# Role focus, personal home screens, and a vCISO Workspace in the menu
URL: https://docs.autociso.io/release-notes/2026-09-console-personas/
Description: Choose a role — CTO, Security lead, CEO, Operations, Compliance, CIO or DPO — for a tailored home, menu order and guided tour that never change what you're allowed to see or do. Plus a new vCISO Workspace menu item, and two role-based AI tightenings.

## Role focus, personal home screens, and a vCISO Workspace in the menu

**Plans:** every plan — role focus itself is free; some of what a role's home links to (vCISO Workspace, ISO 27001,
Privacy, CISO reports, Supply-chain security) is gated by plan the same way it already is elsewhere in AutoCISO.
**Where:** user menu → **My role focus**; Dashboard → **My home** tab; sidebar → **Access & Risk** → **vCISO
Workspace**.

Until now, every seat opened the same Statistics dashboard regardless of the job they do. This release adds a
personal **role focus** — pick CTO, Security lead / CISO, CEO / Founder, Head of Operations / COO, Compliance
officer, CIO / IT Director or Data Protection Officer, and AutoCISO builds a home tailored to that job, reorders the
sidebar to match, and offers a one-minute guided tour. It also adds the **vCISO Workspace** to the main menu, and
tightens two role checks around AI features.

### What's new

#### Pick a role focus for a tailored home

The first time you open the Dashboard, a card offers to tailor the console to your job. Pick one of seven roles, or
keep the classic Statistics dashboard. Your choice adds a **My home** tab (subtitled "Tailored for \{role\}"), reorders
the sidebar to put the group you use most first, and offers a short guided tour. Change it any time from **My role
focus** in your user menu, or **Tailor my home** in the home tab's header. See [Choose your role
focus](https://docs.autociso.io/getting-started/role-focus/) for the full walkthrough.

**This never changes permissions or hides anything.** It only changes what's shown first — the second sentence of the
role picker dialog says so directly: *"It never changes what you're allowed to see or do."* Where a home would show
something your plan or organization role doesn't give you, a banner explains why (for example, *"ISO 27001 is on The
Growth"*) instead of silently omitting it.

#### Notifications default to the tab your role checks first

Opening **Notifications** now opens on **Critical** for CTO, Security lead / CISO and CEO / Founder, and on
**Unread** for Head of Operations / COO, Compliance officer, CIO / IT Director and Data Protection Officer. This is
the default tab only — every notification is still there on every tab, for everyone, exactly as before.

#### vCISO Workspace is now in the menu

**Access & Risk → vCISO Workspace** brings together the Roadmap, Current State, Target State, Decisions and Monthly
Summary pages that previously had no menu entry of their own. **Monthly Summary** is visible only to Owners and
Managers. The item requires **The Seed** plan or higher — on Free, it shows locked with **"Requires The Seed."** See
[vCISO Workspace](https://docs.autociso.io/product/posture/vciso-workspace/).

#### AI-Suggested Options on a decision is now Owner/Manager only

**Get AI Options** on a vCISO decision — which generates the **AI-Suggested Options** list — now requires the
**Owner** or **Manager** role, matching every other write action in the vCISO Workspace. A Member, Contributor or
Auditor can no longer trigger it, by API or otherwise; the button is hidden for
those roles in the console. This was previously open to any role with access to the page — no other vCISO behaviour
changed.

#### AI CISO Assistant tools now follow your role, not just your plan

The AI CISO Assistant already limited which tools it could use to what your organization's plan includes. It now
also limits them to what your **role** is allowed to do: an Owner gets every plan-allowed tool, other roles get a
narrower set that matches what they could do through the console directly, and the assistant never runs a tool it
isn't allowed to run — it simply doesn't try. This changes no tool behaviour for Owners or Managers on any plan.

### Known, accepted limitations

#### Role focus doesn't retroactively simplify the classic dashboard

**Statistics**, **Executive** and **Security Surface** tabs are unchanged by this release — role focus adds **My
home** alongside them rather than replacing them. If you prefer the classic view, choosing **"Keep the Statistics
dashboard"** (or clicking **Not now**) leaves your Dashboard exactly as it was.

#### Existing users are offered the picker again only once, and only if they haven't chosen

If you already dismissed the role picker (or chose to keep the Statistics dashboard) before this release, you'll see
it once more, worded **"New role homes are available."** Choosing a role works the same as the first time;
**"Keep the Statistics dashboard"** dismisses it for good. Anyone who had already picked a specific role keeps that
choice and is not re-prompted.

### Next steps

- [Choose your role focus](https://docs.autociso.io/getting-started/role-focus/)
- [vCISO Workspace](https://docs.autociso.io/product/posture/vciso-workspace/)
- [Security Operating Surface](https://docs.autociso.io/product/posture/security-surface/)