Frequently asked questions.

Kernia is the first Organisational Intelligence company. We help leadership teams understand how their organisation actually works — across people, structure, culture and performance — and continuously translate that understanding into decisions and actions. Our product, Aion, is the engine that delivers it.

Organisational Intelligence is the capability of an organisation to understand itself using data across people, structure, culture and performance. Think of it as the measurement, analysis and insight layer that lets leadership make better decisions at every level.

Kernia is the company that defines the category. Aion is the product that delivers it. An Intelligent Organization is what a company becomes when that capability is in place.

No. HR tools are operational systems. Engagement platforms measure sentiment once a year. Kernia is a C-suite intelligence engine that runs continuously and ties every recommendation to a financial outcome.

The buyers of Aion are CEOs, CFOs, Chief Transformation Officers and CHROs — not operational HR teams. The outputs are designed for board-level review, not annual survey summaries.

Aion is not a service that visits your organisation. It is an intelligence layer that lives inside it. Continuously updating as the organisation moves, producing decision-ready recommendations with named owners and measurable financial anchors, not a report, not a moment in time, but a living system that gets smarter as your organisation does.

Aion is Kernia’s always-on intelligence engine. It combines organisational data (structure, roles, performance indicators, culture inputs) with a short behavioural diagnostic to produce persona-level fit, segment-level patterns, and decision-ready recommendations.

Aion runs on two input streams:

• Organisational data you already hold — a person key, structure fields (business unit, team), role context (job family, level), location, employment type, and performance indicators.
• Assessment data — responses to Aion’s short behavioural diagnostic, under ten minutes per person.

Both streams link through a stable person key. That key can be a direct identifier, or — under our pseudonymised option — a non-identifying code your organisation retains control of.

Engagement surveys measure what people say in a moment in time, typically once a year.

Aion measures how people actually work using a forced-choice behavioural design scored with normative methods suitable for aggregation across teams and segments. It refreshes continuously, and every output carries a financial anchor, not just a sentiment score.

Both deployment models are supported:

• Cloud-hosted — we host and operate the platform on our cloud infrastructure. Fastest to deploy.
• On-premise — we deploy and manage the platform on your infrastructure, including installation, configuration, integration support and ongoing management.

In both cases, a Data Processing Agreement is executed before deployment begins.

Four to six weeks from kickoff, under a standard cloud-hosted deployment:

• Week 1 — scope and persona configuration.
• Weeks 2–3 — data ingest and behavioural diagnostic.
• Week 4 — baseline outputs published and reviewed.
• Weeks 5–6 — action plan aligned and handed off into the quarterly refresh cycle.

On-premise or complex-integration deployments may extend by one to two weeks, confirmed during scoping.

Aion is not a project that ends. Once baseline outputs are live, the platform runs continuously. Each refresh updates fit scores, drivers and recommendations, with version metadata so every output is traceable to the dataset, persona, and model that produced it.

Pricing depends on headcount in scope, deployment model (cloud-hosted or on-premise), and the persona configuration agreed at scoping. We publish pricing during a qualified conversation rather than as a public list, because deployments vary materially in scope.

For an illustrative estimate of the financial opportunity Aion addresses in your organisation, use our ROI Calculator.

Scoped pilots are possible for qualified enterprise prospects. They are structured as a time-boxed deployment with pre-defined success criteria and a clear path to production if the criteria are met. Pilot structure is agreed during commercial scoping — request a demo to discuss.

You do. All data, content and materials you upload remain your exclusive property. Insights, analyses and recommendations generated specifically for you from your data are your intellectual property — subject to Kernia’s underlying platform IP (the software, algorithms and methodology).

Full terms are in Article 7 of our Services Agreement.

Access to Aion through Dedicated Accounts provisioned for your organisation, full managed deployment (installation, configuration, integration support for on-premise customers), the baseline run, ongoing platform management, and access to Kernia’s delivery team during the term. Specific scope, deliverables and payment schedule are set out in Exhibit 1 of each Services Agreement.

Yes. Aion’s measurement layer uses psychometric standards applied in high-stakes selection across many organisations, a forced-choice design scored with normative methods that reduce social-desirability distortion and support aggregation across teams and segments.

The full methodology, item selection process, scoring model and psychometric evaluation are documented in our internal technical manual, which can be shared with qualified reviewers under NDA.

No. Aion is decision support, not an automated decision-maker. Its outputs must not be used as a fully automated system for employment decisions without accountable human review. Every deployment runs within a governance framework with named business and data owners, human oversight, and a full audit trail.

Aion produces Fitness Scores (0–100%) indicating how closely an individual or segment aligns with a defined persona. For outcome-linked personas, Aion surfaces Prominent Performance Predictors — the drivers most strongly associated with outcomes in your specific context.

These are probabilistic insights intended for interpretation in context, not deterministic predictions. Where predictive claims are made, they are validated in the client’s specific role and outcome environment.

Bias mitigation is built into every layer of the platform:

• Measurement — forced-choice design reduces socially-desirable responding; items are screened for social-desirability signal during assessment construction.
• Analytics — outlier detection and segment-level review flag anomalies before outputs are used for action.
• Governance — bias signals trigger review and, where needed, outputs are constrained or withheld pending investigation.

Aion outputs must not be used as:

• A fully automated system for employment decisions.
• A standalone “truth” about an individual, or a deterministic ranking tool used in isolation.
• A clinical or medical diagnostic tool.
• A tool to infer sensitive attributes or target protected groups.

These boundaries are explicit in every deployment contract.

Yes. Aion is designed to operate within the EU GDPR and equivalent regimes. Processing is structured around the four core principles: purpose limitation, data minimisation, storage limitation, and integrity/confidentiality. Controller/processor roles are defined in the engagement contract and reflected in the Data Processing Agreement executed with each customer.

Yes. Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act 2012 applies to our operations as a Singapore-registered company and is explicitly covered in our Data Processing Agreement alongside GDPR. Transfers between jurisdictions use Standard Contractual Clauses or equivalent safeguards.

It depends on the deployment model:

• Cloud-hosted — data is hosted on our cloud infrastructure in a region agreed at scoping. EU customers are typically hosted in the EEA.
• On-premise — data remains on your infrastructure. Our personnel access it under controlled conditions for deployment and support activities, which is why a DPA is executed even for on-premise deployments.

Yes. A Data Processing Agreement is executed prior to or concurrently with the Services Agreement. No personal data is processed without one in place.

Our standard DPA is GDPR- and PDPA-aligned and includes Annex A (scope of processing), Annex B (technical and organisational measures), and Annex C (current sub-processors). A copy can be shared for review on request — contact legal@kernia.ai.

Yes. Aion supports a pseudonymised linkage workflow: your organisation replaces identifiers with non-identifying codes before any data is transferred. We process only the codes; your organisation retains the identity mapping. This reduces exposure risk and keeps re-identification under your control.

Retention and disposal are defined at engagement level and documented in the DPA. On termination or expiry, personal data is returned or securely destroyed according to the agreed retention window, aligned to the GDPR’s storage-limitation principle. Confidentiality obligations survive termination.

Technical and organisational measures are set out in Annex B of our DPA and include:

• Access control and least-privilege principles.
• Encryption in transit and at rest where appropriate.
• Secure transfer and secure storage practices.
• Audit logging sufficient to support incident review and client audit requests.
• Regular review of security posture and sub-processor controls.

Outcomes depend on sector, deployment scope, and which business challenges Aion is configured against. Published benchmarks include productivity recovery and regretted-attrition reduction, each tied to specific segment-level interventions rather than generic programmes.

Our ROI Calculator uses these benchmarks to produce an indicative range for your own headcount and productivity-gap inputs.

Baseline intelligence is live within four to six weeks of kickoff. Measurable financial impact depends on how quickly interventions are implemented against Aion’s recommendations. Published case studies show break-even within weeks of baseline for the strongest deployments.

Aion is designed for organisations of 150 people and above, where segment-level patterns become statistically meaningful. Deployments range from single business units (500–2,000 people) to full enterprises (10,000+). Below 150, Aion’s segment-level insights lose statistical stability, and we would recommend other approaches.