ORCA Opti
Safe Zone
How safe is your AI chat, right now?
Safe Zone is a little badge at the top of Opti Assist. Look up. There it is. It tells you, in plain English, how safe what you're doing is on a scale of 1 to 5. What's protecting you, what level you're at, and the one thing that would make it stronger.
It's honest, too. The badge always shows the weakest part of what's happening right now, not the best feature you happen to own. So when it says "Sovereign", that's what it means.
The five levels
Secured. Sovereign. Guarded. Hardened. Fortified.
Each level builds on the one below. The badge picks the highest level your live chat actually qualifies for. The colour gets richer as you climb. It never goes red.
Secured
Level 1 of 5
Gets you here
You're signed in with your work or school Microsoft account, and every action you take is recorded.
What you get
Your identity is sorted and your actions are logged. If you're chatting with an outside AI like ChatGPT or Claude through their own app, that bit might be kept by them for a while.
Sovereign
Level 2 of 5
Gets you here
You're chatting with an ORCA model. Aussie-built, Aussie-hosted, not kept by anyone outside.
What you get
Your chat stays in Australia and inside ORCA. Nothing leaves the room. This is the everyday resting place for most ORCA users.
Guarded
Level 3 of 5
Gets you here
An ORCA chat with ORCA Opti AI Guardian on at its Essential level.
What you get
Everything from Sovereign, plus Opti AI Guardian reading along. It hides personal info, blocks dodgy questions and stops the common AI tricks.
Hardened
Level 4 of 5
Gets you here
An ORCA chat with AI Guardian set to Enhanced.
What you get
More cover. The trickier AI attacks that a normal guard might miss? Caught here.
Fortified
Level 5 of 5
Gets you here
An ORCA chat with AI Guardian set to Maximum.
What you get
Everything we know how to block is being blocked. The strongest setting on the standard scale.
Level 1 is still safe. You're signed in. You're audited. It just means the AI chat itself isn't sovereign yet. Levels 3, 4 and 5 each need an ORCA model plus AI Guardian turned on.
The thinking behind it
What the badge is built to do, and what it refuses to
Safe Zone is, at heart, a trust product. These are the rules it lives by.
We show you the worst, not the best
The badge always reflects the weakest part of what's happening in your live chat, not the best feature you happen to own. A reassuring badge while your data was actually walking out the door would be the opposite of trustworthy.
Where your data lives matters most
Whether your chat stays in Australia, and whether anyone outside ORCA keeps a copy, is the biggest thing. You can't reach the top levels while the chat is leaving for somewhere else.
Extra protection sits on top, not instead
AI Guardian makes an already-sovereign chat even safer. It can't rescue a chat that's already left the safe zone.
Calm, never scary
The badge gets richer in colour as you climb. It never goes red. Being on a lower level isn't a fail. It's just a lower level. We tell you. We don't shout.
In product
A small badge with a big promise.
The badge lives at the top of Opti Assist, right next to your team name. Hover it and you get the live checklist of what's protecting you, and one suggestion for what would push you up a level.
- The level name and what level you're at
- A one-line plain-English promise for that level
- What's actually on right now (sign-in, model, AI Guardian)
- One next step. The single thing that would push you up a level.
How it looks
On hover
Level 2 of 5 · Sovereign
Your chat stays in Australia, inside ORCA.
- Signed in with your work Microsoft account
- Using ORCA-Standard, hosted in Australia
- AI Guardian off
Above and beside the scale
Premium and special-needs options
The five levels above are what you'll see live in the app. These options sit alongside or above them for organisations with bigger needs.
ORCA-Private
Your own dedicated kit in an Australian data centre. Not just your own corner of ours, your own room. For organisations that need their workloads kept physically separate.
ORCA-Classified
Defence-grade infrastructure, built for classified material from PROTECTED through TOP SECRET. Aligned to the ISM and the DISP. Air-gapped, secure-room, and cleared-people-only options if you need them.
Gated / Enclave (reserved)
A spot we've kept on the scale for a future ORCA model that lives outside Australia. No model fills it today, so the level isn't live yet.
Defence-Grade
The strongest setting we offer. AI Guardian at Maximum plus custom defence-sector controls, like customer-managed keys, private networking and Essential Eight Maturity Level 3. Set up and certified per organisation rather than calculated automatically.
ORCA-Private and ORCA-Classified are talk-to-us, not sign-up-now. Tell us what your residency, classification or accreditation needs look like.
Common questions
See your own Safe Zone level
Sign in with your work or school Microsoft account and the badge will tell you, in plain English, exactly how safe your AI chats are right now.
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