Conversations

The conversation list and new conversations

Finding a conversation with search and filters, and starting a new one with one agent or several.

A conversation is a thread between you and one or more agents. The Conversations tab lists every conversation you have, the one with the newest activity first.

The conversation list: the search field, the All, Unread, Working and Agent filters, a row of agents under “Start a new conversation with”, and conversations such as “Sort September’s receipts” with Bill Payer and an unread count of 2.

A conversation’s row

Each row shows:

the agent’s picture, or the first two agents’ pictures for a conversation with several, with “+1” and so on for the rest;
the conversation’s title, and the time of its latest message: a time today, “Yesterday”, a weekday this week, or a date;
the agents’ names and the latest message. While an agent is working there, the row says “working…” in green;
a blue count of messages you have not read yet, with the time in blue too.

Click a row to open the conversation in the right pane. Opening it marks its messages read.

Finding a conversation

Search conversations finds conversations by their titles as you type.
The filters under it show All conversations, the Unread ones, or those where an agent is Working now, each with a count.
Agent opens a list of your agents; choose one to see only its conversations. The list then starts with a button to start a new conversation with that agent. All agents shows everything again.

Only one filter applies at a time: choosing one clears the search and the others.

Starting a conversation

Starting a conversation always starts a new one, even with an agent you have talked to before. Every earlier conversation stays in the list, and you can carry on with any of them at any time.

With one agent. Under “Start a new conversation with”, click an agent’s picture. The row scrolls sideways to more agents, and ends with New agent.

With several agents, or one you look for. Click the pencil button at the top of the left pane, or choose New conversation from the menu. The list makes way for a picker:

New conversation: “To:” with Chief of Staff, marked “leads”, and Researcher picked, the list of recent agents with a tick beside each picked one, and at the bottom “Chief of Staff leads. The others answer when tagged.” and a Start button.

Click agents in the list to pick them, and again to unpick them. Type in Agents, or describe a new one to find one by name.
The first agent you pick leads: it answers every message that does not tag another agent. The others answer when you tag them (see what happens in a conversation).
If no agent does what you need, type what it should do and press Enter, or click “Create an agent for…”: the app starts drafting a new agent from your words (see starting a new agent).
Click Start.

Before the first message

A new conversation opens empty, titled “New conversation”. A line above the message box says how the agent will read your first message:

“Chief of Staff reads your first message in its current session.” when the agent is already working through a session, or
“Your first message starts a new session for Chief of Staff.” when it is not.

A session is an agent’s working session: the stretch of work that all your conversations with it share. See Agents and Agent info for more.

Nothing is saved until you send that first message. Sending it creates the conversation, and the message becomes its title, which you can change later in Conversation info.