Terms of Service

1. What Zhivo is — please read this first

Every character on Zhivo is an artificial intelligence. It is not a real person, not sentient, and does not have genuine feelings, memory, or awareness outside of what is technically described in our Privacy Policy. It is not a licensed therapist, counselor, doctor, financial advisor, or professional of any kind, and nothing said during a call is medical, legal, financial, or psychological advice, regardless of how it is phrased or how convincing it sounds.

This is a clear, conspicuous, and ongoing disclosure, not a one-time notice: a visible "AI character" label is shown throughout every live call, in addition to this page.

An AI companion product is not the right fit for everyone. If you are in a mental health crisis, dealing with thoughts of self-harm, or otherwise need real support, please contact a real crisis line or professional in your country — in the US, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), or visit findahelpline.comfor options outside the US. If certain language during a call suggests you may be in crisis, Zhivo may show you these resources directly, outside of and separate from the character's own response — see the Privacy Policy for how this works.

2. Who can use Zhivo

You must be 18 or older to create an account. We ask for your date of birth at sign-up and rely on you providing it accurately — we do not currently verify age through any other method, and creating an account with a false birthdate is a violation of these Terms and grounds for termination. Even for adults, an AI companion product may not be suitable for everyone, particularly if you are prone to compulsive use or have a mental health condition that could be worsened by extended, emotionally-engaged use of a product like this — please use your own judgment, and involve a real professional if you are unsure.

If you use Zhivo across multiple calls in a single day, we track your cumulative call time and show a break reminder after roughly three hours of use since midnight UTC — this is a nudge, not a lock-out, and you're free to continue.

3. Your account

You're responsible for keeping your login credentials secure and for anything that happens under your account. Tell us right away if you believe your account has been accessed without your permission.

4. Your content, and creating a character

When you create a character, the photo, name, and persona description you submit are reviewed by an automated content moderation system before the character can be used, and again any time you edit it. We may reject or remove a character (and its uploaded image) that violates this policy, at our discretion.

You keep ownership of what you upload or write — your photo and persona text remain yours. By submitting them, you grant Zhivo a license to store, process, and transmit that content (including to the third-party providers described in our Privacy Policy) solely to operate the character you created and the calls made to it. Uploading a photo of a real, identifiable person's face is, technically, submitting biometric data for processing — see the Privacy Policy's dedicated section on this before you upload one.

Don't upload images of real people without their explicit consent, don't impersonate real individuals, and don't create content involving minors in any sexual or exploitative context — this applies without exception, regardless of how the character is framed or labeled.

5. What Zhivo does not permit

Zhivo does not support sexually explicit (NSFW) content, in any form, on any part of the product. This is not a temporary launch limitation — it is a permanent policy, not subject to a future opt-in, separate mode, or separate product built from Zhivo.

Beyond that, don't use Zhivo to generate, request, or attempt to extract illegal content of any kind; don't attempt to abuse, exploit, probe, or reverse-engineer the billing, moderation, or safety systems; don't use the service to harass, threaten, or impersonate real people; and don't attempt to automate calls or create accounts at a scale or in a manner designed to abuse free trial minutes, referral rewards, or any other promotion.

You can report a character directly from the call screen if it says or does something that violates this policy — reports are reviewed separately from the automated creation-time moderation check.

6. Calls, credits, and billing (refund policy)

Calls are billed in credits, purchased in advance and deducted based on real call time. Payments are processed by Paddle.com Inc., our merchant of record, who handles billing, taxes, invoicing, and chargebacks on your purchase — see Paddle's own Buyer Terms at checkout, which govern the payment itself.

Credits are non-refundable once purchased, except where required by applicable law or approved at Paddle's or our discretion on a case-by-case basis. If you believe you were charged for call time you didn't actually get (for example, a technical failure that disconnected a call), contact us — we investigate these against our own server-side records, not just what the app displayed to you.

7. Third-party services

Zhivo relies on a small number of outside providers to actually work — most notably an AI video/voice generation provider for the live call itself. Full detail on who they are, what they receive, and where they're located is in our Privacy Policy — read it before using the product, not just this page, since it covers something genuinely important: some of your call data is processed outside your own country.

8. Intellectual property

The Zhivo name, product, design, and underlying software are ours. Your uploaded photos and written persona text remain yours, per Section 4. The live video and audio generated during a call is produced by a third-party AI model in response to your own character configuration and conversation — we don't claim ownership over it, but we also don't currently record or let you export it (see the Privacy Policy for exactly what is and isn't stored from a call).

9. Termination

You can stop using Zhivo and ask us to delete your account at any time — see the Privacy Policy for how. We can suspend or terminate an account that violates these Terms, at our discretion, including for the conduct described in Sections 4–5. Unused, already-purchased credits on a terminated account are handled per Section 6 and Paddle's own refund policy, not automatically forfeited or automatically refunded.

10. No warranty

Zhivo is an early-stage product provided "as is" and "as available," without warranty of any kind, express or implied. Calls may disconnect, characters may respond in unexpected, inconsistent, or factually wrong ways (this is a known and expected property of the underlying AI model, not a defect we can fully eliminate), and features may change or be removed without notice.

11. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, Zhivo and its operator won't be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, goodwill, or profits, arising from your use of the service. Our total liability for any claim relating to Zhivo is limited to the amount you actually paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose, or $100, whichever is greater. This limitation doesn't apply where it can't be limited under applicable law (for example, for our own gross negligence or willful misconduct, or where a jurisdiction doesn't permit this kind of limitation at all).

12. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of Moldova, without regard to conflict-of-law principles, without prejudice to any mandatory consumer-protection rights you have under the law of your own country of residence that can't be waived by contract (this matters in particular for EU/UK/California residents, who retain those rights regardless of this section). Where enforceable under your local law, you agree to resolve disputes with us through individual arbitration rather than in court, and to waive participation in a class action — this doesn't apply where local law doesn't permit it, and Zhivo doesn't rely on this clause to avoid its safety commitments described in Section 1.

13. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the product changes. If a change is material, we'll make a reasonable effort to let you know before it takes effect (for example, on sign-in). Continuing to use Zhivo after a change takes effect means you accept it.

14. Contact

Questions about these Terms, or to report a violation, can be sent to dbercaci@gmail.com — a dedicated address (e.g. legal@zhivo.ai) will replace this once Zhivo has its own domain.