What can the Assistant do, and how do I use it?

The Assistant is a chat that runs on your computer. Ask it to write a draft, answer a question or help you think something through. It can also look at your tasks, goals and reminders and propose changes, and it can read a file you attach. Anything it changes waits on a card you press, and anything it writes leaves the chat only when you copy it.

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

#Start a chat

Open Assistant in the sidebar and type in the box at the bottom. Enter sends, and Shift and Enter add a line. Your dictation key types into the box too, so you can say what you want. On an empty chat the page offers four starting points: Write a short email, Reply to a message, Make it warmer and Explain simply.

While an answer is being written, the send arrow becomes Stop, and Esc does the same. A dictation always comes first: if you dictate while the Assistant is writing, it pauses, and if it cannot carry on it says “I paused while you dictated. Ask me again.”

#Drafts

Ask for an email, a message, a reply, a letter, a caption, a post, an introduction, a summary or a note, and the answer comes as a draft with a small label over it, such as Email. Under every draft the Assistant says “Check names, dates and amounts before you send it.”

• Press Shorter, Warmer or More formal, or say in a few words how to change it, and the Assistant writes another version.
• The arrows step between versions, and the label reads, for example, “Email, version 2 of 3”. Use this version picks the one the chat shows.
• Copy puts the text on your clipboard. It is the only way a draft leaves the chat, because the Assistant sends nothing for you.

Under any answer, Copy copies it, and the two thumbs, Good answer and Not good, rate it.

#Tasks, reminders and goals

Ask what is on today, add a task or a reminder, move or finish a task, or start a goal. Reading is immediate. Every change comes back as a card that waits for you. The next article, changing your tasks by talking to the Assistant, walks through the card. The tasks themselves are described in how to add your first task.

#Files, History, prompts and snippets

• Attach up to three PDF, Word, Excel, CSV or text files and ask about them. See reading a PDF, Word or Excel file.
• Ask it to read your last 10 or 25 dictations, find one of your saved prompts, use it to write a draft, or make a snippet. See History, prompts and snippets.

#Your chats

• The chats are listed on the left, newest first, and they are kept on this computer. Hover a chat to rename it, remove it or pin it. A removed chat can be brought back with Undo for two minutes.
• Hide the chats, at the top left of the conversation, gives it the whole width, and Show the chats brings the list back. New chat starts a fresh one.
• A pinned chat is the one the floating icon’s Ask card talks in. See asking from the floating icon.

#Its name and picture

You chose a name when you first opened it, and the Assistant answers to it everywhere, including the Ask card, which reads “Ask” and the name. Change the name, the picture (Lotus, Ember or your own) and your About you answers in Settings → Assistant and tasks, in the row Name, picture and About you, with Edit. Nothing is saved until you press Save.