Asking Questions
How to phrase prompts, read citations, and iterate on answers.
The assistant is built to handle natural language. You don't have to phrase things a special way — but a few habits will get you better answers faster.
Be specific
The more context you provide, the better the response. Compare:
Draft an email.
against
Draft an email to a vendor introducing our team, mentioning that we're a mid-size SaaS company and we'd like to schedule a demo next week.
The second version gives the assistant a concrete subject, audience, tone, and goal. The reply will be much closer to what you actually want.
Reference your data
The assistant searches your Vault, meetings, calendar, and connected mail by default. You can also direct it explicitly:
- "In yesterday's standup, what did Alex commit to?"
- "From the Q3 board prep folder, what numbers stood out?"
- "Looking at my next two weeks of calendar, when am I free for a 90-minute block?"
If you've uploaded a document or shared a meeting in the chat, the assistant will use that as context.
Reading citations
When the assistant uses your content, you'll see small numbered badges in its reply:
- Hover to preview the source title, snippet, and icon.
- Click to open the source (a Vault file, a web page, a meeting, a calendar event).
- A Sources panel on the right collects every source used in the chat.
If the assistant didn't add a citation to a factual claim, treat it like generated text — useful, but worth verifying.
Iterating
Conversations are conversational. Common follow-ups:
- "Make it shorter." / "More formal." / "In bullet points."
- "Now translate that to French."
- "Use the data from the meeting I just attached."
- "Try again, but assume the audience is technical."
The assistant keeps the running context, so you usually don't need to repeat yourself.
Editing your message
To the right of your own messages there's an edit button. Editing a message rewrites the conversation from that point forward — useful when you realize you asked the wrong question.
Regenerating an answer
On any assistant reply, you can ask for a regeneration if the response missed the mark. The new attempt replaces the previous one in place.
Branching to try alternatives
If you want to keep the current reply and try something else, click Branch on the assistant's message. A new chat is created with the same context up to that point. The original is preserved. See Chat history.