> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://support.affinity.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Put Affinity AI to Work: Agents and AI Chat

> Let Affinity prepare your meetings, keep records current, and answer questions about your CRM — with you approving every change.

***

## 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

| Task | What you'll do                                     |
| :--- | :------------------------------------------------- |
| 1    | Find Ascend and learn what each agent does         |
| 2    | Turn on Monitoring for yourself                    |
| 3    | Generate a meeting brief                           |
| 4    | Review and approve a suggested field update        |
| 5    | Ask AI Chat a question, then have it make a change |
| 6    | Ask for a warm introduction                        |

***

## 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:

| Agent                  | How it works                                                                                                         |
| :--------------------- | :------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Meeting Prep**       | Background agent. Assembles a brief for an upcoming external meeting.                                                |
| **Data Update**        | Background agent. Reads meeting notes and proposes field updates for your review.                                    |
| **Warm Intro**         | On demand — you ask for it in AI Chat, it isn't a toggle.                                                            |
| **Document Synthesis** | **Coming soon.** The card is visible so you know it's on the way; it will read inbound PDF decks and post a summary. |

<Note>
  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.
</Note>

### 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

* [Affinity Ascend agents overview](/s/article/Affinity-Ascend-agents-overview)
* [Working with Affinity agents](/s/article/Working-with-Affinity-agents)

***

## 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.

<Note>
  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.
</Note>

### Expected Outcome

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

### 📚 Help Center

* [Set up and configure your agents](/s/article/Set-up-and-configure-your-agents)

***

## 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**.

<Note>
  The button appears on external meetings. An internal-only meeting won't offer one, which is expected rather than a fault.
</Note>

### Expected Outcome

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

### 📚 Help Center

* [Meeting Prep and Data Update](/s/article/Meeting-Prep-and-Data-Update)

***

## 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.

<Warning>
  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.
</Warning>

### Expected Outcome

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

### 📚 Help Center

* [Review and approve agent suggestions](/s/article/Review-and-approve-agent-suggestions)

***

## 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:**

4. Ask it to make a change — for example, *"Create a reminder to follow up with Acme in two weeks."*
5. 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

<Note>
  **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.
</Note>

<Note>
  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**.
</Note>

### 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

* [What AI Chat can do](/s/article/What-AI-Chat-can-do)
* [Take actions with AI Chat](/s/article/Take-actions-with-AI-Chat)

***

## 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

* [Warm Intro Agent](/s/article/Warm-Intro-Agent)
* [Warm Intros in AI Chat and MCP](/s/article/Warm-Intros-in-AI-Chat-and-MCP)

***

## 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

* [Troubleshooting Affinity Ascend agents](/s/article/Troubleshooting-Affinity-Ascend-agents)
* [Affinity Ascend FAQ](/s/article/ascend-faq)

***

## 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](/s/article/Tutorial-MCP-connect-ai-tools-to-affinity).


## Related topics

- [Working with Affinity agents](/s/article/Working-with-Affinity-agents.md)
- [Affinity AI Chat Overview](/s/article/Affinity-AI-chat-overview.md)
- [Prompts for Affinity AI Chat](/s/article/Prompts-for-Affinity-AI-Chat.md)
- [Affinity Ascend agents — Overview](/s/article/Affinity-Ascend-agents-overview.md)
- [Affinity MCP Reference](/s/article/Affinity-MCP-reference.md)