Assistant

The Assistant is the workspace’s conversational helper. You can ask it to find and explain records, review sales activity, search linked messages, analyse tables, suggest follow-ups, and carry out supported workspace changes.

It works from the information available to your signed-in workspace account: tables and records, groups, views, workspace members, linked messages, connected accounts, and files that you attach to a conversation. It is useful when you know the business question but do not want to build a filter or search through several screens first.

The Assistant is an interactive conversation. Use it for a question, investigation, draft, or one-off action. Use Autopilot when the work should run repeatedly from a trigger or on a schedule. The Assistant can inspect or start supported workflows and connected operations, but that does not turn a one-off chat request into a recurring automation.

Use cases

The examples below use the sales process common to a small business: find potential customers, contact them, hold a meeting, send a proposal, and keep the customer record current.

Situation	What to ask	What you get	What to check yourself
Morning pipeline review	“For our open deals, which ones have no recent interaction or next action?”	A focused list of records, activity gaps, and useful patterns based on the data the Assistant can access.	Whether the mailbox or calendar has finished syncing, whether a quiet deal is intentionally paused, and who owns the next step.
Preparing for a customer meeting	Mention the customer record and ask for a summary of recent activity, open questions, and risks.	A concise briefing that can combine record fields with linked emails, calendar items, or notes.	Dates, commitments, amounts, and anything that needs to be confirmed with the customer.
Building an outreach list	“Find contacts at companies in our target segment that have not been contacted recently.”	Matching records using structured fields and, when useful, meaning-based search.	Duplicate people, missing consent, the reason each person matched, and whether the list is appropriate for the campaign.
Following up after a call	Ask for the latest conversation and a suggested next action, then request a record update only if you want one.	A summary and a proposed follow-up, with a supported update when the target and values are clear.	The exact target record, the proposed stage or date, and whether the action should be a reminder, email, or internal task.
Keeping the pipeline clean	Ask for deals with a missing owner, missing value, stale stage, or no linked interaction.	A review list and practical cleanup suggestions.	An empty field is not proof that a deal is inactive. Confirm the business context before changing it.
Improving the workspace structure	Ask the Assistant to explain the current tables or propose a new field for contacts, deals, or tasks.	A description of the current workspace and, for schema work, an editable draft or preview.	Field names, relationships, existing data, and the effect on views, reports, and integrations before saving.
Checking connected work	Ask which connected accounts or runnable workflows are available, or ask for a read-only result from a known connected system.	Available capabilities and, where permitted, a result or an action that pauses for required input.	The account, operation, recipients, and side effects before allowing an external action.

A realistic example

Suppose a founder has a proposal out to a potential customer. Before the next meeting, they can:

Open the customer or deal record and use @ to mention the exact record.
Ask for the current deal stage, value, owner, latest linked email, latest calendar activity, and unresolved questions.
Ask the Assistant to separate confirmed facts from recommendations.
Check the dates and amounts against the source records.
Create a reminder or update the record only after deciding what should actually be recorded.

This keeps the conversation useful without treating a generated suggestion as a customer commitment or silently changing the pipeline.

What the Assistant can and cannot do

The Assistant can work across the parts of the workspace that are exposed to your account. Depending on your workspace configuration and permissions, it can:

find records by exact filters such as status, stage, date, amount, owner, email, or relationship;
find records by a broader description, such as “small professional-services companies in our target region”;
open a known record and follow its relationships to related records;
count and group records to show totals or patterns;
search linked message content and activity, including email, calendar items, and notes when those sources are available;
explain how tables, fields, relationships, groups, and views are arranged;
suggest, create, or update supported records when the target and values are sufficiently clear;
propose changes to table structure and show a draft that can be reviewed and saved;
use attached images and digestible documents as additional context;
inspect connected accounts and available operations; and
inspect or start supported workflows when the relevant capability and permission are available.

The Assistant does not automatically know information that has not reached the workspace. A record’s fields are not the same thing as the content of its linked emails or meetings. If you ask about a conversation, it must be linked, synced, attached, or otherwise available to the account being used.

There is also an important deletion boundary: the Assistant cannot delete CRM records. If a request would remove customer, contact, deal, or other table records, use the supported administrator or API process described in the relevant workspace documentation. Do not ask the Assistant to imitate deletion by blanking fields or moving records unless that is the explicit, reviewed process for your team.

Getting Started

Before you begin

Make sure that:

You are signed in and have selected the correct workspace.
You are a member of that workspace. The server checks membership before it processes a conversation.
You can read the records, groups, or views you want to discuss.
The relevant mailbox, calendar, recorder, or other connected account is connected and has synced if your question depends on external activity.
You have edit permission if you want the Assistant to create or update records, and the appropriate schema permission if you want to change tables or fields.

If you only want an explanation or a report, begin with a read-only request. You can decide later whether anything should be changed.

Open the Assistant

Open the workspace.
Select Assistant in the sidebar.
If you see an existing conversation, select New Chat to start with a clean topic. If you are already on the welcome screen, you can type immediately.
Enter a question and press Enter.

The page may show Chat as an internal heading even though the sidebar entry is called Assistant. Autopilot is a separate workspace area for repeatable workflows; it is not the place to open a normal Assistant conversation.

Your first message creates a saved conversation. A short title is generated from the opening exchange, and the conversation appears with your other past chats. Use Browse past chats when you want to return to an earlier investigation.

Write your first request

Start with a question that names the business goal and the area of the workspace you mean. These are good first requests:

“Explain how this workspace is structured and suggest useful things I can ask next.”
“Summarize my deals and highlight the biggest patterns or gaps.”
“Search recent emails linked to my contacts and surface the threads that need action.”
“Review my tasks and suggest which follow-ups need attention this week.”

The welcome screen may offer suggestions based on the visible tables and connected capabilities in your workspace. They are starting points, not a complete list of what you can ask.

Use the composer

Press Enter to send.
Press Shift + Enter to add a new line without sending.
Use @ or the mention control to choose a record, group, or workspace member. Mentioning the exact customer, deal, or group makes the scope clearer.
Use the attachment control or drag a file into the composer when a document or image is part of the question.
If the send control is disabled, make sure the request is not only a very short fragment, an upload is not still processing, and the conversation is not already busy.

Images and common digestible document formats are supported, including PDF, plain text, Markdown, structured text such as JSON or XML, HTML, rich text, CSV, spreadsheet files, word-processing files, and presentation files. Non-image documents are prepared for reading before they are sent to the Assistant. Wait for the upload to finish and check the attachment chip before submitting.

Only attach material that your team is allowed to place in the workspace. The Assistant may keep the attachment with the conversation so that later messages can refer to it.

How to use it

1. Set the scope before asking for analysis

The Assistant can search a large workspace, so make the boundaries explicit:

Name the table, group, or view.
Include a time window when activity or recency matters.
Name the fields that matter, such as stage, owner, value, close date, or last interaction.
Say whether you want an explanation, a list, a draft, or a change.
State the action boundary: for example, “Do not update anything.”

For example:

For the open Deals group, list deals with no next action due in the next 14 days. Return the deal, owner, value, stage, and one suggested next step. Do not update anything.

If you do not know the table or group name, start with “Explain how this workspace is structured” and ask the Assistant to identify the relevant area. You can also mention a visible record or group directly.

2. Find suitable outreach candidates

Use the Assistant to narrow a prospecting list before you contact anyone.

Describe the target using fields that exist in your workspace: role, company type, location, stage, owner, source, or last interaction.
Ask for the records and the matching reasons, not just a count.
Add a time condition such as “not contacted in the last 30 days” when recency matters.
Ask for duplicates, missing email addresses, or missing relationship links to be called out.
Review the returned people and companies before exporting the list or starting a campaign.

The Assistant can use structured searching for exact values and meaning-based searching for broader descriptions. Meaning-based matches are useful for discovery, but they are not proof of identity. Check the person, company, email address, website, and relationship before using a result in outreach.

If you want to search one known customer or prospect, mention its record rather than relying on a similar name. A short name can match more than one record.

3. Prepare for a meeting or follow-up

A record and the activity around it answer different questions. Use both deliberately.

Mention the exact contact, company, or deal with @.
Ask for current record fields first: stage, value, owner, close date, open tasks, and related people.
Ask separately for linked activity since a specific date: email threads, calendar items, notes, or meeting follow-up.
Request two sections: confirmed facts and items to verify or recommend.
Ask for the last meaningful interaction and any unanswered customer question.
Before the meeting, verify dates and commitments in the linked activity.

Example:

For [the mentioned deal], summarize the record and the latest linked email and meeting activity since 1 September. Separate confirmed facts from suggestions, and list the questions we should answer in the next meeting. Do not change the deal.

If no activity appears, first check that the connected account has synced and that the activity is linked to the record. Do not treat “no linked messages found” as proof that nobody communicated with the customer.

4. Review pipeline health

Ask for a decision-oriented review rather than a generic summary.

Define the population: open deals, a specific group, a view, or all records you can access.
Define the signal: no recent interaction, missing next step, overdue task, stale stage, low value, or close date approaching.
Set the period, such as “updated this month” or “no interaction for 21 days.”
Ask for counts and the underlying records so you can inspect the exceptions.
Ask for suggested actions, but keep the initial request read-only.

The Assistant can calculate record counts and grouped summaries. A statistic is only as reliable as the records and linked activity available to it. Confirm the sync status, filters, and group membership when a result looks surprising.

5. Make a supported record change

Use a separate request when you are ready to write to the workspace.

Identify the exact record, preferably with an @ mention or a known record shown in the previous answer.
Name the field and the new value in plain language.
Say what should remain unchanged.
Ask the Assistant to explain the target and planned change if there is any ambiguity.
If it asks a clarification question, choose the correct option or type your own answer.
After the response, open the record and verify the changed value, relationship, owner, or date.

For example:

Update the mentioned deal’s next action to “Send revised proposal” and set the due date to 18 September. Leave the stage and value unchanged. Show me which record you will update before making the change.

The Assistant uses the workspace schema and available write operations. It should not invent a field, select option, relationship, or record identifier. If the request is not supported or you do not have edit permission, it may explain the limitation instead of making a partial change. It cannot delete CRM records.

When creating records, the Assistant checks for likely existing matches first. Still review the result for duplicate people or companies, particularly when the source contains only a name.

6. Propose a table or field change

Changing a table structure is different from changing one record. It can affect views, reports, relationships, imports, and connected processes.

Ask the Assistant to describe the current tables and fields if you are unsure what already exists.
State the business need, for example “track where each new contact came from.”
Ask for a draft first: “Propose a Contacts field for lead source. Show the draft only; do not save it.”
Review the field name, type, choices, relationships, and whether an existing field already covers the need.
Fix any diagnostics shown in the table preview.
Save the final preview only when the structure is correct and your account has schema permission.

The Assistant builds table changes as a draft, checks the draft, and presents a final preview. The preview is not the same as a saved workspace change. Use the table editor’s save action after reviewing it. If the preview reports errors, resolve them before saving; do not work around a schema error by putting structured data into an unrelated notes field.

See Records, Views, and Groups for the day-to-day effects of the structure you are changing.

7. Use an attached file as context

Attachments are useful for a proposal, call brief, CSV list, meeting notes, or an image of information that is not yet in the workspace.

Attach the file and wait until it finishes processing.
Say what you want extracted or compared.
Name the relevant customer, deal, table, or date range if the file contains several topics.
Ask the Assistant to distinguish file content from workspace content.
Check important names, amounts, dates, and email addresses before copying anything into a record.

Example:

Compare the attached proposal with the mentioned deal. List differences in scope, value, and delivery date. Use the file as evidence, do not update the deal, and flag anything that is missing from either source.

8. Work with connected accounts and workflows

The Assistant can inspect available connected capabilities when your question depends on another system or an existing workflow.

Ask which connected account or operation is available for the task.
For a read request, name the object or information you need and ask for the source to be identified.
For an action, name the exact target, recipient, content, or other required values.
Review any clarification, required-input, or confirmation step.
Check the result in the source system and in the workspace record where applicable.

A connected account may be unavailable because it is not connected, has expired, has not synced, or is not accessible to your member account. A workflow may also require input before it can start. These checks are intentional: they help prevent a vague chat request from sending a message, changing an external record, or running the wrong process.

Use the Assistant for a one-off investigation or action. If the same process should happen whenever a new lead is added or every Monday morning, design it as a repeatable workflow in Autopilot.

9. Use follow-up messages without losing the thread

Keep related questions in the same conversation:

Ask the broad question first.
Narrow the result with a follow-up, such as “Only show deals owned by me.”
Ask for a different format, such as a short checklist or a table of records.
Restate the table, group, and date range if the topic changes or the conversation is long.

Start New Chat for a different customer, a different sales problem, or a new workspace-design decision. Conversations are saved and titled from their opening exchange, so a clear first request makes Browse past chats easier to use. You can delete a past chat from its menu; deletion is for the conversation thread and is not a way to delete CRM records.

10. Understand the Assistant’s progress and questions

While the Assistant is working, the conversation can show progress such as understanding, searching, analysing, and composing. Expand What happened when you need a high-level view of the work and the tools or phases involved. This is useful when you want to see whether it searched records, reviewed messages, or prepared a table draft.

If the Assistant asks a clarification question, select one of the choices or type a custom response. This normally means the request could refer to more than one record, field, account, workflow, or side effect. Answering the question gives it a safer boundary.

Use Stop when the response is heading in the wrong direction or taking too long. Then correct the scope in a new message or start a new chat. Do not approve a proposed change just to move past an unclear response.

Prompt patterns that work well

A useful request usually contains:

Goal + scope + time + output + action boundary

Examples:

Pipeline review: “Review the Open Deals view for the last 30 days. Show deals with no linked interaction, include owner, stage, value, and close date, and suggest one next step per deal. Do not update anything.”
Meeting brief: “For the mentioned company, summarise the current records and linked emails, calendar items, and notes since 1 September. Separate facts, unanswered questions, and recommended follow-up. Do not contact anyone.”
Outreach list: “Find contacts matching our target customer description who have not been contacted in 45 days. Show the matching evidence, email status, company, and possible duplicates. Do not create or send anything.”
Record update: “For the mentioned contact, add the confirmed job title from the attached note. Keep the existing email and company relationship unchanged, and tell me the target before saving.”
Workspace design: “Review the current Contacts table and propose a single-select Lead source field with sensible choices. Show the draft and diagnostics only; do not save.”

Avoid requests such as “fix the CRM” or “contact everyone who looks interested.” They leave the target records, criteria, and side effects unclear. Turn them into a bounded request and review the first result before expanding it.

Troubleshooting

The Assistant is not visible

Confirm that you are signed in, inside the intended workspace, and looking at the workspace sidebar. The entry is Assistant; Autopilot is a separate area. If the page is open but the welcome state does not load, refresh the workspace and try New Chat. If your workspace has just been created, finish any required onboarding and check that your member account is active.

The answer has no records or seems incomplete

Check the table, group, view, date range, and spelling used in the request. Then check that your member account can read the relevant data. For email, calendar, or meeting activity, confirm that the connected account is connected and synced and that the activity is linked to the right record.

Ask a follow-up such as:

Which table, group, records, and linked activities did you use, and what information was unavailable?

This helps distinguish “there were no matching records” from “the Assistant could not access or find the source.” Remember that a record field does not contain the full content of every linked message.

The Assistant chose the wrong person, company, or deal

Stop before making a change. Mention the exact record, group, or view with @, add an email address or other identifying detail, and state the relationship you mean. Ask it to list the target records and matching evidence first. Do not approve an update based only on a similar name.

The request is too short or the send control is disabled

The workspace composer expects a meaningful message, not a one-character fragment. Write at least a short sentence; six or more characters are required by the client-side composer. Check that an attachment is not still processing and that the Assistant is not already generating a response. Use Enter to send and Shift + Enter for a line break.

A mention cannot be found

Open the mention picker and search for the exact record or group name. A workspace member is not automatically a customer record, and a customer record is not automatically a workspace member. If the item is not available, use its table and identifying fields in the request, or ask a member with access to handle it.

An attachment is rejected or remains in upload

Check that the file is an image or a supported digestible document format such as PDF, text, Markdown, CSV, spreadsheet, word-processing, presentation, JSON, XML, HTML, or rich text. Wait for processing to finish before sending. Remove the file and retry if the upload chip remains stuck. If the file is sensitive, confirm that it belongs in the workspace before trying again.

The Assistant asks a clarification question

This is expected when the request is ambiguous or could have a meaningful side effect. Choose the option that matches your intent or type a specific answer. Include the exact record, field, value, account, recipient, or workflow if the choices do not fit.

A record change is unavailable

The requested operation may be unsupported, the target may not be clear, or your member account may not have edit permission. Ask the Assistant to explain which part is blocked. For a write, provide the exact record and field. For a table change, ask for a draft and check your schema permission. The Assistant cannot delete CRM records.

A table preview reports errors

Read the diagnostic text and revise the draft. Common causes are selecting a field type that does not fit the values, reusing an existing field incorrectly, choosing an invalid option, or creating a relationship without a valid target. The final preview should be error-free before you use the table editor’s save action. A table-structure error is not fixed by editing an individual record.

Connected information or an external action is unavailable

The relevant account may not be connected, may need to be reconnected, may not have finished syncing, or may not be available to your member account. Check the integration or connection settings and ask an administrator to approve access when required. If a workflow needs inputs, provide them in the clarification step. For an external action, verify the target and result in the source system as well as in the workspace.

The response is wrong, partial, or headed in the wrong direction

Use Stop, then restate the request with the table, record, time range, desired output, and “do not change anything” boundary. Ask it to show the source records or matching evidence. Start a new chat if the previous conversation has accumulated unrelated context. For important customer, financial, legal, or communication decisions, treat the answer as a working aid and verify the underlying records before acting.

A past conversation cannot be found

Use Browse past chats and search by the title or words from the last message. If it was deleted, it cannot be recovered through the Assistant. A conversation also may not appear if it belongs to another workspace or is not available to your account. Start a new chat and include the relevant context again.

Privacy and safe use

The Assistant can only use data made available to the signed-in member through the workspace, connected accounts, and attachments. Access to the Assistant is not a reason to upload every customer document or grant wider access than the task needs.

Before sending a request or attachment:

remove information that is not needed for the question;
follow your company’s rules for customer data, confidential proposals, and personal information;
confirm that the connected account and activity may be used for this purpose; and
obtain any consent required for recording, transcribing, analysing, or sharing communications.

Before approving a change or external action, check the target, values, recipients, dates, and side effects. Keep the original source record as the authority for commitments. For related topics, see Email Integration, Settings, API, and MCP.