Question 1

What is Cashmere?

Accepted Answer

Cashmere is an infrastructure platform that helps publishers make their content discoverable, licensable, and monetizable inside AI systems. It handles content transformation, rights enforcement, identity, payments, and delivery so publishers can participate in the AI economy without building infrastructure from scratch.

Question 2

Who is Cashmere built for?

Accepted Answer

Cashmere is built for premium content publishers—academic publishers, professional reference providers, news organizations, research platforms, and any organization that owns high-value content and wants to control how AI systems use it.

Question 3

How does Cashmere differ from an AI company or an LLM?

Accepted Answer

Cashmere is not an AI company and does not build language models. It is the infrastructure layer between publishers and AI platforms, making it possible for AI systems to access premium content in a way that is licensed, tracked, and monetized—on the publisher's terms.

Question 4

Is Cashmere a marketplace?

Accepted Answer

Not exactly. Cashmere helps you license your content and connect with AI platforms and developers who want access to it. The focus is on giving publishers the infrastructure to control, deliver, and monetize their content in AI on their own terms.

Question 5

What does onboarding look like?

Accepted Answer

Onboarding starts with connecting your content to Cashmere. Your catalog is ingested—regardless of format—and transformed into Omnipub, the AI-native content format. From there, you configure rights, permissions, and licensing rules. Most publishers are live within weeks, not months.

Question 6

Do we need technical resources to get started?

Accepted Answer

Not necessarily. The Control and Monetize plans are designed to work without dedicated engineering effort. Cashmere handles ingestion, hosting, identity, and delivery. Scale publishers with custom infrastructure needs may involve their engineering teams for deeper integrations.

Question 7

What is Omnipub?

Accepted Answer

Omnipub is Cashmere's AI-native content format. It transforms any document—EPUB, PDF, HTML, XML—into a structured, queryable knowledge graph with embedded rights metadata. Every element is tagged semantically, enabling paragraph-level tracking, granular licensing, and precise AI retrieval.

Question 8

What content formats do you support?

Accepted Answer

Cashmere supports all major publishing formats: XML, HTML, EPUB, PDF, Markdown, and Office documents. Structured formats like XML and EPUB preserve the richest detail. PDFs and scanned documents can be processed through an advanced ingestion add-on for OCR and layout analysis.

Question 9

What is Fiber?

Accepted Answer

Fiber is Cashmere's license-aware AI search gateway. It makes your content discoverable to AI platforms while enforcing your licensing rules on every request. AI agents query Fiber at inference time, and every response respects your terms—no scraping, no unauthorized access.

Question 10

What is Connect?

Accepted Answer

Connect is a turnkey MCP application platform. It handles authentication, licensing, payments, and delivery so you can launch AI-powered products—MCP chat apps, API-based applications, subscription services—without building the underlying infrastructure.

Question 11

What is MCP and why does it matter?

Accepted Answer

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an emerging standard for how AI models access external tools and data sources. It defines how AI agents will retrieve, cite, and interact with content. Cashmere is built around MCP, so your content is natively compatible with AI platforms that adopt the standard.

Question 12

How does inference-time enforcement work?

Accepted Answer

Every time an AI platform queries your content through Cashmere, rights and permissions are checked in real time—not declared once and forgotten, but actively enforced at the moment of retrieval. If a user or platform doesn't have the right license, the content isn't served.

Question 13

Can we control which content is visible to AI?

Accepted Answer

Yes. You define inclusion and exclusion rules at the collection, title, or even section level. You decide what's discoverable, what's gated behind a license, and what stays completely private. These controls are enforced at query time, not just declared.

Question 14

Can we use Cashmere for internal AI only?

Accepted Answer

Absolutely. The Control plan supports internal MCP applications—your editorial team, researchers, or staff can query your content through a private AI interface. Content stays within your organization and is never exposed externally.

Question 15

How are usage rights enforced?

Accepted Answer

Rights are embedded directly into the Omnipub format and enforced by Fiber at inference time. Every query checks permissions before content is returned. This isn't a policy declaration—it's active, real-time enforcement on every request.

Question 16

What happens if an AI platform tries to access content without a license?

Accepted Answer

The request is denied. Cashmere enforces access rules at the infrastructure level. Unlicensed queries receive no content. There is no honor system—enforcement is built into the delivery pipeline.

Question 17

How does authentication work for AI platforms?

Accepted Answer

AI platforms typically require OAuth 2.1 for content access. Most publisher infrastructure wasn't built for this. Cashmere Connect provides the OAuth 2.1 layer that bridges this gap, connecting AI platforms to your existing identity systems.

Question 18

What is Cashmere Identity?

Accepted Answer

Cashmere Identity is a managed identity service—user verification, one-time passwords, and access control—without you building authentication infrastructure. It's included in all plans and works out of the box for publishers who don't have an existing identity provider.

Question 19

What is Cashmere Passport?

Accepted Answer

Passport lets you connect your existing identity provider to Cashmere. Your users sign in with the credentials they already know, and Cashmere translates that into the token-based authentication AI platforms require. Available on the Scale plan.

Question 20

What is Cashmere Sync?

Accepted Answer

Sync bridges your existing subscription system to AI access. If a user already pays for your content, Sync ensures they get AI access based on what they're already entitled to—no separate purchase, no friction. Available on the Scale plan.

Question 21

Can existing subscribers access our content through AI without re-purchasing?

Accepted Answer

Yes—that's exactly what Cashmere Sync enables. It maps existing entitlements to AI access rights, so your current subscribers get a seamless experience across traditional and AI interfaces.

Question 22

How do publishers make money with Cashmere?

Accepted Answer

There are several models: license your content to AI platforms through Fiber and earn on every query; sell pay-per-use or subscription access through Commerce; launch your own branded AI applications; or extend existing subscriptions to include AI access with Sync. Most publishers use a combination.

Question 23

What is Cashmere Commerce?

Accepted Answer

Cashmere Commerce is a built-in payment and subscription system. It handles pay-per-query billing, subscription management, renewals, and enterprise invoicing—so you can sell AI access to your content without building or integrating payment infrastructure.

Question 24

Can we license content to third-party AI products?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Through Fiber and Connect, third-party developers and AI platforms can access your content under the terms you define. Every query is metered, attributed, and billed. You maintain full control over who gets access and at what price.

Question 25

Can we launch our own AI product?

Accepted Answer

Connect provides everything you need to launch MCP-compatible AI applications—chat interfaces with inline citations, API-based tools, or custom experiences. Authentication, payments, licensing, and delivery are all handled for you.

Question 26

What usage data and analytics do we get?

Accepted Answer

All plans include basic usage analytics—query volume, content discovery trends, and access patterns. Monetize and Scale plans add revenue metering, per-platform usage breakdowns, monetization performance dashboards, and detailed revenue reporting.

Question 27

How much does Cashmere cost?

Accepted Answer

Control is free—you can onboard your content, set permissions, and use internal AI tools at no cost. Monetize operates on a revenue share model with a monthly minimum. Scale is custom-priced based on integration depth and enterprise requirements.

Question 28

What is a minimum guarantee?

Accepted Answer

The monthly minimum is a baseline commitment that ensures alignment between Cashmere and the publisher. If your revenue share exceeds the minimum, you simply pay the share. If it doesn't, the minimum applies. It's designed to keep incentives aligned from day one.

Question 29

What percentage is the revenue share?

Accepted Answer

Revenue share terms are discussed during onboarding and depend on factors like content volume, expected usage, and commercial model. Cashmere works with each publisher to find a structure that makes sense for their business.

Question 30

What happens if revenue exceeds the minimum?

Accepted Answer

You pay the revenue share amount—the minimum no longer applies. The minimum is a floor, not a cap. As your AI revenue grows, pricing scales naturally with usage.

Question 31

Can we upgrade or downgrade plans?

Accepted Answer

Yes. You can move between plans as your needs evolve. Start free with Control, upgrade to Monetize when you're ready to earn revenue, and move to Scale when you need deeper integration. There are no penalties for changing plans.

Question 32

What does standard ingestion include vs. the add-on?

Accepted Answer

Standard ingestion—included in all plans—covers structured formats like XML, HTML, EPUB, and clean PDFs. The advanced ingestion add-on covers scanned PDFs, OCR-heavy archives, complex layouts, and bulk backfile transformation. It's usage-based and priced separately.

Question 33

Do you host our content?

Accepted Answer

By default, yes—Cashmere hosts and serves your content through a CDN with built-in enforcement and automatic scaling. Scale publishers can alternatively route delivery through their own servers while Cashmere handles discovery, licensing, and metering.

Question 34

Can we keep content on our own servers?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Scale plans support publisher-routed fulfillment, where Cashmere manages discovery, licensing, and metering, but authorized requests are routed to your infrastructure for delivery. A hybrid approach is also available.

Question 35

What counts as external use?

Accepted Answer

External use means content accessed by users or applications outside your organization—for example, AI platforms querying your content on behalf of their users, or third-party developers building applications with your licensed content.

Question 36

Is there a sandbox or testing environment?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Monetize and Scale plans include access to a sandbox account where you can test integrations, content flows, and application behavior in an isolated environment before going live.

Question 37

What about enterprise requirements like SLAs and compliance?

Accepted Answer

The Scale plan includes guaranteed uptime SLAs, compliance documentation, and dedicated support. If your organization has specific security, data residency, or regulatory requirements, the Scale plan is designed to accommodate them.

FAQ

Getting Started

What is Cashmere?

What is Cashmere?

Who is Cashmere built for?

Who is Cashmere built for?

How does Cashmere differ from an AI company or an LLM?

How does Cashmere differ from an AI company or an LLM?

Is Cashmere a marketplace?

Is Cashmere a marketplace?

What does onboarding look like?

What does onboarding look like?

Do we need technical resources to get started?

Do we need technical resources to get started?

The Platform

What is Omnipub?

What is Omnipub?

What content formats do you support?

What content formats do you support?

What is Fiber?

What is Fiber?

What is Connect?

What is Connect?

What is MCP and why does it matter?

What is MCP and why does it matter?

How does inference-time enforcement work?

How does inference-time enforcement work?

Content Control & Rights

Can we control which content is visible to AI?

Can we control which content is visible to AI?

Can we use Cashmere for internal AI only?

Can we use Cashmere for internal AI only?

How are usage rights enforced?

How are usage rights enforced?

What happens if an AI platform tries to access content without a license?

What happens if an AI platform tries to access content without a license?

Identity & Authentication

How does authentication work for AI platforms?

How does authentication work for AI platforms?

What is Cashmere Identity?

What is Cashmere Identity?

What is Cashmere Passport?

What is Cashmere Passport?

What is Cashmere Sync?

What is Cashmere Sync?

Can existing subscribers access our content through AI without re-purchasing?

Can existing subscribers access our content through AI without re-purchasing?

Monetization

How do publishers make money with Cashmere?

How do publishers make money with Cashmere?

What is Cashmere Commerce?

What is Cashmere Commerce?

Can we license content to third-party AI products?

Can we license content to third-party AI products?

Can we launch our own AI product?

Can we launch our own AI product?

What usage data and analytics do we get?

What usage data and analytics do we get?

Pricing & Plans

How much does Cashmere cost?

How much does Cashmere cost?

What is a minimum guarantee?

What is a minimum guarantee?

What percentage is the revenue share?

What percentage is the revenue share?

What happens if revenue exceeds the minimum?

What happens if revenue exceeds the minimum?

Can we upgrade or downgrade plans?

Can we upgrade or downgrade plans?

What does standard ingestion include vs. the add-on?

What does standard ingestion include vs. the add-on?

Infrastructure & Delivery

Do you host our content?

Do you host our content?

Can we keep content on our own servers?

Can we keep content on our own servers?

What counts as "external use"?

What counts as "external use"?

Is there a sandbox or testing environment?

Is there a sandbox or testing environment?