Frequently Asked Questions

HELM Strategy is an always-on strategy capability for leadership teams. It combines current market intelligence, your organisation's strategic context, structured strategy workflows, quality controls and executive-ready outputs in one shared system. Rather than starting each strategic question from a blank prompt or commissioning another one-off project, HELM helps strategy work build on what the organisation already knows and run on a recurring cadence.

ChatGPT and Claude are highly capable general-purpose AI platforms, and we expect them to keep improving. A capable user can already complete meaningful pieces of strategy work with them. HELM solves a different problem. It gives a leadership team a ready-to-run strategy capability: shared strategic memory, continuous monitoring, strategy-specific workflows, QA, recurring operating cadence and executive-ready outputs. You can build many of these components yourself around a frontier model. HELM removes the need to design, integrate, govern and maintain that stack.

Traditional consulting is episodic — each engagement starts from scratch, knowledge leaves with the team, and refresh cycles are expensive. HELM gives your organisation a persistent strategy operating layer: continuous intelligence, Shared Strategic Memory that compounds across projects, structured workflows with review gates, and executive-ready outputs on demand. The comparison is not AI versus consultants — it is a ready-to-run team capability versus episodic external support at a fraction of the cost and delay.

No — it amplifies them. HELM handles the time-intensive groundwork that strategy teams spend much of their time on: gathering data, monitoring competitors, building slide decks, refreshing stale reports. That frees your strategists to focus on judgement calls, stakeholder alignment, and the political context that no tool can replace. Think of it as giving your team an always-on research and analysis capability that works at their pace.

Most teams start with one of these five situations: (1) Board Decision Support — generate a current board briefing pack with talking points and anticipated Q&A, (2) Competitor Response — surface what a competitor just did and get structured response options, (3) Strategy Refresh — upload your existing strategy and get a gap analysis against current market conditions, (4) Corp Dev Shortlisting — build a qualified acquisition target list with strategic fit scores, or (5) Executive Briefing — produce an industry intelligence report for an upcoming leadership meeting. Pick the one closest to what is on your desk this week.

Onboarding takes approximately 30 minutes. You'll set up your account, optionally upload company knowledge documents, and can immediately start using any capability. Most users generate their first deliverable within the first hour.

No technical expertise required. HELM is designed for business leaders, strategists, and executives. Describe your strategic need in plain language, choose from the capability library, or select from proven frameworks. The platform handles the structured analysis behind the scenes.

You receive tangible, board-ready outputs including: (1) Industry Intelligence Reports with scheduled auto-refresh, (2) Competitor Monitoring Dashboards with weekly updates, (3) Market Signals summaries with scheduled refresh and in-app alerts, (4) Board Briefing Packs (executive summary + talking points + Q&A), (5) Tier-1 Strategy Decks — consulting-grade PPTX generated from analyses and deliverables, (6) Decision Tree Analysis with scenario modeling, (7) M&A Target Longlists with strategic fit scores, (8) Strategic Plans via 35+ frameworks (SWOT, Porter's, BCG, etc.), and (9) Custom strategic analysis for unique challenges.

Refresh is configurable per capability and runs on a scheduled cadence — for example Industry Intelligence ~7 days, competitor profiles ~weekly, and market signal sources ~4 hours by default. Scheduled Strategy Workflows can email digests with what changed since last run. Strategic frameworks and custom analysis are generated on-demand. You can manually trigger a refresh anytime or adjust auto-refresh schedules to fit your needs.

Absolutely. While we provide 35+ proven frameworks (SWOT, Porter's Five Forces, BCG Matrix, Ansoff Matrix, Business Model Canvas, and more), you can customize inputs, adjust parameters, and combine multiple frameworks into Strategic Chains. You can also upload your company's proprietary frameworks and methodologies to the knowledge library, and HELM will apply them to your analysis.

Tier-1 Strategy Decks are server-generated PowerPoint presentations built from your HELM analyses and project deliverables. HELM applies consulting-style layouts, native charts, and an automated QA critic before export. Generation is asynchronous (typically minutes, not instant). Decks are available on supported analysis and project surfaces on Core and Enterprise — not every export button. Company owners can apply custom colours and footer text via Company Settings → Export branding.

The Continuous Strategy Loop is a six-workflow decision cycle designed specifically for senior leaders. It guides you through: (1) Diagnose — analyse revenue growth across 5 levers, (2) Prioritise — score and classify growth initiatives, (3) De-risk — surface strategic risks across all your data, (4) Decide — generate structured decision briefs with clear recommendations, (5) Challenge — proactive "What Should I Worry About?" analysis that finds blind spots and contradictions, and (6) Focus — a prioritised weekly executive agenda with decisions due, delegation suggestions, and time investment guidance. Each workflow feeds into the next, and the loop returns to Shared Strategic Memory so the next cycle starts from a stronger fact base.

Yes. Every analysis you run, every document you upload, and every decision you capture builds your Shared Strategic Memory — making all subsequent outputs richer and more relevant to your specific business. Industry analysis insights automatically enrich M&A strategies. Competitor profiles inform risk assessments. Your company knowledge compounds across all workflows. Unlike episodic consulting that starts from scratch each engagement, HELM continuously deepens its understanding of your business.

Yes — one natural way to work with HELM is through Mary, your AI client partner. You can speak with her face-to-face through live video at any time. She accesses the same Shared Strategic Memory and workflows as the rest of the platform — she is an interaction layer, not a separate product. Mary can help you kick off projects through natural dialogue, walk you through deliverables, and coordinate across capabilities.

Yes. Your data is protected with encryption in transit and at rest, company-scoped data isolation, role-based access controls, and a strict policy that your information is never used to train our AI models. Uploaded documents and strategic content remain private to your authorized team members. See our Data Trust page and Privacy Policy for more detail.

No, never. Your data is used exclusively within your workspace. We have strict contractual prohibitions against using client data for model training. Your uploaded documents, strategic plans, and proprietary information remain completely private and are only accessible to your authorized team members.

You can securely upload strategic plans, market research, financial models, and other internal documents to your private knowledge library. These documents are: (1) Encrypted and stored in isolated tenant environments, (2) Only accessible to users you authorize, (3) Automatically incorporated as context in every analysis, and (4) Never used to train our AI models or shared with other clients. The resulting work becomes part of your accumulated strategic context for the next decision.

We take data protection seriously and publish our practices in our Privacy Policy and Data Trust pages. For enterprise security or privacy requirements, contact us at info@helmstrategy.ai — we are happy to discuss your needs directly.

HELM offers two plans: Core (for leadership teams of up to 5 users at US$1,500/month or US$15,000/year) and Enterprise (custom pricing for larger teams and broader deployments). See our pricing page for the full breakdown.

Core includes up to 5 users and gives your team full access across monitoring, strategic projects, M&A tools, executive workflows, and executive-ready outputs. Enterprise is available for larger teams and broader deployments with custom pricing. Visit our pricing page for the full breakdown, or request a demo to see HELM on a live strategic question.

Yes, you can cancel your subscription at any time with no penalties or cancellation fees. You'll retain access through the end of your current billing period. Before canceling, we recommend exporting any deliverables you want to keep, as access to the platform and your data will end when your subscription expires.

Initial onboarding takes approximately 30 minutes and includes: (1) Account setup and team member invitations, (2) Brief platform orientation (via video or live walkthrough), (3) Optional company knowledge upload (you can add more later), (4) Role and permission configuration, and (5) Your first capability demonstration. Most users are generating their first strategic deliverable within 60 minutes of starting onboarding.

All subscriptions include: (1) Interactive product tours built into the platform, (2) Comprehensive documentation and video tutorials, (3) Capability-specific guides and best practices, (4) Framework application examples and templates, and (5) Email support for questions. Enterprise subscribers also receive live onboarding sessions, custom training for your team, and access to a dedicated success contact per your contract.

Yes, all plans include support. Core includes email support on business days. Enterprise includes priority support with optional video calls and a dedicated success contact per your contract. Critical security or access issues receive immediate attention across all plans.

Yes. HELM offers data export capabilities including direct export to PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and PDF. Enterprise customers can discuss API access, webhook support for alerts to Slack or Teams, and custom integrations with our team at info@helmstrategy.ai.