Frequently Asked Questions

Find answers to common questions about Apogee.

About Apogee

What is Apogee?

Apogee is an AI-native legislative intelligence platform. It connects real-time data from Congress.gov, the Federal Register, FEC filings, lobbying disclosures, CRS reports, and 40+ news outlets to the AI tools you already use. Instead of logging into a separate dashboard, you ask questions in natural language and get sourced, synthesized answers.

How is Apogee different from Quorum, FiscalNote, or Bloomberg Government?

Traditional platforms organize data into dashboards that you search and filter manually. Apogee works differently in three ways: (1) it's conversational, so you ask questions in plain language instead of constructing boolean queries; (2) it's built on a knowledge graph with 200K+ entities, enabling analytics like influence ranking, voting bloc detection, and coalition prediction that flat databases can't match; and (3) it connects to your existing AI assistant via MCP, so there's no new software to learn. See our detailed comparisons for more.

What can I actually do with Apogee?

Apogee has 60+ intelligence capabilities across 9 categories. Examples of what users ask:

• "What bills were introduced about AI regulation this week and who sponsored them?"
• "Which PACs are funding members on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and how does that correlate with their votes?"
• "Track the lobbying activity around the CHIPS Act - who's spending, how much, and which firms are they using?"
• "Find hearing testimony about drug pricing from the last 6 months and summarize the key positions"
• "Who are the most likely cosponsors for this climate bill based on voting patterns and committee membership?"

See Intelligence Capabilities for the full list.

What is MCP?

The Model Context Protocol is an open standard that allows AI assistants to securely connect to external data sources. Apogee publishes its intelligence capabilities as an MCP endpoint that any compatible AI assistant can use. Learn more at modelcontextprotocol.io.

Which AI assistants work with Apogee?

Any MCP-compatible AI assistant, including:

• Claude Desktop and Claude.ai (native MCP support)
• ChatGPT (via MCP plugins)
• Cursor, Windsurf, and other MCP-enabled developer tools
• Custom applications using MCP SDKs

You can also skip MCP entirely and use the Apogee chat client with everything pre-configured.

Intelligence Capabilities

How does the AI research agent work?

When you ask a question, an AI research agent analyzes your query, selects the right capabilities (bill search, graph analytics, news monitoring, etc.), queries across data sources, and returns synthesized intelligence with citations. You don't need to know which tool to use - the agent figures that out.

What is the knowledge graph?

The knowledge graph is a network of 200K+ entities (members of Congress, bills, committees, PACs, lobbying firms, news articles, organizations) connected by millions of relationships. It powers Apogee's most distinctive capabilities: influence ranking, voting bloc detection, alliance prediction, coalition building, PAC network clustering, revolving door tracking, and funding anomaly detection. These analytics aren't possible with traditional flat databases.

Can Apogee track lobbying activity?

Yes. Apogee ingests lobbying disclosures from the Senate Office of Public Records (SOPR) and connects them to the knowledge graph. You can track which organizations are lobbying on specific bills, how much they're spending, which firms they've hired, and which members they're targeting. The Money & Influence Intelligence capabilities also detect funding anomalies and map PAC-to-member contribution networks.

Can I track a bill's full lifecycle?

Yes. Apogee tracks bills from introduction through enactment, including sponsor/cosponsor data, committee referrals, amendments, floor votes, and conference actions. The bill momentum scoring capability predicts a bill's likelihood of advancement based on historical patterns, and cosponsor prediction identifies the most likely next cosponsors using graph analytics.

Does Apogee cover hearing transcripts?

Yes. Full-text search across thousands of congressional hearing transcripts with AI-generated summaries, witness testimony extraction, and entity linking. See Committee & Hearing Intelligence.

Data & Coverage

How current is the data?

• Legislation: Near real-time from Congress.gov (typically within hours of official action)
• Hearings: Transcripts indexed as published by the Government Publishing Office
• Regulations: Daily from the Federal Register
• Lobbying: Hourly from Senate Office of Public Records
• Campaign finance: Weekly from the Federal Election Commission
• News: Continuously monitored across 40+ policy outlets
• Knowledge graph: Relationships and analytics refresh hourly; analytics scores every 6 hours

How far back does historical data go?

• Legislation: 93rd Congress (1973) to present
• Regulations: 1994 to present
• CRS Reports: 2018 to present
• News: 90-day rolling window
• Campaign finance: Current election cycle
• Lobbying: Current filing period

Does Apogee cover state legislation?

Currently, Apogee focuses on federal legislation, regulations, and political activity. State-level coverage is planned for a future release.

Where does the data come from?

All data is sourced from authoritative government and policy sources: Congress.gov, the Government Publishing Office, the Federal Register, the Federal Election Commission, the Senate Office of Public Records, the Congressional Research Service, and 40+ established news organizations. See Data Sources for the complete list.

Account & Pricing

How much does Apogee cost?

Apogee offers self-service pricing with no sales calls or contracts:

• Starter: Free - access to all capabilities with a limited token budget (~800K Sonnet-equivalent tokens/month)
• Individual: Expanded token budget for daily professional use (~3M tokens/month)
• Team: Shared workspace for organizations with a large pooled token budget (~17M tokens/month)

All plans include all 60+ intelligence capabilities and all data sources. Plans differ only in token budget (how many queries you can run). See How Usage & Budgets Work for details.

How does usage metering work?

Apogee uses cost-based budgeting rather than fixed request limits. Each query's cost depends on the AI model used and the complexity of the research. Simple lookups cost less; multi-source synthesis costs more. Your plan includes a monthly AI budget divided into session (4-hour) and weekly windows to ensure smooth usage. See How Usage & Budgets Work for a detailed explanation.

Can I try Apogee before paying?

Yes. The free Starter plan is fully functional with all capabilities and data sources. It includes enough budget for meaningful evaluation. No credit card required.

Can I cancel my subscription?

Yes, you can cancel anytime from your Dashboard. Your access continues until the end of your billing period.

Setup & Technical

How do I get started?

Two options:

1. Fastest: Go to chat.apog.ai and start asking questions immediately. No setup required.
2. Connect your own AI: Add Apogee's MCP endpoint to Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, or any MCP client. Takes about 5 minutes. See the Getting Started guide.

Where do I find my API key?

API keys are available in your Dashboard. Click "Generate New Key" to create one.

My API key isn't working. What should I check?

1. Verify the key starts with apk_
2. Check for extra spaces or line breaks when pasting
3. Ensure the key is active in your Dashboard
4. Verify your subscription is current

Can I use Apogee without connecting an AI assistant?

Yes. The Apogee chat client provides a hosted conversation interface with all capabilities pre-configured. No API key or MCP setup required - just sign in and start asking questions.

Privacy & Security

How is my data handled?

Apogee does not store or log the content of your queries. We collect only basic usage metrics (request counts, error rates) for service improvement. See our Privacy Policy for details.

Is my API key secure?

API keys are hashed using SHA-256 before storage. We never store or log your full API key. If you suspect your key is compromised, revoke it immediately from your Dashboard.

Where are your servers located?

Apogee infrastructure is hosted in AWS US-East-1 (Virginia). All data is encrypted in transit (TLS 1.2+) and at rest (AES-256).

Troubleshooting

The research agent isn't appearing in my AI assistant

1. Verify your API key is correct and starts with apk_
2. Check that the MCP configuration file is in the right location for your assistant
3. Completely restart the assistant application (MCP connections are established at startup)
4. Check status.apog.ai for service issues

I'm seeing "Limit reached" in the chat client

You've exhausted one of your budget windows. Options:

• Session window - wait up to 4 hours for the rolling window to free up
• Weekly window - resets every Sunday at midnight UTC
• Upgrade - visit the Billing page for a higher-budget plan
• Optimize - use specific questions and the "Quick" preset for simple lookups. See budget tips

Results seem incomplete or off-topic

• Be specific: "bills introduced in the 119th Congress about AI regulation" works better than "AI bills"
• Mention the data type you want: "search news about..." vs "search bills about..."
• For complex research, break it into focused questions rather than one broad query
• Check Intelligence Capabilities for examples of what each category can do

Contact Support

Still have questions? Contact us through our contact form, or reach out from your account dashboard if you're a current user.

• Response time: Within 1 business day for Professional and Team tiers

Ready to get started? Connect your AI assistant or try the Apogee chat client.