Frequently Asked Questions

Welcome to our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section where you can find answers to the most common inquiries and concerns regarding the AskMarcum.ai Platform. If you can’t find the answers you are looking for, [email protected].

Is AskMarcum.ai platform designed just for accounting firms?: No. AskMarcum.ai was designed as a platform suitable for any industry looking to increase productivity and implement next-generation AI (Artificial Intelligence) into their organization. It is ideally suited for any professional working in a business environment that has access to Microsoft Teams.
Will the Marcum name appear anywhere within our organization's use of the platform?: No, this is optional. We understand that the use of AI is extremely personal, so we have built in a customizable branding option. Organizations can rename the platform to mirror their brand, offering a personalized AI experience.
Will Marcum or any of its affiliates have access to any of our organization's data?: No. All data resides within your organization with no access by Marcum or any of its affiliates. Designed as a foundation platform, with the principle that you are the architect, AskMarcum.ai is specifically attached to your unique datasets, ensuring only the use of your data, and maintaining your organization’s data sovereignty.
Will Marcum or any of its affiliates see any of our communications or prompts pushed through the platform?: No. All communications and prompts reside within your Azure tenant and are not visible to Marcum or any of its affiliates. The platform is hosted in your organization’s pre-existing and secured private Azure instance, respecting pre-established data sovereignty and protection practices.
Does Marcum or any of its affiliates have any control over or access to the intellectual property, proprietary or confidential information within our organization?: No. Marcum and its affiliates do not have any visibility, access, or control over any intellectual property, proprietary or confidential information within your organization.
Is the LLM (Large Language Model) technology used in AskMarcum.ai proprietary whereby Marcum and/or its affiliates have trained, fine-tuned, or influenced the model?: No. The strategy around AskMarcum.ai was to build a platform leveraging the Microsoft Azure AI LLM available by activating and utilizing that component within each organization's private Azure tenant. Our platform is architected around a future where an organization will need the flexibility to dynamically attach to or substitute a variety of LLM’s and SLM’s.
Does our organization or our users actively train the AI model as we use it?: No. The model is a pure foundational model provided by Microsoft, without any supplemental influence, fine-tuning, or training by either Marcum, its affiliates or the organizations using it. Users cannot alter the model on a go-forward basis.
Is it safe to put client data into the system?: Every organization must make its own decision regarding risk and willingness to store data in the system. Our strategy was to build the AskMarum.ai platform so it can be deployed directly in an environment you already trust, your Microsoft Azure tenant. AskMarum.ai sits within your Microsoft Teams environment, leveraging the Microsoft Azure AI activated in your Microsoft Azure tenant. In many cases you are already using Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Power BI, Microsoft Azures, etc., so, as you consider this decision, you should partially base it on your current confidence and comfort using Microsoft as your provider and the legal agreements and terms that Microsoft provides to protect your organization and your data.
What does Marcum and its affiliates have access to?: Marcum and its affiliates only need visibility to the licensing usage within your organization. There is no direct access to an organization's environment. To get licensing information, the organization using AskMarum.ai will need to allow for a secured publishing mechanism that periodically reports usage of the platform.
How will Azure AI be integrated with our existing Microsoft environment?: Microsoft Azure AI will be activated within your existing Microsoft Azure tenant allowing the AskMarum.ai platform within Microsoft Teams to leverage it as its LLM.
How does AskMarcum.ai compare with Microsoft Copilot in terms of data access and security?: The strategy of AskMarum.ai is a bit more conservative than Microsoft Copilot. AskMarcum.ai starts with a most restrictive model and requires you to explicitly define the data segments and SharePoint sites you would like it to access to supplement its base of information to draw from.
What are the cost implications of using AskMarcum.ai compared to other products or platforms?: AskMarcum.ai follows a subscription model for the base platform, at a price point we feel is a more reasonable entry point for using generative AI. Beyond the subscription fee for AskMarcum.ai, the balance of the costs are paid directly to Microsoft on a monthly basis under the terms of your Azure agreement. The costs with Microsoft are based on the consumption of the Azure AI and related services primarily tied to the consumption by your employees. This model provides the flexibility for an organization to slowly raise AI awareness in their organization and comfortably progress through the various stages of their AI journey without making a tremendous upfront investment.
How does a hybrid transactional fee structure really benefit organizations adopting AI?: The hybrid transactional fee structure allows organizations to control costs and align them with their actual use of AI. In our own cases studies and experience, just because an AI platform is available it does not correlate to usage and adoption. For most organizations, change management and the adoption of any new platform is challenging. With generative AI, what we have seen is, that the lack of education, lack of case studies, and the overall fear around the technology, the adoption of generative AI is requiring a longer on ramp. With a more nominal entry point on fees, AskMarcum.ai allows organizations to throttle their licensing commitment and scale up as the adoption of AI grows. With the hybrid transactional fee structure, it allows an organization to avoid the overhead of paying for universal access and tie their costs much more closely to consumption.
Does Microsoft Copilot in Teams have AI capabilities, and how does it differ from AskMarcum.ai?: Yes, it does. Microsoft Copilot in Teams among other features has transcription capability, recaps conversations, organizes discussion points, summarizes key actions, creates meeting agendas based on chat history, identifies follow-up actions, and schedules check-ins. AskMarcum.ai, is specifically using Microsoft Teams as the interface and entry point for generating prompts and interacting with the Microsoft Azure AI LLM.
What makes AskMarcum.ai different from other AI platforms?: We offer a custom platform that lives within your Microsoft Azure tenant and not tied to any other third-party cloud environments. It can be personalized to your organization. It allows for complete control of the interface with a heavy focus on prompt engineering. With AskMarcum.ai, you can gain transparency on the usage of the platform and control data being used to drive its access to knowledge. It is positioned for tremendous flexibility, allowing it in the future to leverage other LLM’s, SLM’s and other platform providers beyond those of the single AI alternative platforms you would buy.

The main difference is that AskMarcum.ai is allowing for the complete control of the interface. Having ownership of the interface provides the ability to really focus on prompt engineering which is one of the most critical components of maximizing the effectiveness of generative AI. It allows for the dynamic or explicit control of the “Temperature” variable which dictates the creativity in the responses. Additionally, it allows you to explicitly define only the data segments and SharePoint sites with the pre-established and approved governance in place to maximize the effectiveness of your Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). The other benefit as other LLM’s or SLM’s become available AskMarcum.ai will inevitably be able to allow for the redirection of the prompt to the most appropriate model to achieve the best results.
How does prompt engineering work with AskMarum.ai, what control does an organization have on the prompt?: At the election of the organization, there is the capability of providing prompt transparency. With this access, your organization can start either directly or through an engagement with our experts, analyzing prompts and use cases, and start thinking about ways to dynamically enhance prompts for your organization and your industry. Through a collaboration with the AskMarcum.ai advisors, there will be ways to optimize and configure AskMarum.ai for dynamic prompt enhancement. This can be realized either through on-going enhancements to the platform from the AskMarcum.ai team, using variable information from other third-party systems within your organization or overall guidance from your organization.
How can individuals or organizations find the best use cases for AI?: The best use cases for AI can be determined by crowdsourcing ideas from within your organization. Everyone's role can benefit from AI. Each employee is their own expert as it relates to the specific jobs and tasks they perform and as a result they are best positioned to identify how AI can assist them. To help with this process, the AskMarum.ai team has an advisory service that can assist in uncovering and codifying use cases for your organization.
Is there a platform to collect and analyze how AI is being used?: As part of the AskMarcum.ai platform, you will also receive a dashboard that will provide you with complete transparency and visibility of how the platform is being consumed, including each prompt and its use within various departments.
We may not want to keep all the logs on usage, can we delete this data?: By default, the log data is kept for 30 days, but this setting is configurable. Also, AskMarcum.ai has a feature allowing the organization to delete information as needed.
How do you surface valuable case studies from AI usage data?: With the transparency feature turned on, you will be capturing analytics and monitoring AI usage. With this information and the right expertise, you or an AskMarum.ai advisor can analyze and identify useful case studies and share them across the organization to enhance AI practices.
Should we have someone on staff to monitor AI usage, or can your company assist with this?: Clients can either use our monitoring tools themselves to surface up opportunities or partner with an expert from the AskMarcum.ai team to help you through your AI journey including the curation, analysis, and creation of use cases specific to your organization. If the AskMarum.ai team is engaged for this service, it would be under strict confidentially.
Beyond using AskMarcum.ai what kind of investments will I need to keep up with AI advancements?: With an investment in AskMarum.ai, you will be the beneficiary of any enhancements made by the platform team. If you have additional AI ambitions, you can also leverage other aspects of our AI Accelerator to help propel you forward. For optimizing the impact of AI in your organization you must also invest heavily in the creation of a culture of AI awareness and acceptance.
At this point, I have not really invested in AI, will AskMarcum.ai close that gap for me?: Yes. Consider AskMarcum.ai and our AI Accelerator program synonymous with catching lightning in a bottle. We have packaged up the last 18 months of investment and are making it available to you.
Is AskMarcum.ai a cloud or SaaS (Software as a Service) based solution?: No. This is not an independent cloud solution or a traditional SaaS solution; it is an addon solution to your existing Microsoft Teams environment and leverages your existing Azure tenant, ensuring that it respects the controls and governance that are already pre-established.
Is AskMarcum.ai available on mobile?: Yes. Since the strategic decision was to integrate this into Microsoft Teams, to the extent you are extending and securing Microsoft Teams to your mobile devices (with tools like Microsoft Intune), it will then be active and fully available on a mobile device through the Microsoft Teams mobile application.
Can it integrate with other cloud services besides Azure?: Yes. One of the benefits to controlling the interface and having it agnostic is the ability to attach to alternate providers. It can be enabled for Google Cloud if you're a Google shop, and it has AWS compatibility as well, giving you the flexibility to choose your preferred cloud service.
Can I customize on top of AskMarcum.ai or roll out new features on my own?: No. Direct customization is not available. However, there is a robust roadmap that will introduce progressive features and functionality on a rolling basis. We actively listen to feedback and suggestions and will proactively try to incorporate the ideas that can have the largest positive impact on our users ahead of other items in the pipeline. On of the benefits of the early adopter program will be to allow those subscribers a larger voice on providing some of the immediate direction for the platform.
What is the commitment term for using this platform?: All subscriptions come with a one-year term and a minimum monthly license commitment, with the flexibility to increase your license count along the way.