Ascend FAQ

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Pricing & packaging

What tiers include Ascend, and is it included in current subscriptions or additional spend

• Scale, Advanced, and Enterprise. Included at no additional cost.

Is MCP access included in the subscription, or are there additional costs for Claude/ChatGPT token usage?

• MCP is included in Scale+ at no additional cost. Token costs in Claude, ChatGPT, or other external tools are between the customer and the AI provider. Affinity does not charge separately for MCP access.

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Enablement & availability

Where do we enable Ascend in settings?

• Settings → Automations & AI → Affinity AI.

Does Ascend go live today or August 5?

• Agents are live July 22. Your admin can enable Ascend now. If no action is taken, Ascend will be enabled by default on August 5.

Is Meeting Prep automated daily, or does it need to be scheduled?

• Automatic. Briefs generate overnight and are ready by 7 AM local time. No scheduling required. Also available as an MCP skill for on-demand briefs.

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Data sources & scope

How are the data quality agents verifying data, and what sources are they using?

• Our first Data Quality agent is reviewing very recent and primarily-unstructured information against the structured fields in your CRM and lists. It assesses whether the existing fields need updating based on the new information and suggesting those updates for you to approve with one click. Today, this update specifically sources from meeting notes, but we have plans to quickly expand this to other forms of unstructured data.

Where is the agent pulling context from?

• Meeting Prep uses relationship history, deal activity, past interactions, and news. AI Chat can query CRM records, notes, emails, meetings, pipeline lists, files, and enriched company data. Both use automatically captured data. 

Will Ascend only look at data in Affinity, or can it access other firm data?

• On-platform agents are scoped to Affinity data. MCP is the path for combining Affinity data with other tools — firms can chain Affinity’s MCP skills with other data sources in Claude or ChatGPT.

How are meeting notes and calls captured?

• Through Affinity Notetaker (built-in), or via third-party notetakers that create meeting notes through the Affinity API v2. Manual paste also works.

Do agents read and use information from email?

• Not at launch. Agents utilize on-platform information that the user has permission to access. 

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Notetaker & Integrations

Can I feed meeting notes via Granola or Otter directly?

• Granola’s current integration uses the old API (v1), which syncs notes to the person or company record, not the meeting. We’re working with Granola to update to API v2. Same principle for other notetakers: they need to create meeting notes via API v2 to trigger Data Update.

If I use a third-party notetaker, will I get all agent features?

• Only if the notetaker creates meeting notes via API v2. Legacy integrations using API v1 may not create meeting notes in the format agents need. Confirm which API version the integration uses.

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Agent functionality

What surfaces will agents support (e.g., Slack)?

• Three surfaces at launch: on-platform (Affinity web app), AI Chat (inside Affinity), and MCP (Claude, ChatGPT, or whatever AI tools the firm uses). Slack is not a direct agent surface at launch.

Can Data Update provide suggested field updates from a weekly dealflow call, or only from a specific company meeting?

• Data Update triggers from meeting note creation. If your dealflow call generates a meeting note (via Notetaker or API v2), it can trigger suggestions. Expanding Data Update to trigger from any note (not just meeting notes) is a near-term product goal.

Can data extraction pull from company decks sent to Outlook inbox?

• That’s Document Synthesis, which is visible in Ascend Settings but not functional at launch. When it ships, it will monitor inbound email for decks, teasers, and CIMs and feed Data Update. PDF attachments only at V1.

Does AI-suggested field updates support custom fields?

• Yes. Supported field types: Text, Number, Date, Location, Dropdown, Ranked Dropdown, Person, and Organization. Covers both global and list-specific fields. Identity fields (name, domain) are excluded.

Can we provide agents with additional context or work with our CSM to optimize?

• Firm-articulated context (injecting your firm’s specific rules into agent behavior) is on the roadmap but does not ship at launch. Agents currently use built-in domain knowledge. Your CSM can help with enablement and getting your team set up.

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Warm Intros

For Warm Intros, does this extend to 3rd-degree connections?

• Warm Intros maps paths within your firm’s own network, including inferred connections and LinkedIn connections your team has uploaded. It does not access other Affinity customers’ networks. Firm data stays siloed. It also flags past relationships (someone who no longer works at a company) so they’re excluded from the ranked path.

Will there be a LinkedIn integration for Warm Intros?

• LinkedIn connections can be imported via CSV into Affinity, which feeds the relationship graph Warm Intros uses.

Warm Intro for portfolio company fundraising?

• Warm Intros finds ranked intro paths to any target based on your firm’s interaction history. The same workflow applies regardless of the context. No specific fundraising walkthrough exists yet.

Skills for LP deal alerting?

• Not at launch. No agent or skill monitors external deal announcements at this time.

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MCP & Skills

Are MCP skills pre-built? How do we access them?

• Pre-built. They’re deployed as part of the Affinity MCP server. Restart Claude or ChatGPT to pick up new skills. There’s also a section in Ascend Settings where you can discover skills and get taken directly to Claude or ChatGPT with the skill ready to use.

What are the MCP skills? The slide said 10 but I only saw 5.

• Four MCP skills at launch: Meeting Prep, Warm Intro, Data Migration, and Event Setup. Market Map is coming soon after. The “10+” referenced new MCP tools (API endpoints), not skills. More than 10 new tools were added (create records, retrieve saved views, audit field history, etc.). Skills are pre-built workflows that run on top of those tools.

Considerations for Affinity agents vs. custom skills + MCP?

• On-platform agents run continuously without prompting, have governance (audit trails, per-agent controls, admin settings, review flows), and use proprietary Affinity algorithms for connection scoring and intro ranking. MCP is for when you’re already in Claude/ChatGPT, building something complex, chaining tools, or need third-party integrations alongside Affinity data.

MCP on Gemini / OAuth outside Claude and ChatGPT?

• OAuth is supported for Claude and ChatGPT today. MCP skills can run in Gemini or custom models, but OAuth is not officially supported for those clients yet. For programmatic backend access, use API key authentication.

Email insights via MCP/AI?

• This is not included in our most recent launch.

Timeline on MCP permission granularity?

• Granular field-edit permissions are being tracked. No specific timeline available. 

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Compliance & governance

How do we set up the compliance/governance layer?

• Org-level controls in Settings → Automations & AI → Affinity AI. Per-user agent toggles available (agents on by default; users can turn off any agent not disabled by admin). Agents are constrained to records the user already has access to. Firm-specific customization of agent behavior is on the roadmap.

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API

Will API call limits increase?

• On-platform Ascend features (agents, AI Chat) do not count against API rate limits. MCP does use API calls but is included for Scale+. 

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Other product

How does LinkedIn connections import work? Separate import per team member?

• Upload LinkedIn connections via CSV into Affinity. Intelligent matching to existing records; new records created for unmatched connections. 

Will there be a desktop app? Agents and agent output are web app only at launch. Mobile delivery is on the roadmap. No desktop app on the roadmap right now. Using agents for data merge and dedupe?

• The Data Migration MCP skill assists with data structuring and import workflows. 

Ascend tutorials for specific business functions?

• Help center articles, workflow walkthroughs, and deeper dives on each agent are here.