Connect your own AI key (BYOK)

Available on all plans. Your provider, your quota, your billing, your data isolation.

Found in Settings → AI Key, available on all plans. Only the organization Owner can add, replace, or remove the API key itself. Once a key exists, the Owner or an Admin can choose which model each task category uses (see "Model tier routing" below).

Why BYOK?

• Full cost visibility — Every token your org uses is billed directly to your provider account. No black-box credit consumption.
• Your quota, your rate — Enterprise agreements or volume discounts with your AI provider carry over automatically.
• Data isolation — Prompts, catalog data, and scoping conversations never touch DarkBird's shared API key. They stay in your own provider tenant.

Supported providers

How to connect

1. 1
   Go to Settings → AI Key

   The tab is visible to Owners and Admins on all plans.

2. 2
   Select your provider

   Choose from Google AI, OpenAI, Anthropic, or DeepSeek.

3. 3
   Paste your API key and click Validate & Save

   DarkBird pings your provider's models endpoint to confirm the key is valid before saving. Invalid keys are rejected immediately — nothing is stored unless validation passes.

4. 4
   All AI flows activate immediately

   Every AI operation in your org — scoping interviews, card generation, SOW, catalog clustering, calibration naming, expert persona — now routes through your provider. No restart or re-login required.

Model tier routing

DarkBird groups AI work into three task categories. Each one defaults to a sensible model within your provider, but the Owner or an Admin can change which model handles each category from the Model routing section of the AI Key tab:

Each category also has an optional backup model. If your provider retires the primary model, DarkBird automatically switches to the backup and emails your org's Owner and Admins — no interruption to your team's AI calls. A banner also appears in the app for Owners/Admins when a fallback is active. We recommend setting a backup for every category; DarkBird nudges you until you do.

Removing or switching providers

Go to Settings → AI Key and click Remove Key to revert to DarkBird's shared platform key. To switch providers, select a new one and paste the new key — the old key is removed as soon as the new one validates. Changes take effect immediately.