Overview
Smart Suggestions helps Safety teams spot reports that describe the same event or hazard, even if they're worded differently. It allows safety managers to identify potential duplicates of a submitted safety report, using AI to compare reports by meaning rather than relying on exact text matches - so duplicates get caught even when wording, structure, and level of detail all differ, improving accuracy and cutting down on manual review time.
Before you start:
This feature is optional and disabled by default. To use it, an organisation admin must:
- Opt in to the feature for your organisation
- Agree to the AI data processing terms, as part of enabling AI-powered functionality
Once enabled, the system begins analysing your reports to detect potential duplicates. There's no per-user setup - it applies organisation-wide once switched on.
If you're interested in activating this functionality, please contact TrustFlight Support.
Access Rights
To view and action Smart Suggestions the 'Manage Cases' permission is required in the Access Rights for the role or individual.
Reporters/submitters do not require any specific access - submission works exactly as it does today, regardless of whether the feature is enabled.
How It Works
The feature combines two background AI processes with one review-side result: the Smart Suggestions banner shown to the Safety team.
Step 1: Report Processing & Analysis (background)
Once enabled:
- Existing reports are seeded, but only if they are currently open. Closed cases are not seeded and are not brought into the duplicate-detection index.
- All new reports are processed automatically going forward, as soon as they're submitted.
For each report, the system creates a vectorised, AI-readable representation that captures:
- Form field values
- Field meanings (labels/titles)
- Overall context and intent
This lets the system understand what a report means, not just what words it uses. No user action is required - this runs entirely in the background.
Step 2: AI Comparison (background)
When a new report is submitted:
- It is processed and compared against previously processed reports
- Comparison is scoped to open cases only - a new report will not be matched against a case that has already been closed
- The system uses semantic matching to find similarities in meaning, not just shared keywords
- Reports describing the same event or hazard in different words can still be correctly matched
- The reporter submits their report as normal - nothing in their submission flow changes, and they are not shown any duplicate alert.
Step 3: Duplicate Detection Result (Safety team facing)
If a potential duplicate is found, a Smart Suggestions banner appears at the top of the report record (not at submission), showing how many suggestions are ready - e.g. "You have 1 suggestion ready to review and apply" - with a Review Suggestions button.
- Review Suggestions - clicking this opens a panel that slides in from the right-hand side of the screen. This panel shows:
- The title of the matched/suggested report(s)
- An "About AI-powered suggestions" note, which sets expectations for the reviewer:
- These are suggestions only - nothing is merged until someone reviews and confirms it
- Opening the comparison shows the suggested duplicate side-by-side for review
- The reviewer's decision (merge or reject) helps improve the model's future suggestions
2. View button - clicking View on the suggested report opens the side-by-side comparison, showing both full reports next to each other.
3. From the comparison screen, the reviewer can Merge the two reports, or Reject the suggestion if it isn't a genuine duplicate
How the main report is chosen: the report that was originally open when the reviewer worked through the suggestion becomes the primary/main record. Any matched report(s) the reviewer merges are folded into that primary report, rather than the other way round.
Things to Know
- Matches are suggestions, not automatic merges. A person must open the comparison and choose to merge or reject – this never happens automatically.
- Merges cannot be undone. Once two cases are merged, this cannot be reversed within the system - if a merge was made in error, contact TrustFlight Support.
- The submitter's experience is unchanged. Reports are submitted exactly as before - the duplicate flag appears only in the Safety team's review process.
- Seeding and comparison are scoped to open cases. Closed cases are not seeded when the feature is enabled, and new reports are only checked against other open cases.
- The originally-open report becomes the main record. When a suggestion is merged, the matched report is folded into whichever report the reviewer had open.
- Merges are traceable. A merged report keeps a record of the case numbers merged into it, rather than losing the source reports.
Match quality improves with data and use. Each merge or reject decision is used to help refine future suggestions.
Key Benefits
- Detects duplicates even when wording differs
- Uses full report context, not just keyword overlap
- Reduces manual cross-checking
- Improves overall data quality and reporting consistency
- No change to the reporting experience for submitters
- Keeps a human decision-maker in control: AI surfaces the connection, a person confirms the merge
Summary
Once enabled, AI Smart Suggestions – Same Event or Hazard Detection:
- Allows safety managers to identify potential duplicates of a submitted safety report
- Seeds and continuously processes open reports in the background (closed cases are excluded)
- Compares new submissions against existing open cases using semantic matching
- Flags potential duplicates for the Safety team to review - the submitter's experience is unaffected
- Lets a reviewer merge or reject each suggestion, with merged cases kept as a traceable record
Helping Safety teams:
- Avoid duplicate investigations
- Maintain cleaner, more reliable data
- Work more efficiently, with AI surfacing connections a manual search would likely miss - while the final decision always stays with the person