Question 1

What is askEarth?

Accepted Answer

askEarth is an AI-powered geospatial intelligence platform, a spin-off from ETH Zürich, EPFL Lausanne and the University of Zurich. Ask complex spatial questions in plain language and get transparent, data-grounded answers. No GIS expertise required.

Question 2

Who is askEarth built for?

Accepted Answer

Two audiences: public-sector teams (municipalities, cantons and national agencies) and private enterprises, mainly renewable energy developers, with growing traction in insurance and consulting.

Question 3

What is GIA?

Accepted Answer

GIA (Geospatial Intelligence Agent) is the conversational AI at the heart of askEarth. It interprets plain-language questions, selects the right geospatial layers, runs multi-step analyses, and returns sourced, explainable answers.

Question 4

How is GIA different from ChatGPT or Claude?

Accepted Answer

GIA reasons natively over coordinates, satellite imagery, layers and your enterprise data. Generic LLMs can describe maps; GIA queries them, joins them, and traces answers back to source. Every output is grounded in real data, not training memory.

Question 5

Does GIA replace our existing geoportal?

Accepted Answer

No. GIA sits on top of your existing geoportal and public datasets. It adds a conversational layer with no data migration.

Question 6

Can non-GIS experts use the platform?

Accepted Answer

Yes, that's the point. Anyone in the organisation can ask spatial questions and get reliable answers, with no GIS training.

Question 7

Who is behind askEarth?

Accepted Answer

askEarth was founded in 2023 as a spin-off from ETH Zürich, EPFL Lausanne and the University of Zurich, with backing from European VC investors and European Space Agency research grants. The team is based in Zurich and growing.

Question 8

What kinds of questions can GIA answer?

Accepted Answer

Examples: "Show me solar panels suitable zones 50 km around this address," "Who owns these parcels?", "What permits have been approved in this zone?", "Filter to substations with spare grid capacity within 5 km," and "Score and rank the top 10 sites."

Question 9

What does the Site Selection solution do for renewable energy teams?

Accepted Answer

It fuses grid capacity, cadastre, ownership contacts, permits, satellite imagery and existing assets into one workflow, returning a ranked shortlist of connectable sites with go/no-go reasoning in minutes instead of weeks.

Question 10

How current is the grid capacity data?

Accepted Answer

Substation-level spare-MW data is refreshed monthly, far more current than industry-standard maps that are often six to twelve months out of date.

Question 11

How does askEarth handle parcel ownership data?

Accepted Answer

Cadastral data is linked to owner contact information and is queryable directly in the chat interface. All data handling is privacy-compliant.

Question 12

How are sites scored and ranked?

Accepted Answer

Each parcel is evaluated across grid proximity and capacity, zoning eligibility, ownership reachability and environmental constraints. Each gets a numeric score and a plain-language verdict (Pursue, Risky or Drop), so bad sites drop out early instead of after weeks of manual research.

Question 13

What is the AI Readiness service?

Accepted Answer

An assessment and advisory offer where askEarth reviews your geospatial data catalogue, identifies gaps, sources missing layers, harmonises naming with OGC standards and authors machine-readable metadata, so AI agents can query your data reliably from day one.

Question 14

Does askEarth modify or migrate our data as part of AI Readiness?

Accepted Answer

No. askEarth analyses what you have, identifies what's missing and delivers a clear roadmap. Your data stays untouched.

Question 15

What government use cases does askEarth support?

Accepted Answer

Four main ones: risk and natural hazard assessment, energy infrastructure suitability analysis, identifying service and planning gaps, and monitoring live traffic disruptions.

Question 16

Where is my data stored?

Accepted Answer

EU by default. You can choose your region, including Switzerland, and sovereign or on-prem deployments are available for regulated customers.

Question 17

Do you train models on my data?

Accepted Answer

No. Customer data is never used to train shared models. Any fine-tuning happens in isolated, customer-controlled environments.

Question 18

Can we deploy in our own cloud?

Accepted Answer

Yes. GIA can be deployed in your VPC or on-prem with the same governance, audit and integration capabilities.

Question 19

Is askEarth enterprise-ready?

Accepted Answer

Yes. GDPR compliance is in place, EU hosting and private deployments are available, and we support SSO, audit logs, role-based access and full data governance.

Question 20

Who has access to our data internally?

Accepted Answer

Access is least-privilege, logged, and limited to named personnel for support cases you authorize. We can sign DPAs as needed.

Question 21

How do you handle vulnerabilities?

Accepted Answer

We run continuous dependency and secret scanning, follow a coordinated disclosure policy, and patch on documented SLAs.

Question 22

Is askEarth production-ready or still a pilot product?

Accepted Answer

It's live and in production, with paid contracts across Swiss, German and Austrian governments, energy companies like Aramco and TotalEnergies and the United Nations, among others.

Question 23

Can we try it before committing?

Question 24

Do you offer a pilot before a full commitment?

Question 25

What does implementation look like?

Question 26

What does it cost?

Question 27

How long does a deployment take?

Accepted Answer

Typical projects are live within 4-6 weeks, including integration of your first data sources.

Question 28

How do we get started?

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