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Assistants

Assistants provide reusable AI experiences designed for specific tasks, business functions, or areas of expertise.

An Assistant combines predefined instructions with an AI model and, where configured, organizational knowledge and other AiX capabilities. This allows users to perform common tasks consistently without having to recreate detailed prompts each time.

Examples of Assistants may include:

  • HR Policy Assistant
  • Customer Service Assistant
  • Legal Document Assistant
  • Sales Assistant
  • Technical Support Assistant
  • Internal Knowledge Assistant

The Assistants available to you depend on your organization's configuration and your access permissions.

Using an Assistant

To use an Assistant:

  1. Open Assistants from the AiX navigation menu.
  2. Select an Assistant available to you.
  3. Enter your question or instruction.
  4. Select Send or press Enter to submit your message.
  5. Review the response and continue the conversation as required.

The Assistant automatically applies its configured instructions and other settings when processing your request.

You do not need to enter these instructions each time you use the Assistant.

Assistants and Chat

Chat provides a general-purpose interface for interacting directly with an available AI model.

An Assistant provides a more structured experience for a particular purpose.

For example, when using Chat you might need to provide detailed instructions explaining how a document should be reviewed.

An Assistant designed for document review can already contain those instructions, allowing you to simply provide the document and ask the Assistant to perform the review.

This makes Assistants useful for tasks that are performed repeatedly or where users should follow a consistent approach.

Assistant Instructions

Each Assistant can contain predefined instructions that guide how the AI should perform its task.

Instructions may define:

  • The Assistant's purpose
  • How information should be analyzed
  • Business rules or guidelines to follow
  • The expected tone or style
  • Required response structure
  • Restrictions or boundaries
  • How results should be presented

These instructions are automatically applied when you interact with the Assistant.

Using Knowledge with an Assistant

An Assistant can be connected to one or more Knowledge Bases where configured.

This allows the Assistant to use approved organizational information when responding to questions.

For example, an HR Assistant could use an organization's HR policies and procedures to help answer employee questions.

When organizational knowledge is used, AiX retrieves relevant information and provides it to the AI model as additional context.

Where available, source references may also be provided so that users can review the information used to generate the response.

Working with Files

Where enabled, you can provide files to an Assistant as part of your request.

For example, you might provide a document and ask an Assistant to:

  • Summarize the document
  • Review its contents
  • Extract specific information
  • Identify issues or risks
  • Compare information
  • Prepare a structured response

The way files are processed depends on the purpose and configuration of the Assistant.

Conversation Context

An Assistant can maintain conversational context within the current conversation.

This allows you to ask follow-up questions without repeating all of the information from your previous messages.

For example:

Summarize the key issues in this document.

You could then continue with:

Which three issues require the most immediate attention?

Or:

Present those issues in a table with recommended actions.

For a different task or topic, consider starting a new conversation with the Assistant.

Creating an Assistant

Depending on your permissions, you may be able to create your own Assistants.

When creating an Assistant, you can define its purpose and configure the capabilities required for the task.

Typical configuration may include:

  • Name — A clear name describing the Assistant.
  • Description — A short explanation of what the Assistant is designed to do.
  • AI Model — The model used by the Assistant.
  • Instructions — The rules and guidance provided to the AI.
  • Knowledge Base — Organizational knowledge available to the Assistant.
  • Access — Users or teams that can use the Assistant.

The configuration options available may vary depending on your organization's AiX configuration and your permissions.

Designing Effective Assistants

An effective Assistant should have a clearly defined purpose.

Rather than creating an Assistant that attempts to perform every possible task, consider creating Assistants for specific business activities.

For example:

General Assistant

Help users with business questions.

This provides little guidance about how the Assistant should behave.

A more focused Assistant could be:

Contract Review Assistant

Review business contracts and identify key obligations, important dates, commercial terms, risks, and items requiring further review. Present the findings using a consistent structured format.

Clear instructions help produce more predictable and reusable results.

Sharing Assistants

Depending on your permissions, Assistants may be private or shared with other users or teams.

Before sharing an Assistant, consider whether:

  • Its purpose is clearly described
  • Its instructions have been tested
  • The appropriate AI model has been selected
  • Required Knowledge Bases are connected
  • Users have access to the required information
  • Responses have been reviewed using representative examples

Shared Assistants can help organizations provide consistent AI capabilities across teams and business functions.

Reviewing Assistant Responses

Assistant responses are generated by AI models and should be reviewed appropriately before being used for important business activities or decisions.

Predefined instructions and organizational knowledge can improve consistency and relevance, but they do not guarantee that every response will be complete or accurate.

Important facts, calculations, dates, references, and business decisions should be verified where appropriate.

Assistants and Smartflow

Assistants and Smartflows serve different purposes.

Assistants are primarily conversational. They provide a reusable AI experience where users interact with AI through questions and follow-up messages.

Smartflows are process-oriented. They allow multiple steps, AI operations, business rules, integrations, document processing, and human activities to be combined into a workflow.

Use an Assistant when the activity is primarily conversational.

Use a Smartflow when the activity requires a repeatable sequence of processing steps or business actions.

Next Steps

You may also want to explore:

  • Chat — Interact directly with available AI models.
  • Knowledge Base — Work with organizational documents and information.
  • Smartflow — Create and run AI-powered business workflows.
  • Scheduler — Run supported processes automatically at defined times or intervals.