COMMON QUESTIONS.

KERNL is a franchise knowledge and compliance platform. Franchisors upload their operations manuals, training guides, and policy documents once. Franchisees then get a 24/7 AI that answers their questions instantly — sourced directly from those documents.

Under 5 minutes. Upload your operations manual, invite your franchisees, and the AI is live. Document processing takes about 90 seconds per document.

No — it makes it instantly searchable. You upload your existing documents and franchisees get 24/7 AI-powered answers sourced directly from them, with citations to the exact page.

From your dashboard, go to the Team section and enter your franchisee's email address. They'll receive an invitation email with a secure link. When they sign up through that link, they're automatically connected to your organization — no manual setup required.

KERNL supports PDF and Microsoft Word (.docx) files up to 20MB each. These cover the vast majority of franchise operations documentation. Image-only PDFs (scans without selectable text) are not yet supported.

No — KERNL's AI answers are sourced exclusively from the documents you upload. Until you've uploaded at least one document, your franchisees will not have anything to search against. We recommend uploading your full operations manual before inviting your team.

KERNL has two plans: Essentials ($69/location/month, for networks of 5–20 locations) and Growth ($89/location/month, for networks of 21–75 locations). Annual billing is $59 and $75 per location per month respectively — saving 15–16%. No seat limits, no setup fees, everything included. Minimum 5 locations.

No. Only the franchisor pays for KERNL. Your franchisees access the platform for free as part of your subscription.

KERNL uses OpenAI's GPT-4o mini model. Answers are always grounded in your uploaded documents — the AI does not invent information. If a question falls outside what's in your documents, it will say so clearly.

You can upload a new version of any document at any time. The AI will use the updated content from that point forward. If you require franchisees to acknowledge the change, KERNL will prompt them on their next login.

No. Each franchisee's chat history is private. They also only have access to your organization's documents — they cannot see documents from any other franchisor.

Food service, retail, fitness, and service-based franchise networks. Purpose-built for multi-location operators managing 5–75 locations.

Yes. KERNL is built on Supabase with row-level security — your documents and franchisee data are isolated from other organizations at the database level. Documents are stored in private, access-controlled storage. We do not use your content to train AI models.

Only you and the franchisees you invite. Documents are stored in private, access-controlled storage — other organizations on KERNL have zero visibility into your files. KERNL staff do not access your documents.