Using the AI Assistant

Description

The AI Assistant is a project-scoped chat. Open the project, then click the AI tab alongside Home, Workflows, Tables, etc.

The tab is split into two parts: a conversation history list on the left, and a tabbed chat workspace on the right. Each conversation is its own tab, so you can keep several threads open at once.

Conversations persist, so they survive across sessions, browsers, and devices.

Start a Conversation

1. Open the project’s AI tab
2. A new chat tab is created automatically; click in the input box at the bottom
3. Type your question and press Enter (or click Send)

The assistant streams its response back, including any tool calls it made along the way. Click + on the tab bar to start an additional conversation in parallel.

Manage Past Conversations

The history list on the left of the AI tab shows every conversation in this project for your user, most recent first.

To switch to a past conversation:

1. Click the conversation in the history list
2. The full transcript opens in a new chat tab (or the existing one if it’s already open)

To delete a conversation:

1. Right-click the conversation in the history list
2. Select Delete Thread

Note

Deleting a conversation also closes its chat tab if one is open.

Save a Conversation as PDF

You can export the current chat — your prompts and the assistant’s replies, including tables, code blocks, and diagrams — to a PDF.

1. Right-click anywhere in the conversation and choose Save as PDF
2. Your browser’s print dialog opens with the conversation laid out as a printable page
3. Choose Save as PDF as the destination and save the file

Note

The option is available once the conversation has at least one exchange. The export uses the responses exactly as rendered on screen, so any diagrams are included as drawn.

Token Usage

Every AI response shows the token usage for that turn — input tokens, output tokens, and a running total for the conversation. Use this to keep an eye on cost as you work.

Automatic Tool Selection

The assistant decides on its own which tools to call and which documents to consult for each question. There are no toggles to choose what’s used; tool selection happens behind the scenes, based on your prompt and the conversation so far.

If the answer doesn’t use the tool you expected, rephrase the question or include the table, project, or document name explicitly.

Multi-Step Requests

You don’t have to split a task into separate messages. Ask for the whole thing at once and the assistant works through the steps in order, carrying the result of each into the next:

• “Find a table with cost data, then show me a few rows from it” — locates the table, then queries it
• “Which tables have margin data? Show me the rows where margin is negative” — finds the table, then filters it
• “Import the sales file from the Demo Data account and chart the monthly totals” — imports the file, then draws the chart

The assistant also remembers the conversation, so you can follow up without repeating yourself. After it shows a table, “now show only the negative rows” or “draw that as a chart” continues from what’s already there.

Before importing a file — or running a destructive operation such as dropping or deleting data — the assistant tells you what it’s about to do and waits for your go-ahead rather than guessing.

Importing a File

The assistant can load a file from one of your project’s document accounts into a new table, without building a workflow step. Tell it the account, the path, and a name for the new table:

• “Import /imports/customers.csv from the Demo Data account into a new table called Customers”

It first inspects the file and shows you the columns it detected, then waits for you to confirm before importing — your chance to catch a wrong file or an unexpected schema. Confirm, and it loads the table and reports the new table’s id, column count, and row count.

Note

For a re-runnable import that lives in a workflow so it can be executed again later, ask the assistant to “create an import step” in a named workflow instead — it builds the step rather than doing a one-shot load.

Diagrams

The assistant can draw a simple diagram to explain a process, a data flow, or how things relate — handy when a picture is clearer than a paragraph. Ask in plain language:

• “Draw a flowchart of an ETL: extract, transform, load”
• “Diagram how an order, a customer, and a line item relate”
• “Show the approval steps as a sequence diagram”

The diagram renders inline in the response as a picture, with a short plain-language description alongside it. The assistant draws a wide range of types and picks whichever fits the request — flowcharts, sequence and state diagrams, entity-relationship and class diagrams, pie charts, bar and trend charts, Sankey flows, quadrant charts, Gantt and timeline schedules, user journeys, mind maps, and more. The assistant won’t restyle a diagram (custom colours, fonts, themes, or branding) — for styled, shareable visuals, build a Dashboard instead.

Caution

The diagram assistant has no tools and cannot read your project’s tables or data — it draws only from what you describe in the chat. To diagram real tables or lineage, describe them in your message, or ask a discovery question first and then say “draw that as a diagram” (the conversation carries over).

If a diagram can’t be drawn, the response shows the underlying diagram text along with a brief “Couldn’t render this diagram.” note — rephrase or simplify your request and ask again.

Expression AI

The Expression Editor — used by Project Table, Calculate, Filter, and any other step that takes expressions — has the AI Assistant built in as a side panel.

1. Open a workflow step that uses expressions
2. Open the editor for the column you want to fill in
3. The AI panel sits alongside the expression editor; ask it to draft or fix the expression
4. Copy the suggested expression into the editor

The chat already has the column list and types from the current step, so you can ask questions like “concatenate first_name and last_name with a space” without restating the schema.