How do I ask the Assistant from the floating icon?

Hover the floating icon and press Ask the Assistant. A small card opens above the icon, you type or say a question, and the answer is written in the card. It is the same chat as the one in the app, so you never leave what you are doing. The button is there only while the Assistant is switched on.

The Assistant is a Beta: it works, and we are still improving it. Tell us what you notice.

#Open the card

• Hover the floating icon and press Ask the Assistant on its strip. Press it again to close the card.
• Or open the menu bar icon’s menu on a Mac, or the notification area’s menu on Windows, and choose Ask the Assistant.... It is the second line, under Open Dictate Safe. The card opens by that icon, and the main window stays shut.

#Ask a question

1. The card’s header reads “Ask” and your Assistant’s name. Click the field, which says “Ask, or say it”.
2. Type, or press the microphone button, or use your dictation key. The words are typed into the field.
3. Press Enter. The answer is written word by word in the card, with a Stop button while it writes.

The card works like the chat. A question gets a list of tasks, rows that open in place with their status buttons, and a Proposed change card shows its own buttons. See changing your tasks by talking. The card shows the last ten messages of its chat.

#Which chat it uses

The header names the chat under the heading. Without a pin, that is the Quick chat, which the app makes the first time you ask and then reuses. With a pin, it is the chat you pinned, and a small pin shows beside its name.

1. Open Assistant in the sidebar and hover a chat in the list.
2. Press the pin, whose tooltip reads “Use this chat for the floating icon’s quick asks”. The pin in the chat’s own header does the same.

#Starting fresh

The plus in the card’s header, labelled New chat, starts a fresh Quick chat. If a chat was pinned, the pin is let go.

#Open the full chat

Open the full chat, at the bottom right of the card, brings the app forward on the Assistant page, in the chat the card was using. It is the only way the card opens the app. Sending a question never does. A link or a button that would open a page, such as Open Tasks or Open Cloud, is left out of the card, so use Open the full chat when you need one.

Esc, the x in the header, or a click anywhere else closes the card.