Let’s be honest, customer trust is everything. A huge part of earning that trust comes down to how you handle their personal data. With regulations like GDPR and CCPA in the mix, having a solid process for deleting user information isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s the law. This can get tricky, especially for teams using AI support tools where customer data finds a new home. That’s where a compliance API is supposed to help.
We’ll get into what the Ada Compliance API is, why these tools exist in the first place, and where they often fall short. We’ll also show you how a more integrated approach, one where security is built-in from the start, can make staying compliant a whole lot simpler.
What is the Ada Compliance API?
So, what exactly is the Ada Compliance API? Put simply, it’s a tool Ada provides to help its customers deal with data privacy rules. It gives developers a way to programmatically delete a person’s data from Ada’s system using their email address or a unique "chatter ID." The whole point is to help businesses follow the "right to be forgotten" rules laid out in laws like GDPR.
According to Ada’s own documentation, the API finds a user’s records and then scrubs all their data, including chat histories and profile info. While that sounds straightforward, it’s a purely reactive tool. A developer has to get a request, write a script or make a manual API call, and then cross their fingers. The deletion can take up to 30 days to fully process.
This brings up a bigger topic for AI support platforms: the need for a Data Compliance API. In general, these are just interfaces that let you manage and delete user data from a third-party app. But relying on a manual, after-the-fact API can be inefficient and a bit risky, especially when customer data is scattered all over the place.
Why an Ada Compliance API is critical for AI support platforms
When you bring an AI agent or chatbot on board, you’re creating another place for customer data to live. Every conversation, user detail, and support ticket gets stored in the AI platform’s systems. If a customer asks you to delete their data, you’re on the hook to remove it from everywhere, not just your main helpdesk. A compliance API is the technical key you need to unlock that data and hit delete.
Meeting legal and regulatory requirements
The biggest reason this matters is, of course, the law. Regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) give people the right to have their personal data wiped.
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GDPR’s "Right to Erasure": Article 17 of GDPR gives people in the EU the right to have their data deleted promptly.
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CCPA’s "Right to Delete": This gives California residents a similar right to have their info erased by businesses.
Getting this wrong can lead to eye-watering fines, up to 4% of a company’s annual global revenue for GDPR slip-ups. An Ada Compliance API or something similar is the absolute minimum you need to meet the technical side of these rules.
Building and maintaining customer trust
Beyond avoiding fines, how you handle data says a lot about your brand. Customers feel more confident when they see you have a clear and efficient way to manage their information. A clunky, slow, or non-existent deletion process can burn through that trust pretty fast. Being able to say "yep, we’ve deleted your data" without hesitation is a big deal.
The challenge of fragmented data
The reality for most support teams is that customer data is never in just one place. It’s spread across your helpdesk (like Zendesk or Freshdesk), your internal wiki (Confluence or Google Docs), and now, your AI platform. Each of these systems is a potential weak link when you get a deletion request. A compliance API plugs one of those holes, but it doesn’t solve the bigger headache of data sprawl.
How the Ada Compliance API works (and its common limitations)
Most data compliance APIs involve a pretty clunky workflow. A developer or admin has to use an API key to send a secure request to the service, pointing it to the user data that needs to be erased.
Here’s what that usually looks like:
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A customer sends a data deletion request. Simple enough.
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The support team gets the request and has to file a ticket for a developer.
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The developer now has to hunt down the user’s specific ID or email.
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Then, they have to either run a script or make a manual API call to the AI platform.
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The platform puts the deletion in a queue, which can take days or even weeks to process.
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Finally, once it’s done, someone has to manually confirm it and get back to the customer.
On paper, this works. In reality, it’s loaded with friction and opportunities for things to go wrong.
Key limitations of a standalone compliance API
A standalone API for data deletion is a patch, not a strategy. It puts the entire burden of compliance on your team for every single request.
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It’s a job for developers: Your support agents can’t just click a button. Every request needs someone with technical know-how to make the API call, pulling them away from other projects.
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It’s manual, which means it’s easy to mess up: The whole process relies on someone manually handling each step. They have to get the request, find the right user ID, run the script, and track it all. Every step is a chance for human error, like typing the wrong email or forgetting to follow up.
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You’re juggling multiple systems: The API only deals with data in one place. You still have to figure out separate processes for your helpdesk, CRM, and any other tools. This fragmented approach makes it a nightmare to audit and prove you’re compliant.
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It doesn’t help you collect less data: An API helps you delete data when you’re asked, but it does nothing to prevent you from collecting or holding onto unnecessary data in the first place. A much better approach is to use systems that are designed for privacy from the get-go.
A better approach: Integrated compliance and security with eesel AI
Instead of bolting on compliance with a manual API, what if your AI platform was built with security and data privacy in mind from the very beginning? That’s the philosophy behind eesel AI. We believe managing customer data shouldn’t be a stressful, manual chore.
Security and privacy by design
eesel AI is built to give you full control over your data from day one, which minimizes risk and simplifies compliance.
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Your data is never used for training general models: Any information processed by eesel AI is used only for your bots. We have a strict policy against using customer data to train any outside models.
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EU data residency: If your business has strict rules about where data can live, our Business and Custom plans offer EU data residency. This ensures your data never leaves the European Union.
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Zero-retention options: For companies needing the highest level of security, our enterprise plans allow you to set up zero-retention policies. With this, eesel AI processes data in real-time without storing it long-term, which dramatically shrinks your compliance footprint.
Unifying knowledge sources securely
The problem with tools like the Ada Compliance API is that they only tackle data in one silo. eesel AI helps solve the root cause by securely connecting to your knowledge without creating new data silos. By integrating with the tools you already use, from your helpdesk to your internal wikis, eesel AI acts as a secure layer on top of your existing data, not another database you have to worry about. This makes managing information from a central place much easier.
This infographic shows how eesel AI's integrated approach to the Ada Compliance API unifies knowledge from multiple sources securely.When you can control what knowledge your AI accesses and how it’s handled from a single platform, you shift from a reactive compliance model to a proactive one. You’re not just scrambling to delete data on request; you’re fundamentally in control of how it’s used and stored in the first place. It’s a more secure, efficient, and reliable way to operate than juggling a patchwork of manual API calls.
Ada Compliance API vs. eesel AI: Pricing comparison
When you’re looking at different solutions, transparent pricing is a big help. Many AI vendors make you book a sales call just to get a peek at their prices, which makes it tough to compare your options. Ada, for instance, doesn’t publicly list pricing for plans that include API access.
In contrast, eesel AI offers clear, predictable pricing with no surprises. All of our core products are included in every plan.
| Plan | Effective /mo (Annual) | AI Interactions/mo | Key Compliance Features Unlocked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Team | $239 | Up to 1,000 | Secure integrations, GDPR/CCPA support. |
| Business | $639 | Up to 3,000 | Everything in Team + EU data residency. |
| Custom | Contact Sales | Unlimited | Everything in Business + Custom data retention / zero-retention, advanced security controls. |
Move from reactive compliance fixes to proactive control
Look, a tool like the Ada Compliance API isn’t a bad thing. It’s a necessary function for handling deletion requests and meeting your legal duties. But relying on it alone creates a manual, inefficient, and risky process that puts all the pressure on your team.
A truly solid data privacy strategy has to be proactive. By choosing an AI platform built with security and privacy at its core, you can make compliance simpler, cut down on manual work, and build more trust with your customers. Instead of just reacting to deletion requests, you get to be in the driver’s seat, controlling how customer data is accessed, used, and stored across all your systems.
Ready to see how a security-first AI platform can change your support operations?
Start your free trial of eesel AI or book a demo to learn more about our integrated approach to compliance.
Frequently asked questions
The Ada Compliance API is a tool provided by Ada that allows businesses to programmatically delete a user’s data from Ada’s system. It helps organizations comply with "right to be forgotten" regulations by removing chat histories and profile information.
It’s critical because AI platforms like Ada store customer data from conversations and interactions. An Ada Compliance API provides the technical means to access and delete this data from the AI system when a customer exercises their right to have their personal information removed, helping meet legal obligations.
Generally, a customer sends a deletion request, which goes to a support team, then to a developer. The developer uses an API key to make a call to the Ada Compliance API, specifying the user data to be erased, which then processes the deletion.
Key limitations include its manual nature, requiring developer involvement for each request, which can lead to human error. It also only addresses data within Ada’s system, leaving businesses to manage compliance across other fragmented data sources manually.
The Ada Compliance API is a purely reactive tool; its function is to delete data after it has been collected and stored. It doesn’t offer features to prevent unnecessary data collection or retention in the first place, which is crucial for proactive data privacy strategies.
An integrated platform, like eesel AI, builds security and privacy into its design from day one, offering proactive control over data. This contrasts with a standalone Ada Compliance API, which acts as an after-the-fact fix for deletion requests within a single system.
