How WorkWingman uses AI to make things — and what it costs (plain version)¶
Engineer version: ../technical/ai-generation-strategy.md · Money details: ../business/ai-generation-economics.md
This is the plain-language version of our AI-generation plan, approved by our AI review council on 2026-07-31. It explains what the app creates for users, roughly what that costs us, why there are monthly limits with "buy more" packs, and who protects us legally.
Who's who (the AI teammates mentioned in our docs)¶
| Teammate | AI it runs on | Usual role |
|---|---|---|
| Clahadore Jones-Gaffney | Claude (Claude Code) | planning, orchestration, review |
| Cedric "Cody" Jones-Gaffney | Codex / ChatGPT | implementation, second-opinion review |
| Jenny Jones-Gaffney | Gemini | implementation, research, review |
| Gronktayvius "Gronk" Jones-Gaffney | Grok | adversarial review, red-teaming |
What the app generates¶
- Study diagrams — drawn by our own code, not an AI image model. Costs us nothing per use, and facts never come from an image generator (image AIs make things up).
- Characters and mascots — a cast of friendly characters we generate once and reuse forever. One-time cost of roughly a nice dinner out (~$13).
- Study songs — a short AI song with the study material sung/spoken over it. Costs us about 15 cents a song. On hold until we confirm Google legally stands behind its music generator.
- Calm background sounds (rain, café noise) — real recordings that are free for anyone to use (CC0), because a recording of an actual thunderstorm beats an AI's guess at one.
- Narrated audio — turning notes into spoken audio: about $1–2 per hour of audio. Every audio always comes with captions and a transcript, so it works for everyone.
- "Study Cast" episodes — a two-host podcast-style recap of your material, about 25–45 cents per 10-minute episode. (We build our own; we never call it "NotebookLM" — that's Google's trademark, and we can't resell their tool. On desktop we just link you to your own account.)
- Resumes, cover letters, job-match write-ups, outreach messages — the heart of the product. Pennies each; a typical user costs us $1–4 a month here.
- Practice interviews you can talk to — around $2 per hour of conversation.
- Live job/company research and reading your uploaded documents — small per-use costs that add up, so we track them.
A typical light user costs us about $2.75/month, a moderate user about $14.25, and a very heavy user would cost ~$58 uncapped — which is why limits exist (capped, ~$33).
Why there are monthly limits and "buy more" packs¶
A few very heavy users could cost more than everyone's subscriptions combined. So each feature has a fair monthly limit (WING-299) — and the meter is always visible; we never secretly slow anyone down. If you hit a limit, you can buy a top-up pack for just that feature (WING-300) instead of paying for a bigger plan. If a generation fails, it never counts against your limit.
Who protects us legally, and why it matters¶
- For text (chat, resumes, letters), we use Claude — Anthropic's business terms include legal protection (indemnity) if someone claims the output infringes their rights. This was a deliberate, documented decision on 2026-07-31.
- For images, music, and voices, we only use Google's paid services, because paid Google APIs come with Google's legal protection. The music generator (Lyria) isn't confirmed on that protected list yet — so songs wait.
- AI-made images probably can't be copyrighted, so we protect our characters with trademarks instead, and we block prompts that imitate famous characters or real people.
- Every generated file carries a hidden "made by AI, here's how" label (provenance, WING-298), and a human always approves anything before it's submitted anywhere.
Still being decided¶
Confirming Google's protection for music; picking a replacement for Suno (it has no official way to plug in); filing the character trademarks; and how we handle younger students safely (COPPA).