’s redeemed, the modules are yours as section 12 says, unless the code was obtained dishonestly or is used against these terms, in which case we may cancel it. The partner sees that the code was used and when, but not your name, email or progress.

A place you bought from a partner. If you bought the course from a partner, such as a college or training provider, the partner may set up your account and unlock your modules for you. The partner is the buyer, as for an access code, and your contract for the purchase is with the partner, not us. So the partner’s own terms decide the purchase: its prices and discounts, how and when you pay, any finance or instalments, its invoices and receipts, its customer service, cancelling and refunds, and anything else the partner agreed with you about the sale. Ask the partner about these. Our prices, discount codes and offers, our payment terms, and our own 14-day and 30-day refunds (sections 10, 13 and 14) are for purchases from us, so they don’t apply to what you paid the partner, and your legal rights for that purchase are against the partner. If your organisation bought your place through a partner, the same applies to your organisation.

These terms still apply to your account and to how you use the site and the course: what you may and may not do with it (section 7), certificates (section 9), how long you keep access (section 12) and our responsibilities to you (section 18). Where the partner’s terms and these terms say different things about the purchase, the partner’s terms apply; where they say different things about using the site or the course, these terms apply. You accept these terms yourself the first time you sign in: a partner can’t accept them for you. The partner can see that it set up your account, whether you’ve set your password and started, and how many of your modules you’ve finished, so that it can help you; it can also send you a link to choose a new password. It never sees your scores, answers, notes or anything you have from elsewhere (the privacy notice explains). If you cancel with the partner, or it cancels your purchase, we lock the modules from that sale again; anything else you have stays yours. If you reach the site through an address with the partner’s name or logo on it, it’s still our site, run by us, and these terms apply.

A gift code from someone who recommended the course. It’s free access to one module, for one learner, and works once within 12 months (section 15).

Free access comes as it is. We give it in good faith, but nobody has paid for it, so it comes as it is and as available. We don’t promise that it’s complete, free of errors or suitable for any particular purpose, and our responsibility for it is limited as section 18 says. We may change, suspend or end free access. Unless it’s being misused, we’ll give at least 30 days’ notice by email before ending free access you’ve already redeemed.

12. How long you keep access

Once a module that you, or a partner, paid for is unlocked for you, you keep access for as long as we offer the course, and for at least 12 months from the day it was unlocked. Places bought by an organisation work differently (below). Free access lasts as long as we offer it (section 11). 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.

If a fault with this site stops you using modules that you, your organisation or a partner paid for, we’ll add the time they were unavailable to your 12-month minimum. If you can’t use them for more than 30 days in a row, you can also cancel and have a refund for the access you’ve lost (section 18).

Places bought by an organisation, from us or through a partner, are available for as long as we offer the course, and for at least 12 months from the day the organisation’s places were made available. That period belongs to the places, not to each learner: giving a place to someone later, or moving it to someone else, doesn’t restart it, so a learner given a place some months on has the rest of the organisation’s 12 months, not 12 months of their own. Places an organisation adds later have their own 12 months, from the day they were added. A learner keeps an organisation’s place for as long as they’re part of its 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.

13. 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. If you paid by invoice, this applies even if you’ve already started the modules.

If you paid by card, you asked us, before paying, to open your modules straight away, and acknowledged that your 14-day right to cancel ends once you start a paid module. Until you start one, you can still cancel within the 14 days. Our 30-day refund (section 14) still covers your first paid module after that. We confirmed your request and acknowledgement in the email we sent when you paid.

To cancel, tell us clearly by email or phone (the details are on our contact page), or by post to Scorchsoft Ltd, 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 who bought from us. It doesn’t apply to businesses, which have our 30-day refund instead (section 14), or to access someone else bought for you or gave you (section 11): any right to cancel that is the buyer’s.

14. 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 13, still do). If you paid by card, you can cancel from My orders in your account while the refund applies, and the money goes back to your card straight away. Otherwise, or if you’ve had a refund from the site before, tell us through our contact page; 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, and a person arranges it. The refund is for the buyer, and only for what was paid to us: it doesn’t cover free access, or what you paid a partner (section 11).

15. Recommending the course

Your code. Your account has a personal recommendation code. Someone who uses it gets 10% off their first order, before VAT. It isn’t for your own orders, for anyone who has bought modules before, or for posting on discount or voucher websites. When you recommend the course with your code, tell people you get a reward if they buy (the message we suggest says so).

What you get. When an order made with your code is paid, you can choose one module, either added to your account or as a gift code for someone else. A gift code unlocks one module of the recipient’s choice for one learner, works once and lasts 12 months. A module added this way carries no credit towards a bundle or upgrade price. A team order counts as one recommendation. When 3 orders made with your code have been paid for at least 30 days, we’ll send you a signed copy of The Control Standard. At 5, we’ll arrange a 45-minute one-to-one session with Andrew, by video or phone, at a time that suits you both.

If an order is cancelled or refunded, it no longer counts. If you’ve added its module to your account, we lock it again. If you made a gift code that hasn’t been used, we withdraw it.

The fine print. Rewards have no cash value and can’t be exchanged. A friend’s name and email are never shown to you. We may withdraw a code, or a reward, that’s been gained by misuse, such as recommending yourself through another account. We may change or end the scheme by updating this section, but we’ll honour what you’ve already earned.

You’re recommending it for yourself. Having a code doesn’t make you our employee, agent, partner, affiliate or representative, and you can’t make promises, offers or agreements for us. Describe the course fairly, as we do, and don’t promise results, prices or anything else we don’t offer. Share your code with people you know and through your own channels: don’t send it to people who haven’t asked to hear from you, or advertise it using our name or trade mark. If you recommend the course to your employer or a client, tell them you’ll get a reward and make sure their rules allow it. You’re responsible for what you say, and for following the law and the advertising rules when you say it.

16. People who aren’t us

Partners, people who recommend the course, organisations and their managers, and the companies whose AI tools the course uses are all independent of us. None of them is our agent, employee or representative, and none of them can make promises, give guarantees or agree anything for us, or change these terms. What they tell you about the course, and anything you agree with them, is between you and them, and we’re not responsible for it. Only we can agree something different from these terms, in writing.

Partners resell the course under their own written agreement with us. A partner sets its own prices and terms with you, and is responsible for what it sells you, its own customer service, its refunds and what it does with your details. Section 11 says how a partner’s terms and these terms fit together when you bought from a partner. If a partner stops trading or can no longer support its learners, we may contact you directly so you keep your access and support. That doesn’t make us responsible for the partner’s refunds or anything else it owes you, and doesn’t sign you up to our marketing emails.

Organisations and their managers decide who has their places and how they use what they can see of their learners’ progress. That’s their responsibility, under their own policies and the law, not ours.

17. 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. When a change matters to how you use the course, the site asks you to accept the new version, and we keep a record that you did (section 3). A small change, such as clearer wording or a correction, doesn’t need accepting again: the date at the top says when this page last changed. 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, and if you’d rather not accept it, you can end the contract and we’ll refund you for the access you lose.

18. 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.

Free access (section 2), and anything else on this site we don’t charge for, comes as it is (section 11). We’re not liable to a business for it at all, and to an individual only as this section’s rules for individuals say.

Access someone else paid for. If your organisation or a partner bought your access, our responsibilities for it are to them, under their contract with us and this section’s limits for businesses. To you personally, we’re responsible only as we are for free access, except for the things we never limit.

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. For paid modules, we’ll also add the time they were unavailable to your 12-month minimum (section 12).

19. 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, except by giving away a gift code that’s meant to be given.
• Your feedback. If you send us feedback, comments or ideas, from the feedback page or inside a course, we may use them to improve the course and the site without paying you. We won’t publish your name with them without asking you.
• 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 7.
• Notices. We’ll write to you at the email address on your account. Please contact us by any of the ways on our contact page.
• 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.

20. 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.

21. Questions and complaints

If something isn’t right, please tell us at info@scorchsoft.com or on 0121 724 0447, or see our contact page. 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.