Sponsored AI help: when your network covers the IUs

What this is

Verinode runs on Intelligence Units (IUs): every time you ask IQ to do real work, from a quick question to saving a full plan, it draws down your IU balance. When your franchise network pushes you a playbook, your franchisor can also commit a separate IU budget just for that playbook, so the AI help you use to work through it does not touch your own balance first. That committed budget, what you have used against it, and what you have left, all show up right on the playbook's detail page.

This is not a general account credit. It is scoped to one playbook, for you specifically, and it only pays for AI work you do while you are on that playbook's own page. Ask IQ something from Feed or Margin instead, and it charges your normal balance like any other turn, even on the very same day.

Where to find it

Network playbooks only show up in your sidebar when your franchisor has actually sent you something. Look for Network Playbooks between Decisions and Action Plans, with a number badge showing how many are still open. If you do not see the entry at all, your network has not pushed you anything that needs attention right now, closed ones do not count toward the badge.

Click it to land on Network playbooks (/network/playbooks). The page reads "Playbooks, directives, and recommendations your franchisor has sent you. Open each to acknowledge, work on, decline, or complete," and splits your list into two groups:

• Active (N), still awaiting your attention.
• Closed (N), anything you have declined or completed.

Each row shows the kind (Playbook, Directive, Recommendation, or Experiment), which franchise group sent it, the title, a two-line preview of the detail text if there is any, a status pill, and how long ago it was pushed ("today," "1 day ago," "3 days ago," out to "2 months ago"). Click any row to open its detail page at /network/playbooks/<planId>, and that detail page is where the sponsorship section lives.

If your network has never pushed you anything, the whole page reads: "Your franchise network hasn't sent you any playbooks yet."

The playbook detail page

At the top, three pills read left to right: the kind (Playbook, Directive, Recommendation, Experiment), your current status (Pushed to you, Acknowledged, In progress, Declined, or Completed), and "From <your franchise group's name>." Below that sits the title as the page headline, then a Detail section with whatever body text your franchisor wrote. If they pushed it with no extra detail, this reads: "Your franchise network sent this [playbook/directive/recommendation/experiment] without additional detail."

Further down, if you have added your own notes (captured when you decline or move through a status), they appear under Your notes, verbatim.

The Sponsorship section

This block only appears when your franchisor has committed a budget for this specific playbook and your membership. If they pushed the playbook without sponsoring it, you will not see a Sponsorship section at all, there is nothing to show, and any AI help you use on that playbook charges your own balance from the first turn.

When it is sponsored, you will see a heading that names the sponsor directly: "Sponsorship, <group name> is covering AI help on this playbook," followed by three numbers, all in IUs:

• Budget, the total IUs your franchisor committed for AI work on this playbook, for you.
• Used, the running total drawn from that budget so far.
• Remaining, budget minus used, floored at zero so it never shows a negative number.

Underneath: "Open the IQ panel from this page to use the sponsored IUs. Your own balance only kicks in once the sponsor cap is reached."

That instruction is literal, not just a suggestion. The sponsorship is wired to the page you are on.

How the sponsor draw actually works

When you click Ask IQ and chat while you are sitting on a specific playbook's detail page, Verinode reads the page you are on and looks up whether that playbook has a sponsorship budget for you. If it does, the cost of that turn is paid out of the sponsor's committed budget first, up to whatever is left of it, and only the remainder (if the turn costs more than what is left) is charged to your own balance. Chat from anywhere else, Feed, Margin, another playbook, and the sponsor lookup resolves to nothing: you are charged normally.

A few things follow from that:

• It is turn by turn, not a lump-sum unlock. Every message you send while on the playbook page checks the remaining sponsor budget again. Some turns cost more than others (a quick question is cheap; asking IQ to pull in extra research or save a full plan costs more), and whichever it is, the sponsor pays first.
• Once the sponsor budget is used up, you are not blocked, you just pay. The Remaining figure hitting zero does not stop you from continuing the conversation. It means your own IU balance takes over from that point, exactly as if the playbook were never sponsored.
• A mixed turn is normal near the cap. If a single turn costs more than what is left in the sponsor budget, Verinode covers what it can from the sponsor and bills you only for the difference, so Used never runs past Budget.
• You never draw down someone else's account by accident. The sponsor's IUs only ever pay for work tied to this one playbook. Everyday chat elsewhere in Verinode always comes out of your own balance.

1. 1Open Network Playbooks in the sidebar (or go straight to /network/playbooks).
2. 2Click into the playbook you want help with.
3. 3Check the Sponsorship section for a Remaining balance above zero.
4. 4Click Ask IQ and chat about that playbook from right there on its detail page, that is what lets the sponsor draw pay first.
5. 5Watch Used climb as you go; once Remaining hits zero, your own IU balance covers anything further, without interrupting the conversation.

Updating your status

Below the plan body sits Update status, with buttons that change depending on where the playbook currently stands:

• Pushed to you → Mark acknowledged, Mark in progress, or Decline.
• Acknowledged → Mark in progress, or Decline.
• In progress → Mark completed, or Decline.
• Completed or Declined are terminal: no buttons show at all once you land there.

Clicking Decline does not submit right away. It opens an inline note field: "Why are you declining? (Optional, your franchisor can see this.)" with Cancel and Confirm decline underneath. Leave it blank if you have nothing to add. The button reads "Submitting…" while it saves, and the page updates in place, no reload needed. If a status update fails for any reason, an error line appears in place of the button row.

Lifecycle

A Lifecycle strip at the bottom shows four dates side by side: Pushed, Acknowledged, Started, and either Declined or Completed depending on how the playbook ended. Any milestone you have not reached yet shows a dash.

Best-practice example

Your franchisor pushes you a playbook on tightening estimate turnaround, with a 500 IU budget committed just for you on that plan. You open it from Network Playbooks, read the detail text, and see Budget 500 IU · Used 0 IU · Remaining 500 IU. You click Ask IQ right there and talk through how the playbook applies to your book of business across a few turns; Used climbs to 420 IU while Remaining drops to 80. You mark the playbook In progress while you put the changes into practice, and a week later, once you have actually changed how you turn estimates around, you come back and mark it Completed. If you had instead needed a fourth heavy turn that cost more than the 80 IU left, Verinode would cover 80 of it from the sponsor and bill only the difference to your own balance, no interruption, no extra click.

Related reading

• The Decision Workspace
• Acting on Decisions
• The Feed

Data sources