Web Search
Transparency is central to us at Intric. When you use the Web Search tool, specific processes are in place to retrieve current information from the internet securely and with clear control over what data is shared with external services.
The process from your question to a finished answer occurs through interaction between the Intric platform, the language model selected for the assistant, and our European sub-processor LinkUp, which performs the actual web search.
Step-by-step: How your data is handled
Section titled “Step-by-step: How your data is handled”All transfers between Intric and its sub-processors occur over secure, encrypted connections.
Step 1 — User interacts with Intric in the browser
Section titled “Step 1 — User interacts with Intric in the browser”The user writes a message to an assistant (input in the prompt).
Data sent to Intric’s server:
- The user’s message
- Chat history
- Any attached files
Example: “Summarize the government’s priorities”.
Step 2 — Intric calls the assistant’s selected language model
Section titled “Step 2 — Intric calls the assistant’s selected language model”In this step, relevant content from Intric’s servers is sent to the assistant’s selected language model.
What happens at the language model: The model determines that a tool should be used.
Reasoning (example): “The user wants me to summarize the government’s priorities; I need to find them first.”
Response: The model sends a request to Intric to use the Web Search tool, with a suggested search query.
Step 3 — Intric calls the Web Search tool (LinkUp)
Section titled “Step 3 — Intric calls the Web Search tool (LinkUp)”Intric’s server receives the response from the language model with a request to call the Web Search tool. Intric then makes an API call to the Web Search tool (LinkUp) with the search query the language model has suggested.
Data sent from Intric’s server:
- The search query (the term or query string the model generated)
Step 4 — Web Search tool (LinkUp)
Section titled “Step 4 — Web Search tool (LinkUp)”The search service receives the call.
Data sent to LinkUp:
- The search query (e.g. Government priorities)
Data returned from LinkUp to Intric:
- ID, title, URL (the page the information was retrieved from) and content (text from the page)
Immediately after the result is delivered to Intric, the search sequence is deleted at LinkUp.
Step 5 — Intric forwards to the LLM
Section titled “Step 5 — Intric forwards to the LLM”Intric receives the results from the web search and sends them back to the assistant’s selected language model, together with the context needed for processing according to the prompt’s instructions.
Data sent from Intric’s server to the language model:
- The web search result and the context needed to formulate the response
Step 6 — Response to Intric
Section titled “Step 6 — Response to Intric”The assistant’s selected language model processes all information to create your response.
Data that reaches the language model:
- Everything from the web search tool’s output as well as your original input and relevant conversation context
What happens at the language model: The model creates the summary or compilation you requested.
Data sent from the language model to Intric:
- A summary or compilation according to your instructions.
Step 7 — User sees the response in the browser
Section titled “Step 7 — User sees the response in the browser”You receive the final result (the summary or response) in the assistant’s window in Intric.
Data stored on Intric’s servers:
- The generated response and the history from the user’s interaction with the assistant (according to the assistant’s deletion settings)
- Metadata about who sent the request
Data sharing and privacy
Section titled “Data sharing and privacy”To protect your and your organization’s privacy, we apply the principle of data minimization. This means the sub-processor only gets access to the content absolutely necessary to perform the task — no user identity ever leaves your infrastructure.
LinkUp acts as a sub-processor to perform the web search. LinkUp is a French company with servers in Europe. In our DPA with LinkUp, we have strict zero data retention clauses, meaning all information sent to LinkUp from Intric is immediately deleted once the response is sent back to Intric. The sub-processor is also not permitted to use the information to train AI models.
In the table below, you can see exactly what data is sent to the sub-processor and what does not leave Intric’s servers.
| Sent to LinkUp | Not sent to LinkUp |
|---|---|
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Data retention and deletion
Section titled “Data retention and deletion”Conversation history where Web Search has been used follows the same deletion rules as other assistants.
Administrators can monitor how the service is used via the audit log where enabled.