Chatting with an expert

Chat is where your team asks experts questions. Members land here when they sign in, and admins open it from the sidebar.

Opening Chat

• Members arrive in Chat after signing in through the hub. The address is /expert/new.
• Admins click Chat in the sidebar, which opens it in a new tab. To keep it inside the admin page instead, click the ⋯ button beside the row and choose Open in this tab. The same menu has Reload chat. In that view the account menu at the foot of the chat sidebar is hidden, because the admin page already has its own. To reach Settings or Sign out from Chat, open it in a new tab.

The empty screen greets you by name. If the expert has an owner, a line under the message box says who looks after it and invites you to tell them when an answer looks wrong. A reminder underneath says Aimy is AI and can make mistakes, so check anything important.

Picking an expert and asking

1. Use the expert picker at the left of the message box to choose who you are asking. Each entry shows the expert's name and description. If the list is empty, no expert has been set up yet, so ask your admin.
2. Type your question. Press Enter to send, or Shift and Enter for a new line.
3. The answer streams in as it is written.

The next time you open Chat on the same browser, it starts on the expert and the model you used last. Both are remembered per browser, so a different computer starts fresh.

On the empty screen you also see suggestion buttons. Until your admin writes starter questions for the expert they are Summarize, Find info, Explain and Draft, which fill the box with the start of a sentence for you to finish. If the expert has its own starter questions, those appear instead. Clicking one fills the message box without sending it, so you can edit it first.

A chat belongs to the expert it started with. Once you've sent a message, the expert picker is locked. To ask a different expert, click New chat in the sidebar.

Models are shown in a pill at the right of the message box. If your admin allowed more than one model for this expert, click the pill to choose. Otherwise it shows the model in use. See AI models.

While you wait

A status line shows under the expert's name with a counter of the seconds that have passed. The wording changes every few seconds, for example Searching your documents or Putting the answer together. When the expert is using a search or another system, the line says so, and for the built in searches it shows the words being searched for. If a step fails, the line says That step didn't come back, and the expert carries on.

Some models show their reasoning. When yours does, a panel opens above the answer, labelled Thinking… while it works. When the answer starts, the panel folds shut and the label changes to Thoughts. Click it any time to read the reasoning, including later when you reopen the chat.

Sources

When the expert has Show sources switched on, answers carry small numbered markers, with a Sources list under the answer. Hover over a marker to see the document name and page. Click it to open the document in a side panel, jumping to the cited page for PDFs. Press Esc to close the panel. The panel has a button to open the file in a new tab, and file types a browser can't preview offer a download instead. A source that is a file you attached to the chat opens in a new tab. For answers worked out from a whole spreadsheet, the source shows as the whole file rather than a page.

On a phone or tablet there is no hover, so the first tap on a marker shows the tooltip and a second tap opens the document.

If the expert searched the web, those sources link to the web page.

The plus menu

The + button at the left of the message box opens a menu of things you can do with this message.

• Add files or photos attaches a file to the conversation. See the next section. If the expert accepts neither images nor documents, this row isn't shown.
• Search the web lets the answer use the web as well as your documents. It is slower, and it may quote a page your company didn't write. It is listed, but dimmed, when your admin hasn't allowed web search for this expert. Hover for the reason.
• Ask an admin sends your message to a person instead of the expert. They pick it up from Handoff and reply right in your chat. It is dimmed when the expert doesn't have this switched on. See Handing a chat to a person.
• Suggest knowledge opens the suggestion form, covered below.

A tool that is switched on shows as a small pill beside the expert picker, so you can see what is armed. Click the cross on the pill to turn it off.

Web search starts on whenever your admin allows it for that expert, so you see a Web pill straight away. If you close the pill, web search stays off for that expert, and Chat remembers that choice on this browser. Choose Search the web again to turn it back on. Ask an admin works differently. It covers one message only, and the pill goes away as soon as you send.

Attachments

Attach a file when you want an answer about something that isn't in your Knowledge Base, such as a contract you've just received. Choose Add files or photos from the plus menu, pick one or more files, then ask your question. You can also paste a file from your clipboard into the message box, or drag files from your computer and drop them on the message box. The box gets a coloured border while a file is over it.

Each file shows as a chip above the box while it uploads, and you can remove it with its Remove button. Wait for the upload to finish before you send. You don't need to type anything: a file on its own can be sent, and the expert answers about the file.

• Documents and images are accepted: the same file types as the Knowledge Base, such as PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, text and common image formats.
• Admins can switch image uploads and document uploads on or off for each expert. A refused file tells you which kind the expert doesn't accept.
• Images need a model that can read them. If none is available, the tooltip warns you that images won't be understood, but documents still work.
• For each question the expert looks at up to the three most recent images in the conversation. If it couldn't read one, a note under the answer says The expert could not read and names the file.
• Attachments stay with that conversation and don't join the Knowledge Base. They do count towards your storage. See Chat uploads.

Dictation

If your browser supports speech recognition, a microphone button appears at the right of the message box. Click it, speak, and your words are typed in. Allow microphone access when your browser asks. Firefox doesn't offer speech recognition, so the button doesn't appear there. It also hides itself once you start typing.

Under each answer

• The Copy button copies the answer to your clipboard.
• The Suggest something the expert should know button opens the suggestion form, with the answer you were reading shown as context. Use it when an answer is wrong or out of date.

Sometimes a small note appears under an answer after you ask the expert to remember or forget something in the chat. I'll remember this next time we talk means the note is queued and will be saved later, and can still be declined. Saved, followed by a language, means Aimy has already switched to answering in that language. Forgotten means the matching notes were removed, and says how many or which ones.

Suggestions go to your workspace admins for review. Nothing becomes part of what the expert answers from until an admin approves it. In Settings, the Suggestions section lets you pick an expert, describe what it should know, attach up to five documents and click Send for review. A table below shows what you've sent and whether it was added, declined or is still waiting. If no expert is accepting suggestions, the form says so.

If you reach your plan's usage limit, the chat tells you and shows how much of the plan you've used.

If you asked a person with Ask an admin, their reply shows up in the chat as an ordinary message. While the tab is open, Chat checks for new replies every few seconds.

Your conversations

Every conversation is saved in the sidebar, grouped under Pinned, Today, Yesterday, Previous 7 Days and Older, with an Archived group at the end. Click New chat to start another. A chat gets a title on its own after the first exchange. If the title isn't what you want, rename it.

Search chats... filters the list as you type. It matches chat titles only, not what was said inside the chats.

The button at the top of the sidebar collapses it to give the conversation more room, and the same button opens it again. On a wide screen you can also drag the sidebar's right edge to make it wider or narrower. With the edge selected, the left and right arrow keys nudge it, and a double click puts it back to its normal width. Whether it is collapsed and how wide it is are remembered per browser.

Click the chat's title at the top of the page for these actions. The options button on a chat's row in the sidebar offers Rename and Delete.

• Copy session ID copies the chat's reference, which is handy when you contact support.
• Pin keeps it at the top of the list. The same button then reads Unpin.
• Rename changes the title.
• Archive moves it out of the way without deleting it, and Unarchive brings it back.
• Delete takes the chat off your list, after you confirm.

While the title menu is open, you can press P to pin, R to rename, A to archive and D to delete, and Esc closes the menu. The letters do nothing when the menu is closed, so typing a message never triggers them.

Chat has no share or export button. To pass an answer on, use Copy.

The account menu

Your name sits at the foot of the sidebar. Click it to open the account menu. Switch theme flips between light and dark. Settings opens the settings window. Sign out signs you out.

Settings

Open Settings from the account menu. The Search box at the top filters the settings as you type, and sections with nothing that matches drop out of the list on the left. If nothing matches, the window says No settings match. It has these sections:

• General shows your workspace and who invited you.
• System sets appearance (Match your system, Light or Dark), the accent colour and the interface language: English, Bahasa Melayu or Simplified Chinese. The language changes the words on the screen, not the language of the answers, which follow whatever you type in. There are seven accent colours: Aimy Blue, Teal (classic), Violet, Emerald, Amber, Rose and Graphite. Your choice is saved to your account.
• Account shows your name and email. You change them from your Aimy account, using Manage your account, because they belong to the hub.
• Privacy explains in plain words how your data is handled. See below.
• Suggestions is the form described above.
• Data controls has Clear all chats, a list of Your uploads where you can delete attachments one at a time or all at once, and a shortcut to Memory.
• Memory, labelled Experimental, is described next.

What the Privacy section says

It opens by saying who builds and runs Aimy, and links to the Terms & Conditions, the Privacy Policy and the PDPA Notice. Under How we protect your data it says that, by default, the models that read your documents and write your answers run on the provider's own infrastructure rather than at a third party AI service, and that your documents stay in your workspace and can only be retrieved by experts your admin has given you. It names two exceptions. If your admin switches on web search for an expert, a question you send with it on reaches a public search engine. And if your workspace connects its own AI provider key, prompts go to that provider. Under How we use your data it says your content is not used to train models and is not sold or shared with advertisers. Questions go to your workspace administrator. For the full picture see Data and security.

Memory

Aimy can keep a few short notes about you so you don't have to repeat yourself, for example your role or how you like answers written. It can only keep six kinds of note: Role, Team or department, Location or site, Areas of expertise, Current work, and How they like answers.

In Settings, then Memory, the Remembering switch turns memory on or off for you. Off means Aimy stops saving new notes and stops using the ones it has. Nothing is deleted, so you can still edit or remove the notes already listed. If memory is off for the whole workspace, the switch is dimmed and says to ask an admin.

You can read every note, Edit one, Forget this for a single note or Forget everything. To add one yourself, use the box at the foot of the pane. Choose the kind of note from the picker inside the box (it starts on Role), type the note, and click the arrow button, which is labelled Remember this. You can also say "remember that I..." in a chat. Notes marked inferred were worked out from your chats rather than asked for.

Your notes are not hidden from the people who run your workspace. An admin who is allowed to manage what experts remember can open your notes from Members with the Read button, and every time they do, it is recorded in Audit logs as Assistant memory viewed. They can also clear them. See Members.

Memory depends on your plan. If it has been switched off for the workspace, the Memory section says so and points you to your admin.