The platform
One technology, configured for each sector.
What NaDIA reads, how it finds, how it answers and with what safeguards. Beside each function you will find the sectors where it is already in use.
How it works
What it reads
Documents as they are, even the difficult ones: scans, forms filled in by hand, technical drawings.
- 01
Documents of every kind
PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and emails with their attachments.
- DOCX
- XLSX
- PPTX
- MSG
- Engineering
- Legal
- Healthcare
- 02
Technical drawings and spatial data
DWG, DXF, shapefile, KML and INTERLIS: text, dimensions, layers, objects and attributes.
- DWG
- DXF
- SHP
- KML
- ITF
- Engineering
- 03
Databases and ERP systems, read-only
SQL databases and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, read live and without copies.
- SQL
- Business Central
- Engineering
- Healthcare (planned)
What it reads
Difficult documents too
Scans can make up as much as a third of the PDFs. OCR makes almost all of them readable; in the order of 1% of PDFs remain unreadable, and they can still be found by project, folder and name.
Fig. 2Out of 100 PDFs
EngineeringOut of 100 PDFs, when scans make up a third: two thirds with text, the scans made readable by OCR, in the order of 1% unreadable.
Made readable with optical character recognition (OCR).
Forms filled in by hand
Ticked boxes, serial numbers, dates, quantities and notes written in pen.
Mandatory signatures
Presence and completeness of the signatures of technicians, managers and course participants. If a signature is missing, the document is routed automatically.
Bank statements
Read transaction by transaction and queried like the other documents.
What it reads
EngineeringFormats read in engineering firms
LimitsNot covered in the current version: entire mailboxes (.pst), the content of .zip archives and search by the content of photos and drawings.
| Number | Format | What becomes searchable | Viewable in the browser |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | PDFs with text | All the text | Yes |
| 02 | Scanned PDFs | The text recognised by OCR, locally | Yes |
| 03 | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, also .doc, .xls, .ppt, .rtf and .odt | Text, tables, slides and notes | Yes |
| 04 | Emails (.msg and .eml) | Headers, body and attachments with text | Yes, with attachments that open |
| 05 | DWG and DXF | Text, dimensions, layers and blocks | Yes, zoomable drawing |
| 06 | Shapefile, KML and KMZ | Attributes and names | Yes, on the swisstopo map |
| 07 | INTERLIS .itf and .ili | Objects and attributes; models as a tree | Yes, clickable objects |
| 08 | JPG and PNG photos | Name, folder, date taken | Yes, with thumbnails |
| 09 | Point clouds, rasters, videos, archives | Name, folder, date, size | Network path; videos in the viewer |
01PDFs with text
- Searchable
- All the text
- Browser
- Yes
02Scanned PDFs
- Searchable
- The text recognised by OCR, locally
- Browser
- Yes
03Word, Excel, PowerPoint, also .doc, .xls, .ppt, .rtf and .odt
- Searchable
- Text, tables, slides and notes
- Browser
- Yes
04Emails (.msg and .eml)
- Searchable
- Headers, body and attachments with text
- Browser
- Yes, with attachments that open
05DWG and DXF
- Searchable
- Text, dimensions, layers and blocks
- Browser
- Yes, zoomable drawing
06Shapefile, KML and KMZ
- Searchable
- Attributes and names
- Browser
- Yes, on the swisstopo map
07INTERLIS .itf and .ili
- Searchable
- Objects and attributes; models as a tree
- Browser
- Yes, clickable objects
08JPG and PNG photos
- Searchable
- Name, folder, date taken
- Browser
- Yes, with thumbnails
09Point clouds, rasters, videos, archives
- Searchable
- Name, folder, date, size
- Browser
- Network path; videos in the viewer
What it reads
Laws and standards alongside your documents
Public sources updated every night
For law firms, federal and Ticino laws, treaties and rulings. For engineering firms, federal laws from Fedlex and the public list of SIA standards.
Law and your authority’s documents, together
Federal and cantonal law, case law and practice, alongside regulations, council resolutions and land-use plans.
Fig. 4One night
Today
A document saved today
Overnight
The firm’s network share, checked for changes, read-only
Public sources, updated every night
Next morning
Can be found
New documents, with no manual entry
Every evening the system goes through the firm’s network share, read-only: a document saved today can be found tomorrow morning. In clinical engineering, documents from suppliers and shared folders go to the device file by serial number, department and technology.
How it finds
You search by concept, not by file name.
Fig. 5One search, three passes
EngineeringThe whole archive
- 1
Exact words
Codes, parcel numbers and abbreviations stay whole.
- 2
Meaning
“Assessment” and “inspection report” are recognised as related even without a word in common.
- 3
Re-ranking
A second model rereads the top 50 candidates and puts the most relevant first.
50 candidates
The results, with their sources
Typical time for a search across the whole archive: about 1.5 s.
How it finds
As you would talk to a colleague
Search by meaning
You write as you would speak to a colleague. NaDIA also finds the documents that use other words.
Questions in one language, sources in another
A question in Italian finds the Federal Supreme Court ruling written in German.
Filters and codes
In engineering firms by project, chapter, year and format. In hospitals by device, serial number, department, supplier and batch.
Fig. 6A list of results
Results grouped by project
With the project code, the document type, an extract with the words highlighted and relevance on three levels. The list can be downloaded to Excel.
How it answers
Clear text, with numbered sources.
Answers with sources
Plain language, numbered sources in the text, each of which opens with a click.
Rules checked against the official source
It is the official source, with the date of the data, that says whether a rule is in force, not the model’s memory. Cited rules are checked: any that have been superseded or cannot be found are highlighted.
Exact counts
“How many quotes from 2025 are there?” The number comes from the catalogue, not from an estimate by the model.
How it answers
Then, if needed, a draft in Word
Letters on letterhead
Word drafts with the firm’s logo and details, to be reviewed like any other document. Italian today; German and French are planned.
Notes and reports marked as drafts
A Word file marked as a draft to be verified, with the list of sources consulted. Also the photo survey: two photos per page, with date and caption.
Draft replies for your authority
Replies to institutional emails, council questions and requests from citizens, based on your authority’s templates and guidelines. Staff check and approve them before they are sent.
- Languages of the letters for law and fiduciary firms
- Italian, today
- German and French, planned
Fig. 7One page, annotated
- 1
Letterhead, with the firm’s logo and details
- 2
The mark “BOZZA, da verificare”
- 3
The list of sources consulted
How it answers
Conversation, summaries and voice
NaDIA keeps track of follow-up questions. Past conversations can be reopened and continued from where they left off.
Fig. 8In figures
8documents, at most
Summaries and comparisons
Summarises a document or a project and compares up to 8 selected documents.
60seconds, at most
Voice
You dictate the question, up to 60 seconds, even from your phone on a building site.
Languages of question and answer: Italian, German and French for public administration; English as well for law firms. Sector IT DE FR EN Public sector yes yes yes no Legal yes yes yes yes Several languages
Understands and answers in the language of the question: Italian, German or French. For law firms, English as well.
The safeguards.
Five rules that make the answers verifiable.
- Art. 1
The system, not the model, cites the sources.
Beneath each answer, the documents and queries actually used are listed.
- Art. 2
No invented figures.
An answer with figures that are not in the sources is discarded. The same applies to Word drafts.
- Art. 3
“The sources do not cover this” is an accepted answer.
Below a relevance threshold NaDIA says so, instead of improvising. The same applies to a law or a canton that is not in the corpus.
- Art. 4
NaDIA changes nothing.
Its tools are read-only, and the content of documents is treated as data, never as instructions.
- Art. 5
Every change is measured.
Before it goes into production, every change to the search engine runs through the same test bench. If it makes the results worse, it does not go in.
Connecting the data you already have.
ERP systems and databases stay where they are. In engineering firms NaDIA already reads them at the source, read-only.
The ERP, in engineering firms
Engineering- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and SQL databases, read live and read-only. No copy of the ERP data remains in the system.
- Totals are calculated by the system, not the model, and the query that was run appears under the table.
- A dedicated page with 51 tables, up to 5 filters and Excel export of up to 5’000 rows.
- The administrator decides who can query the ERP; employees’ personal data is excluded.
Fig. 9At the source
“Overdue, unpaid customer invoices”
51
tables
5
filters, at most
5’000
rows in Excel, at most
Example question from the product documentation.
The data you already have
Data Bridge, for healthcare
Healthcare (planned)An optional module for healthcare, not yet available.
- Questions in natural language across several databases (SQL, NoSQL, document databases), without replacing the applications and without duplicating the data.
- Preview and validation of the generated query, within existing permissions, with masking of sensitive data and a log of queries.
Fig. 10Data Bridge
PlannedQuestion
In natural language, across several databases
Preview and validation of the query
- Within existing permissions
- Masking of sensitive data
- Log of queries
- SQL
- NoSQL
- Document
Roles, permissions and control
Everyone sees what they are entitled to, and a record remains of what has been done.
Segregation of information
Access by role and department, with documents separated by technology and supplier.
Activity log
Who did what, and when: logins, files opened, changes to users and permissions. Never the content.
Fig. 11The same network share, two people
With access
- The firm’s network share
- Folder A
- Folder B
- Restricted folder
Without access
- The firm’s network share
- Folder A
- Folder B
Roles and permissions
In engineering firms, by user and group down to the individual folder: for anyone without access, a restricted folder does not exist anywhere in the system. In law firms, separate permissions for administrator, professionals and assistants.
Roles and control
Control tools
Archive status
How many files are already searchable, how many are waiting for OCR, when the system next goes through the archive. For managers and administrators.
Fig. 12One month, one person
Spending cap per person
A monthly limit on AI use. At 80% a warning is issued; at 100% NaDIA stops for that person, while search continues.
- 80%
- A warning is issued
- 100%
- NaDIA stops for that person; search continues
Deadlines and notifications
Alerts on the expiry dates of certificates, calibrations, training and contracts.
Audit dashboards
Evidence of compliance, completeness and gaps in the documentation, with reports for Management, Quality and Risk Management.
Review and approval with digital signature
Review workflows with qualified or advanced digital signatures, and versioning.
Roles and control
Integrations
Beside each integration, the sectors where it is documented.
Fig. 13Documented integrations
IdP / SSO
SQL databases
Network folders
Business Central, read-only
Office scanner
Your authority’s information systems
PEC, for Italian facilities
Records registry, for Italian facilities
