Skip to main content

​
Immediate Value

By the end of this tutorial you will have generated a meeting brief, reviewed a suggested field update, and asked AI Chat to make a change you approved — the three things Affinity AI does for you every day.

​
Prerequisites

  • Tutorial 0.2 complete. Affinity AI reads your synced email and calendar. Without sync there is nothing for it to work from.
  • Scale, Advanced, or Enterprise. All four agents and AI Chat are on these plans.
  • An admin has enabled Affinity AI for your organization at Settings → Automations & AI → Affinity AI. If you can’t see Ascend or AI Chat in the left navigation, that’s the first thing to check.

​
Quick-Start Roadmap

​
Why Affinity AI Matters

Most CRM work is not deciding — it’s assembling. Reading back through a thread before a call, remembering to log what changed, working out who knows someone at a target company. Affinity AI does that assembly. Agents work in the background and put suggestions in front of you. AI Chat answers questions on demand and can make changes when you approve them. The word to hold onto is suggest. Nothing is written to your CRM without you approving it, and there is no “always allow”.

​
Task 1: Find Ascend and Learn What Each Agent Does

​
Context

Ascend is where the agents live — a left-navigation item with a New badge. AI Chat is a separate item in the same navigation, and opens as a docked side panel. They work together but they are not the same thing.

​
Action

  1. Click Ascend in the left navigation.
  2. You’ll land on Agent Activity — the feed of what the agents have produced for you.
  3. Click the Agents tab to see the four agent cards.
There are four agents, and they don’t all work the same way:
Only Meeting Prep and Data Update are background agents with a Monitoring toggle. Warm Intro is something you ask for, and Document Synthesis hasn’t shipped yet.

​
Expected Outcome

You can find Ascend, you know the difference between Agent Activity and Agents, and you know which two agents actually run in the background.

​
📚 Help Center

​
Task 2: Turn On Monitoring for Yourself

​
Context

This is the step people miss. Your admin enabling Affinity AI for the organization does not switch the background agents on for you — each member turns Monitoring on for themselves. If you skip this, Ascend will sit empty and look broken.

​
Action

  1. Go to Ascend → Agents.
  2. On the Meeting Prep card, switch Monitoring on.
  3. Do the same on Data Update if you want suggested field updates.
You can turn Monitoring off again at any time, per agent. Turning it off stops new suggestions; it doesn’t remove what the agent has already produced.

​
Expected Outcome

Monitoring is on for at least one background agent, so Ascend has something to fill up with.

​
📚 Help Center

​
Task 3: Generate a Meeting Brief

​
Context

A brief pulls together the thread history, notes, and relationship context for an external meeting, so you walk in already caught up. You can ask for one whenever you want rather than waiting for one to appear.

​
Action

  1. Open the Meetings panel.
  2. Find an upcoming external meeting — one with attendees outside your firm.
  3. Click Generate a meeting brief for this meeting.
  4. Give it a moment, then open the brief from Ascend → Agent Activity.
The button appears on external meetings. An internal-only meeting won’t offer one, which is expected rather than a fault.

​
Expected Outcome

You have read a brief for a real upcoming meeting and know where to find it again.

​
📚 Help Center

​
Task 4: Review and Approve a Suggested Field Update

​
Context

The Data Update agent reads your meeting notes and proposes field changes — a stage moving on, a detail you mentioned on a call. It proposes; you decide. This is the habit worth building, because it is what keeps records current without anyone doing admin.

​
Action

  1. Go to Ascend → Agent Activity.
  2. Find a Suggested Field Update.
  3. Read what it proposes and compare it against the note it came from.
  4. Approve it, or dismiss it if it’s wrong.
Review the suggestion against the source, don’t approve on autopilot. The agent works from what was said in a meeting, and what was said isn’t always what was decided.

​
Expected Outcome

You have accepted or rejected at least one suggestion and understand that nothing reaches your CRM unless you say so.

​
📚 Help Center

​
Task 5: Ask AI Chat a Question — Then Have It Make a Change

​
Context

AI Chat is a docked side panel that has read every company, person, note, and interaction you have access to. It answers questions, and it can make four kinds of change once you approve them.

​
Action

First, ask it something:
  1. Open AI Chat from the left navigation.
  2. Try a real question — “Help me prep for my meeting with Acme Corp tomorrow”, or “Who at our firm has the strongest relationship with Sequoia?”
  3. Ask a follow-up in the same thread to refine the answer.
Then, have it do something:
  1. Ask it to make a change — for example, “Create a reminder to follow up with Acme in two weeks.”
  2. It will propose the change and wait. Read the proposal, then approve it.
These four actions are available today:
  • Update a field — a field value, or an opportunity’s pipeline stage
  • Add to a list — add a record to one of your lists
  • Create a note — draft and log a note on a record
  • Create a reminder — so a follow-up doesn’t slip
What AI Chat will not do. It will not send email or outreach, merge or delete records, or make bulk changes. Uploading a file, creating a saved view, and creating a list are planned but not available yet.
Reading your meeting briefs inside Chat, and reviewing Suggested Field Updates inside Chat, are planned follow-ups rather than available today. Review suggestions in Ascend.

​
Expected Outcome

You have asked a question, had AI Chat propose a change, and approved it — and you know where its limits are.

​
📚 Help Center

​
Task 6: Ask for a Warm Introduction

​
Context

The Warm Intro agent finds the strongest path into a company through your firm’s collective network. Unlike Meeting Prep and Data Update, you ask for it rather than toggling it on.

​
Action

  1. In AI Chat, ask for a path in — “Who can introduce me to someone at Acme Corp?”
  2. Read the paths it returns, strongest first, with who can make the introduction.
  3. Use it to decide who to ask. Affinity drafts nothing and sends nothing on your behalf.

​
Expected Outcome

You know how to find a warm path into a target company without asking around the firm manually.

​
📚 Help Center

​
Good to Know

  • Everything is confirm-before-execute. Agents and AI Chat both propose; you approve. There is no “always allow” setting.
  • Activity history reaches back about 90 days (being extended), so very long-range “first ever interaction” questions may be truncated.
  • Answers are scoped to what you can already see. Affinity AI respects your permissions — it can’t surface a record you don’t have access to.
  • If Ascend looks empty, check Monitoring is on for you (Task 2) before assuming something is broken.

​
Troubleshooting

I can’t see Ascend or AI Chat in the navigation. Your plan may not include them, or an admin hasn’t enabled Affinity AI at Settings → Automations & AI → Affinity AI. Ascend is empty. Monitoring is off for you. It’s a per-member setting — see Task 2. There’s no Generate Brief button on my meeting. Briefs are for external meetings. Check the meeting has attendees outside your firm. A suggestion looks wrong. Dismiss it. Suggestions come from what was said in a meeting, which isn’t always what was concluded.

​
📚 Help Center

​
What’s Next

You’ve used Affinity’s own AI. The natural next step is bringing Affinity into the AI tools you already work in — Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot and others — with Connect AI Tools to Affinity with MCP.