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JESS works best when you know what to ask and what to expect.
Take a few minutes to learn how JESS can help you plan safer assignments, what it can and can't do, and how to get better guidance.

What is JESS?

JESS is an AI-powered safety planning tool that helps journalists and editors identify risks and prepare for assignments, drawing on trusted resources from leading press freedom NGOs.

Who is it for?

Anyone involved in newsgathering: editors, news managers, freelancers, and local journalists, including visual journalists, filmmakers and producers. Whether you have a safety desk or not, JESS provides expert guidance for your assignments.

"JESS makes the kind of safety guidance that used to be reserved for a handful of elite news organizations available to any journalist, anywhere."

— Joel Simon, Founder of the Journalism Protection Initiative

What JESS can do

  • Build personalized safety plans for upcoming assignments Beta
  • Answer specific safety questions with sourced expert guidance
  • Identify potential threats and risks for any assignment
  • Help you learn mitigation and crisis response measures
  • Strengthen your safety protocols and procedures
  • Support duty of care conversations

What JESS cannot do

JESS is not a substitute for safety training, insurance, or safety protocols and procedures, and should never be used as a replacement for professional judgement.

JESS cannot:

  • Provide emergency or real-time support during a crisis
  • Offer live guidance or instructions for journalists in the field
  • Customize advice based on your individual or organizational profile

Duty of care

JESS promotes a culture of safety, but responsibility for duty of care lies with you and your organization.

See the ACOS Freelance Journalist Safety Principles and The Fundamentals of Safe Commissioning course for guidance.

How JESS works

01

Ask

Describe your assignment or your safety concerns. The more context you provide, the better the guidance.

02

Explore

Get safety recommendations drawn from expert resources. Ask follow-ups and dig deeper.

03

Review

JESS guidance is general, so consider how it fits your situation, context or circumstances, and use the Source Knowledge option to help you verify the guidance given.

04

Apply

Use the guidance to inform your planning, team conversations, and safety documentation. Revisit when plans or contexts change.

Example ways to use JESS

Quick questions you can ask

"I'm planning to cover a protest next week. What safety considerations should I think about, and how should I prepare?"

"We're debating whether to publish leaked documents that could embarrass the mayor but might harm ongoing investigations. What measures should we take to protect the source's identity and maintain strong digital security?"

Assignments you can build a safety plan for

"I'm covering a contentious election where protests could turn violent. Help me plan."

"I'm heading to a community hit by a hurricane to report on the aftermath. What should my plan include?"

Frequently asked questions

Create an account on the JESS platform. New accounts are reviewed by our team before access is granted, so after signing up you'll see a message that an admin is reviewing your request. Once you're approved, you can log in and start using JESS. Create an account →
JESS combines a large language model with safety resources curated by experienced advisors. When you ask a question, it draws on a vetted knowledge base to provide sourced answers. When you choose to build a safety plan, it walks you through a guided assessment and matches your assignment to the most relevant expert guidance to produce a personalized plan.
Asking a question gives you a quick, sourced answer drawn from JESS's expert sources — useful when you need specific guidance on something. Building a safety plan walks you through a short assessment of your upcoming assignment and produces a personalized plan you can save, edit, share with colleagues. Both are grounded in the same vetted safety guidance.
Yes — you can connect JESS to Claude or ChatGPT so it works alongside the AI tools you already use. You'll just need an account with whichever you use. The free JESS web app remains the trusted starting point. Connecting JESS to your AI tool is a beta feature and still being refined. See how to connect →
Like any AI tool, JESS can hallucinate. We have built in the Source Knowledge option to help you verify the guidance provided. JESS does not, and should never, replace your professional judgment and your own sources of safety information.
JESS is purpose-built for journalist safety, drawing on curated resources from leading news organizations and press freedom NGOs. It includes source verification and is designed specifically for safety planning, not general conversation.
No. JESS is not designed for emergency or real-time support during a crisis. For immediate safety decisions, rely on your newsroom protocols, editors, or trusted safety advisors. JESS is for planning before assignments, not emergency decision-making.
Currently, JESS is available in English. Future versions will expand to other languages.
All you need is a computer or laptop, stable internet access, and a safe browser.
JESS works best on a computer or laptop browser. There is no mobile app at this time.
No. Your conversations with JESS are never shared, and nothing is used for model training — no one on the JESS team can view your conversations. By default, your chat history is not saved: conversations are stored only in your browser and are automatically cleared within 24 hours, so nothing is kept on our servers. If you'd like to keep your chats for reference later, you can opt in to save your chat history. When enabled, your conversations are stored on our servers so you can view them again later — but they remain private to you and are still not visible to the JESS team. You can delete a saved chat at any time, and it will be removed from our servers.
JESS is privacy-first by default. Beyond the name and email used to set up your account, no data is collected — no one, including the JESS team, can view your conversations, and nothing you share is used for model training. Conversations are processed on data servers operated by ACOS Alliance. By default, your chat history is not saved: conversations are stored only in your browser and are automatically cleared within 24 hours. If you'd like to save your chats and view your history for reference later, you can opt in — that's the only way conversations are stored on our servers. You can delete a saved chat at any time, and it will be removed from our servers.

Ready to start safety planning?

Create an account Or log in if you already have access →

New accounts are reviewed by our team before access is granted.