Platform-Wide AI Controls (Super Admin)

This article covers the AI controls available to TimelyChurch platform staff (Super Admins) -- not individual church administrators. Most readers can skip this page; it is here for cross-reference from the AI Settings article.

The Master Switch

Super Admins can disable AI features for the entire platform -- across every church, regardless of plan -- from a single toggle in the Super Admin panel.

Path: Super Admin Panel → Settings → System Settings → AI Module tab → Global AI Control section → "Enable AI Module" toggle.

This is backed by the ai_module_enabled system setting and acts as a hard kill switch. It overrides:

• Per-church plan access (even churches on AI-included plans lose access)
• The per-feature flags (AI_ADMIN_CHAT_ENABLED, AI_MEMBER_CHAT_ENABLED, AI_CONTENT_GENERATION_ENABLED)

What Happens When AI Is Disabled Platform-Wide

When the master switch is OFF:

• The purple admin chat bubble is hidden on every church's admin pages
• The member chat widget is hidden on every church's portal
• Inline "Generate" buttons are hidden on all content forms
• AI API endpoints return HTTP 503 (Service Unavailable)
• Church admins visiting Settings > AI Settings see the "AI Features Disabled by Administrator" status

The Disabled Message

Super Admins can customize the message churches see when AI is globally disabled. The Disabled Message field appears in the same AI Module tab (it only shows once the "Enable AI Module" toggle is OFF) and is backed by the ai_disabled_message system setting. If left blank, TimelyChurch shows the default: "AI features are currently disabled by the system administrator."

Use this to communicate planned maintenance windows, billing issues with xAI, or any other reason for the outage.

When to Use the Kill Switch

Typical reasons to flip this off:

• xAI provider outage -- avoid surfacing repeated "AI service temporarily unavailable" errors to every church
• Cost spike investigation -- pause all AI traffic while investigating unusual token consumption
• Compliance review -- temporarily halt AI processing during a privacy or security audit
• Emergency rollback -- quickly disable a misbehaving AI feature without a deploy

Re-enable by flipping the toggle back ON. Churches regain access immediately -- no cache flush required.

Related Articles

• AI Settings -- the church-admin view, including the operator section on environment variables
• Troubleshooting AI -- error states a church admin might encounter