FAQ

Getting started

What is a lens?

Mindola turns your own material (writing, notes, documents, links) into a public AI page that answers questions from that material alone, with citations. That page is called a lens: one shareable link, like https://mindola.ai/me/your-name, where anyone can ask questions in chat or on a live voice call. If your material does not cover a question, the lens says so honestly instead of guessing. Read more in Lenses.

Can I try a lens before building my own?

Yes. Talk to the free demo lens at mindola.ai/me/charles-darwin, no account needed. There are more demo lenses built from public domain figures, such as Marcus Aurelius, Jane Austen, and Nikola Tesla, and they all show how grounded answers with citations feel to a visitor.

Do I need an account to create a lens?

No. An AI assistant connected to Mindola’s MCP server can create a lens for you without any signup. The result is an unclaimed lens: it is live right away at its share URL, and you also get a claim URL. Open the claim URL and sign up for free to make it yours. See Instant lens.

Is Mindola free?

Mindola is free to start, and claiming a lens only requires a free signup. Paid plans exist for people who need more; the current plans and their limits are shown in the app under Settings then Subscription. See Plans and billing.

Is there a free trial?

Yes. Every new account can start a 7-day free trial of a paid plan, once. Starting it collects a card through Stripe, but you are not charged during the trial, and you can cancel any time before it ends from Settings then Subscription.

Knowledge and answers

What can I add to my knowledge?

In the app you can add documents such as PDFs, pasted text and Markdown, links and YouTube videos, audio and video (transcribed), images (their text is read), and Q&A pairs. Through the developer API and MCP tools you can add two item types: text and url. Everything goes through the same ingest pipeline, so your lens can answer from all of it with citations. See Adding knowledge.

How long does ingestion take?

Ingestion runs in the background and usually takes seconds; a source shows Indexing now… and then becomes ready. Developers can poll progress with the get_lens_status MCP tool or GET /api/v1/lenses/:id, which both return counts for ready, pending, and failed items. If something seems stuck, see Troubleshooting.

Can a lens answer questions outside my material?

No, and that is the point. Answers are grounded in your material only, so an out-of-scope question gets an honest refusal instead of a made-up answer. The question can then be handed to you, the real person behind the lens.

How do citations work?

Every answer shows its sources, so visitors can see where the information came from. Under the hood this is knowledge retrieval (RAG): the lens retrieves relevant pieces of your ingested material and answers only from them. Private material never leaks into citations. See Facts and citations.

Sharing your lens

What happens to questions my lens cannot answer?

They land in your Inbox with the visitor attached. That makes the lens work like light lead capture: you see exactly what people wanted to know and who asked, and you can follow up yourself.

Can I charge visitors for access?

Yes, through Stripe Connect. Payments go through your own Stripe account, and pricing is set per lens. It is optional and off by default. See Paid lenses.

What languages does Mindola support?

The app interface supports 10 languages: English, Dutch, German, Spanish, French, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Turkish, and Chinese. App language and chat language are separate settings, so your menus and your AI replies can use different languages. A lens simply follows the visitor: someone who writes to it in French gets answered in French, from the same notes.

What happens if I never claim a lens?

Unclaimed lenses expire after 30 days. Until then the lens works normally at its share URL, and the add_lens_knowledge tool can keep adding material to it using just the lens token. Once you claim it, anonymous connectors can no longer modify it; changes then go through the app or the developer API.

Will an AI assistant put things in my lens I did not approve?

The create tool tells assistants to summarize the proposed profile and get your explicit confirmation before calling it, and to use only information you provided or confirmed in the conversation. You can also set boundaries on the lens: a list of things it should never claim or discuss.

Voice

How do voice calls work?

Every lens page supports real-time voice calls, so visitors can talk to it instead of typing. Calls support barge-in, which means the visitor can interrupt the lens while it is speaking. Voice answers are grounded in the same knowledge as chat answers. See Voice calls.

Can my lens speak in my own voice?

Yes. You can record a voice clone so your lens sounds like you, or pick a stock voice instead.

Is the voice output marked as AI generated?

Yes. Audio from lens voice output carries a machine-readable marking that complies with EU AI Act Article 50(2), so it is detectable as AI generated. This happens automatically; there is nothing to configure. See AI disclosure.

Plans and words

What is the word allowance?

Your word allowance measures what you put into Mindola: a literal word count of the files, links, transcripts, and text you ingest. Chatting does not spend words. It is a lifetime allowance that does not refill on a schedule, and deleting a source refunds the exact words it cost. Your allowance size depends on your plan and is shown in the app; see Word allowance.

What happens when my word allowance runs out?

You can no longer add new knowledge: uploads, files, links, and voice transcription stop, while chat keeps working normally. Your existing facts, conversations, sources, and lenses all stay untouched. Upgrading, or deleting sources you no longer need, lets you add knowledge again.

Developers

Do I need to install anything to connect Mindola to my AI tools?

No. Mindola’s MCP server is remote and hosted; you add one URL to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or any other client that supports remote MCP servers. See Connect overview for setup guides, the developer API for scripting, and the open-source docs and examples at github.com/Mindola-ai/mcp-server.