Otio
Otio is an AI research workspace where PDFs, articles, videos and podcasts are queried together, with every answer cited to its exact page or timestamp, and all major AI models available on every plan including the free one.
What is Otio?
Otio is an AI research workspace built by Frontdoor Labs Ltd, a London company, for people who work through large volumes of source material. Users upload PDFs, articles, web pages, YouTube videos, podcasts, audio and CSV files into project workspaces called Spaces, then question the whole library at once. Every answer is cited back to the exact page or timestamp, and one click opens the passage so it can be checked. The stated principle is that the assistant answers only from uploaded material and says when something is missing rather than inventing an answer. Every tier, including the free one, gives access to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Llama, DeepSeek and Moonshot, plus an Otio Auto router that selects a model. Two models can be compared side by side on the same question. Deep Research runs multi-step enquiries across private sources and the open web, with the reasoning visible at each step. Sources accumulate instead of resetting between sessions, and the publisher claims no cap on library size or source count. Otio Notes turns a source into editable notes exportable as markdown, and spreadsheets can be charted in place. It runs on the web, on Mac, Windows and Linux desktop clients, on iPhone and Android, and as a Chrome extension. Around 200,000 people are claimed as users.
What it does
- Question an entire library of uploaded sources in one go and receive an answer cited to the exact page or timestamp
- Ingest PDFs, web pages, articles, YouTube videos, podcasts, audio, notes and CSV files into a single workspace
- Run multi-step Deep Research across both private sources and the open web, with the reasoning steps shown
- Switch between ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Llama, DeepSeek and Moonshot, or compare two of them side by side
- Turn a PDF or a video into editable notes and export them as markdown
- Generate charts and data analysis from an uploaded spreadsheet
- Send finished output to email, Google Drive or Telegram
When to use Otio / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Otio is the right fit.
When to use Otio
- Academic researchers and PhD students running literature reviews across dozens of papers at once
- Consultants and analysts who must synthesise client documents, transcripts and reports under deadline
- Lawyers and paralegals working through case files, depositions and compliance documents
- Journalists, fact-checkers and policy analysts tracking arguments across many published sources
- Writers and content professionals gathering research from articles, videos and podcasts before drafting
When not to use Otio
- Anyone wanting a general-purpose conversational assistant, since Otio answers from uploaded sources rather than open knowledge
- Developers looking to call the service programmatically, as no public API or developer documentation is published
- Organisations that require a signed data processing agreement, a subprocessor list or hosting guarantees before adopting a tool
- Teams handling regulated or confidential material who need published terms of service and a privacy policy in advance
- Occasional users with a handful of documents, for whom the free tier's ten-file and fifty-megabyte ceiling is the whole product
How to use Otio
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Create a free account at the sign-up page; no payment card is requested
- Open a separate Space for each project so sources and conversations stay apart
- Upload sources from disk, or connect Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or Box
- On the desktop client, pull references directly from Zotero or Mendeley
- Install the Chrome extension or the mobile app to capture sources while browsing or on the move
- Ask a question that spans the whole library rather than one document at a time
- Click any citation to jump to the page or timestamp it came from and verify it
- Highlight a passage in the reader to ask about that specific extract
- Collect the results into Otio Notes, then export as markdown or deliver by email, Google Drive or Telegram
- Manage or cancel a subscription from Settings, then Billing, then Manage plan
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Every AI model is available on every plan, including the free one, with none reserved for the top tier
- Answers are cited to the exact page or timestamp and can be verified in a single click
- No cap on the number of sources or the size of the library
- The library persists across sessions and months instead of resetting like a chat thread
- Broad format support: PDFs, web pages, articles, video, podcasts, audio, notes and spreadsheets
- Available on web, Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone, Android and as a Chrome extension
- Pricing is published openly and the free tier requires no payment card
Cons
- No terms of service, privacy policy or refund policy is actually served, although all three are referenced by the site
- Nothing is published about data hosting, retention, subprocessors or whether uploads are used to train models
- No postal address is published for the company, and a single general email is the only contact route
- No public API or developer documentation, so the tool cannot be integrated programmatically
- The published pricing page and the publisher's own machine-readable pricing file disagree on annual prices and on the quota of every tier
- Structured data on the site advertises a 4.8 rating from 200,000 reviews, although no review system exists there
- The free tier is tightly capped at ten files and fifty megabytes in total
Pricing & Plans
Otio offers a permanent free plan that requires no payment card. The cheapest paid tier is Lite, displayed at USD 7.00 per month on the pricing page. Two higher tiers follow, Go and Pro, and annual billing is advertised as fifty percent cheaper than monthly billing. Team plans exist but their price is not published and must be requested. Prospective buyers should note that the pricing page and the publisher's own machine-readable pricing file state different annual amounts and different usage quotas, and that the currency shown at checkout depends on the buyer's country.
- limited monthly AI usage
- 10 files
- 25MB per file and 50MB in total
- 1 Space
- 2 parallel chats
- basic PDF viewer
- all AI models and Deep Research included
- agentic research
- deep web research and file analysis
- document
- chart and image generation with delivery by email
- Drive or Telegram
- 50 uploads per day
- 250MB
- PDFs up to 500 pages
- three times the usage
- 250 uploads per day
- 500MB
- PDFs up to 1000 pages
- 5 Spaces
- 10 parallel chats
- ten times the usage
- 500 uploads per day
- 1GB
- PDFs up to 2000 pages
- more than 10 parallel chats
- parallel research across several projects
- shared workspaces for groups
- available on request
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Otio handles your data.
GDPR overview
No GDPR information is published. The publisher, Frontdoor Labs Ltd, is stated to be based in London, and both the site footer and the sitemap reference a privacy policy, terms of service and refund policy. As of 12 August 2026 none of those routes serves any content: each returns an empty page. There is consequently no published statement on lawful basis, data subject rights, an EU or UK representative, a data processing agreement, subprocessors, international transfers or retention periods, and no dedicated privacy or legal contact address. The only contact channel published anywhere on the site is a general one. Nothing here should be read as a claim that the service is or is not compliant: the documents that would answer the question are simply not available.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Otio.
- No terms of service or privacy policy is served, so nothing published governs what happens to uploaded documents, who may access them, or whether they are used to train models
- Uploading unpublished research, client files, case documents or patient literature to a service with no published data commitments may itself breach a confidentiality or employment obligation
- Citation to a page proves where a sentence came from, not that the source is sound; the burden of judging quality and context stays with the reader
- A synthesis produced in minutes can create false confidence in material that has not actually been read, and habitual reliance may erode the close-reading skill the work depends on
- Structured data on the site advertises a 4.8 rating from 200,000 reviews where no review system exists, so on-site social proof should not be taken at face value
- Displayed prices and quotas differ between the pricing page and the publisher's own pricing file, and the checkout currency varies by country, so verify the amount before subscribing
- The service depends on third-party model providers; availability, output quality and cost of any given model are outside the publisher's control
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Minimal. Signing up is free and asks for no payment card, and the web application works immediately in a browser with no installation. Optional clients exist for Mac, Windows and Linux, for iPhone and Android, and as a Chrome extension. Sources are added by dragging files in, or by connecting Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or Box; Zotero and Mendeley connect through the desktop client. No configuration, no administration and no technical knowledge are required, and since no API is offered there is nothing to integrate.
Deployment
Apps stores
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind Otio
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Alternatives
Tools that compete with or complement Otio.
Frequently asked questions
What does Otio base its answers on?
Which AI models are available, and on which plans?
Is there a free plan, and what does the cheapest paid tier cost?
What kinds of sources can be uploaded?
Where does Otio run, and is there an API?
Where can the terms of service and privacy policy be read?
Should you pick Otio?
Otio addresses a real and specific problem: the reading backlog that sits between gathering sources and producing work. Its two strongest arguments are verifiable page-level citations and unrestricted access to every AI model from the free tier upward, which is unusual in this category. The breadth of the feature set, the published plan comparison and the machine-readable pricing file all suggest a product that is actively maintained. One reservation is serious. As of 12 August 2026, none of the legal documents the site itself references is actually served: the privacy, terms and refund routes all return an empty page. A tool that ingests unpublished research, client files and case documents therefore carries no published commitment on data ownership, retention or model training. Anyone handling confidential material should obtain those terms in writing before uploading anything sensitive.
- Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
- Opens in a new window.