Terms of Use

These Terms of Use (“Terms”) are a binding agreement between you and PYKS Pty Ltd (ACN 664 035 438), an Australian proprietary limited company registered at 11 Throsby Court, Endeavour Hills, Victoria 3802, Australia (“ZSearch”, “we”, “us”).

They cover your use of the ZSearch desktop application (macOS and Windows), the ZSearch website at zsearch.ai, and any related services we operate (collectively, the “Service”).

By downloading, installing, or using ZSearch you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not install or use the Service.

You may use ZSearch if all of the following are true:

• You are at least 16 years old (or the minimum digital consent age in your jurisdiction, whichever is higher).
• You are not barred from receiving the Service under Australian, US, EU, or other applicable laws — including export control and sanctions lists.
• If you are using ZSearch on behalf of an organisation, you have authority to bind that organisation to these Terms.

If you create an account, you must provide accurate information and keep your account credentials confidential. You are responsible for activity that occurs under your account.

ZSearch operates in two modes. Which mode you are in determines what you owe us and what we owe you.

3.1 BYOK mode (Bring Your Own Keys)

• You supply your own API keys for the AI providers you want to use (OpenAI, Groq, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Moonshot, DeepSeek, etc.).
• AI calls go directly from your device to the provider. We do not see, log, or route those requests.
• BYOK mode is free for personal use. We grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to install and run ZSearch on devices you own or control, subject to these Terms.
• Your contractual relationship for the underlying AI service is with the provider whose keys you used. Their pricing, terms, and acceptable use policies apply to that traffic.

3.2 Pro mode (managed subscription)

• AI calls are routed through our managed proxy hosted on Microsoft Azure (Australia East). We pay the AI providers; you pay us a subscription.
• Pro is a paid plan. You agree to the price and billing interval shown at checkout, plus any applicable taxes.
• Each active Pro licence may be installed and used on one device at a time. To move to a new device, deactivate the old one from the licence portal first.
• We may rate-limit, throttle, or temporarily suspend access if usage materially exceeds normal individual use, in order to protect availability for other paying users.

Pro subscriptions are billed in advance for the interval you choose (monthly or yearly). Payment is processed by Stripe; we do not store card details ourselves.

• Auto-renewal. Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each interval unless cancelled before the renewal date. You can cancel at any time from the in-app subscription panel or by emailing admin.services@zsearch.ai.
• Trials. If we offer a free trial, it converts to a paid subscription at the end of the trial period unless you cancel. We may limit eligibility to one trial per person to prevent abuse.
• Refunds. Fees are non-refundable except where required by Australian Consumer Law, GDPR, or another consumer-protection statute that applies to you. We may issue refunds at our discretion in cases of billing error or significant service incidents.
• Price changes. We may change prices for future billing intervals on at least 30 days' notice. The new price applies on your next renewal.
• Tax. Prices shown are exclusive of GST, VAT, or sales tax unless stated. If a tax applies to your purchase, we will add it to your invoice.

The documents you index, embeddings ZSearch generates from them, conversation history, notes, and your BYOK API keys are your content. They remain on your device unless you explicitly export them.

• You retain ownership. We claim no ownership, no copyright assignment, and no licence to your content beyond what is strictly necessary to operate the Service for you (for example, sending the relevant chunks to an AI provider when you make a Pro-mode request).
• No model training on your content. We do not use your documents, queries, or AI outputs to train AI models. We pass through to AI providers whose own data terms apply; see the Privacy Policy for the current list.
• Backups are your responsibility. ZSearch stores your knowledge base locally. We strongly recommend a regular backup of your application data directory.

ZSearch surfaces answers generated by third-party AI models. AI output is probabilistic, may be incorrect, incomplete, biased, or out of date, and should not be relied on as professional advice (legal, medical, financial, or otherwise).

• Always verify important answers against the underlying source documents that ZSearch cites.
• Do not use ZSearch as the sole basis for high-stakes decisions affecting health, safety, finances, or legal rights.
• You are responsible for how you use AI output, including any onward distribution or publication of generated content.

You agree not to:

• Reverse-engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract the source code of ZSearch, except to the extent expressly permitted by applicable law.
• Remove or obscure copyright, trademark, or other proprietary notices in the Service.
• Use the Service to violate law, infringe intellectual-property rights, distribute malware, or send unsolicited bulk communications.
• Use the Pro-mode proxy in a way that materially exceeds normal individual use, including but not limited to: running automated agents at high request rates, reselling AI capacity, or sharing a Pro licence across multiple users or devices simultaneously.
• Use the Service to generate content that depicts child sexual abuse material, plans violence against specific people, facilitates terrorism, or that is otherwise prohibited under Australian law.
• Probe, scan, or attempt to breach the security of the Service or related infrastructure other than through our published vulnerability-disclosure channel.
• Use the ZSearch trademarks or marks in a way that suggests we endorse a third-party product or service without our written permission.

We may suspend or terminate access if you breach this section, with or without notice, depending on severity.

ZSearch ships updates regularly. The application checks for updates and may download them in the background. By default, you confirm installation of new versions; you can disable automatic update checks in Settings, at the cost of receiving security and bug fixes more slowly.

We may change, suspend, or discontinue parts of the Service. Where the change materially reduces what you receive on a paid plan, we will give you reasonable notice and a way to cancel and obtain a pro-rata refund for the unused portion of the current billing interval.

ZSearch integrates with third-party AI providers, payment processors, code-signing authorities, and platform stores. We list the current set in section 6 of the Privacy Policy.

Your use of those third-party services is governed by their own terms. We are not responsible for their actions, outages, or policy changes — although we will work in good faith to mitigate disruption to you.

The ZSearch software, brand, logo, documentation, and the design of the application and website are the intellectual property of PYKS Pty Ltd. These Terms grant you a licence to use the Service; they do not grant you rights to copy, modify, distribute, or create derivative works of our software or brand, except as permitted under applicable consumer-protection law.

Feedback you provide (bug reports, feature suggestions) may be used by us to improve the Service without obligation or compensation to you. You retain ownership of any underlying ideas.

You may stop using the Service at any time by uninstalling ZSearch and cancelling your subscription, if any.

We may suspend or terminate your access if:

• You materially breach these Terms (including the acceptable-use rules);
• Your payment fails and is not cured after notice;
• We are legally required to discontinue the Service for you; or
• We discontinue the Service generally, in which case we will give you reasonable notice.

On termination, your right to use the Service ends. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including ownership, disclaimers, liability limits, and governing law) will survive.

Except for warranties that cannot lawfully be excluded under Australian Consumer Law or another consumer-protection statute that applies to you, the Service is provided “as is” and “as available”.

We do not guarantee that the Service will be uninterrupted, free from defects, or that AI output will be accurate, complete, or fit for any particular purpose. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, and quiet enjoyment.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, neither party is liable to the other for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, business, or data, arising out of or in connection with the Service.

Each party's total aggregate liability for direct losses arising out of or in connection with these Terms is limited to the greater of:

• The fees you paid to us under the affected subscription in the 12 months immediately preceding the event giving rise to liability; or
• AUD $100.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded — including liability under the Australian Consumer Law for guarantees that apply to a supply of goods or services to a consumer.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Victoria, Australia. You and we submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Victoria for the resolution of disputes that cannot be resolved informally.

Before starting a formal dispute, we ask that you email admin.services@zsearch.ai with a description of the issue. We will use reasonable efforts to resolve it within 30 days.

If you reside in the EU, UK, or another jurisdiction with mandatory consumer-protection law, this section does not deprive you of the protection of those laws or of access to courts in your country of residence.

We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be announced inside the application and, where reasonable, by email to subscribers. The “Effective date” at the top of this document reflects the most recent version. Continued use of the Service after a material change indicates your acceptance of the updated Terms.