#Chat — Talking to Your AI Assistant

You have an AI assistant that actually knows what you own, where you are, and what you've talked about before. It's like having a personal concierge who never forgets and never judges your snack habits.

#What It Does

The Chat tab is your direct line to a context-aware AI assistant. Unlike a generic chatbot that starts every conversation from scratch, your ambientChat assistant has access to your full inventory, your documents, your location context, and your conversation history. Ask it about your stuff, your receipts, what's expiring, or what you talked about last week — it already has the background.

It can answer questions, generate shopping lists, summarize receipts, estimate the value of your collections, and help you make sense of everything you've cataloged. Think of it as the one friend who actually remembers where you put things.

#How to Use It

#iOS App

Tap the Chat tab at the bottom of the screen
Type your question or request in the text field at the bottom
Tap the send button (the ↑ up-arrow) to submit your message. On iOS, the keyboard's Return key adds a new line inside your message instead of sending it — so you can write multi-paragraph or list-style prompts and only send when you tap ↑.
Your AI responds in the conversation area above, with your messages on the right and AI responses on the left

The Context Bar: At the top of the chat, you'll see a bar showing the current context being sent to the AI — your active beacon or location, nearby items, and any focused context. This is how the AI knows where you are and what's around you.

Attachments: Tap the attachment button (paperclip icon) next to the text field to send photos and images, PDFs, Word/Excel/PowerPoint files (.docx/.xlsx/.pptx), notes (.md), plain text, and spreadsheets (.csv/.tsv) along with your message. You can also pick something you already own — Pick from myAI Context attaches an existing inventory item or document by reference.

Attach a contract, a deck or a spreadsheet and just ask. Word, Excel and PowerPoint files are read for their text — the app extracts it and hands it to the AI, so you can ask "what's the notice period?" about a .docx the same way you would about a PDF. Choose Save as document and the original file is kept in Documents too, searchable straight away; choose Just discuss and it's used for that conversation only.

Two things worth knowing: old .doc/.xls/.ppt files need saving as .docx/.xlsx/.pptx first (see Documents), and a file that can't be read — password-protected, corrupt, or a slide deck that's all images with no text — will say so rather than letting the AI answer as though it had read it. If you attach something chat can't take at all, it tells you which file and what to do instead.

Choose what happens to an attachment. Once a file is attached, pick one of three:

Choice	What you get
Just discuss	Nothing is saved. The AI can see the file for this conversation only.
Save as document	The file is filed in Documents, in a folder you choose.
Add to inventory	The file is scanned and any products in it become inventory items, filed in an inventory folder you choose. Your photo is kept alongside them.

It's one choice, not a set of checkboxes — documents and inventory are separate folder trees, so the folder picker below shows only the folders that can hold what you're saving. Pick "Add to inventory" and you browse inventory folders; pick "Save as document" and you browse document folders. Switching between them resets the folder, because a document folder isn't a valid home for an inventory item. You can drill into subfolders, and New Folder creates one of the right type in the spot you're looking at.

Attach a photo and ask the AI to save it. Send a picture with something like "add this to my inventory" and the item is created from what the AI can see plus anything you tell it — and your photo is kept as the item's image, rather than the AI illustration scanned items normally get. Handy for one-of-a-kind things where the actual picture is the point. The same works for something you already own — "this is a better photo of my cordless drill" attaches the picture to that item.

Answers hand you the actual thing. When the AI touches something you own — creates an item, updates one, finds a few, opens a document — the answer carries the real record, not just a sentence about it. What you see scales with how many there are:

How many	What appears
One	The item's actual inventory card — the same card you'd see in myAI Context, with its photo, name, and details
Two to six	A row of thumbnails you can tap
Seven or more	A single chip — "24 items" — that expands in place to list them, grouped by kind, so you stay in the conversation

Tap any of them to open the real record. If something has since been trashed it shows up muted with an In Trash badge instead of a dead link, and if it was deleted for good you'll see its name as plain text with a note. The names and pictures are looked up fresh every time, so a thread you reopen next year shows what things are called now, not what they were called then.

This works for photos too. Attach a picture, choose Add to inventory, and the card appears in that same answer as soon as the scan finishes — usually a few seconds after the AI stops typing. You don't need to reload or go looking for it.

Ask AI about a specific item or document: You don't have to start in chat. Open any of your items (the speech-bubble button on the item's photo) or any of your documents (the speech-bubble icon in the header) and tap Ask AI — a fresh conversation opens with that item or document already attached. Type your own question ("Is this contract missing anything?", "Is this still safe to eat?") and send. Because the attachment is part of the conversation, the AI keeps it in scope for follow-up questions, and you can switch models mid-thread for a second opinion on the same attachment.

Voice Input: Tap the microphone button — in the row of round buttons above the message box, between the panel-of-experts toggle and the model button — to speak your question instead of typing. The app transcribes your speech and sends it as a message. Handy when your hands are full of groceries you're about to catalog.

Voice Output: The AI can read its responses aloud. When a response arrives, you'll see play/pause controls to start and stop audio playback. Useful when you're cooking and need hands-free answers about that expiring cream cheese.

Model Selection: Tap the model button at the right-hand end of that same row to open the model selector. The button shows the provider's logo and the model's price band — $ Everyday, $$ Thoughtful, $$$ Premium, $$$$ Frontier — and the selector spells out the band names beside the same $ signs. (Long-press the button to see the band name without opening the selector.) You can switch between AI providers — OpenAI, Google Gemini, and Anthropic Claude — depending on which model you prefer or which handles your question best.

Usage Indicator: A small indicator shows how many tokens you've used against your subscription tier's limit. Keep an eye on this if you're on the free tier — your AI is helpful, but it does have a budget.

#Web

The web interface at app.ambientchat.ai has the same chat, in your browser:

Open the Chat page
Type in the box at the bottom; Enter sends and Shift+Enter adds a new line (the desktop convention)
Responses stream in above; a Stop button appears while the AI is replying
Attachments: drag a file onto the chat, or use the attach button, to send images or PDFs — or Pick from myAI Context to attach an existing item or document. The same Just discuss / Save as document / Add to inventory choice appears, with a folder picker showing only folders of the matching type
Ask AI from a detail view: open any item or document in myAI Context and click the teal Ask AI pill in the header — a fresh conversation opens with it attached, ready for your question
Answers hand you the actual thing here too — the real card for one record, thumbnails for a few, an expanding "24 items" chip for many. Clicking one opens it, and the address bar updates so you can bookmark or share that exact record
Model picker: click the model button (top-right) to switch provider/model — your choice is remembered on this device
Panel: toggle Panel mode, then switch models and press ↻ to put your last question to the next expert — each one reads and responds to the last (see Panel of Experts)

Voice input and spoken replies are iOS-only — the web chat is text-only.

#Copying an answer, or just part of one

On the iOS app, tap the copy icon under any answer — or press and hold the answer itself — to open the copy sheet. The same sheet opens from the copy icon on a Q&A card. It shows the answer as plain text, which is exactly what will land on your clipboard.

Blocks (how it opens) — the answer is broken into its natural pieces: each paragraph, each numbered or bulleted point, each heading, each code block. Tap the ones you want, then Copy selected. Tap again to untick.
Free text — switch to this tab to press and hold a word and drag the handles, the standard iOS way, when you want a phrase from the middle of a sentence.
Copy all takes the whole answer, from either tab.

On the web interface you don't need any of this — just click and drag across the answer the way you would on any web page, then ⌘C / Ctrl+C.

#Tips & Tricks

Be specific with your questions. "What's expiring this week?" is better than "What about my food?" The AI has access to your entire inventory and document history, so the more precise you are, the more useful the answer.
The AI remembers your conversations. You can reference past chats: "What did we talk about last Tuesday?" or "Remind me what you said about my camera collection." It searches your conversation history automatically.
Try different models for different tasks. Some models are better at creative writing, others at precise analysis. If one model's answer isn't quite right, switch to another and ask again — your context carries over.
Press Return for a new line. On the iOS app, the Return key inserts a line break, so you can compose longer, structured prompts (steps, lists, several questions at once). Your message only sends when you tap the ↑ button. On the web interface it follows the desktop convention instead: Enter sends, Shift+Enter adds a new line.
Re-ask the next expert in one tap. In Panel Discussion mode (the 👥 team toggle), leaving the text box empty turns the send button into a ↻ repeat icon — switch models first, then tap it to put your last question to the newly-selected model, which reads and responds to what the earlier model said.

#Example Prompts

Here are some things you can ask that take full advantage of your personal context:

"What's expiring this week?"
"How much is my electronics collection worth?"
"Create a shopping list from my low-stock pantry items."
"What did we talk about last Tuesday?"
"Show me all my receipts from Costco this month."
"What spices do I have that go with chicken?"
"Summarize the warranty for my laptop."
"What's in my medicine cabinet that expires soon?"

#Options

Setting	What It Does	Default
AI Model	Which AI provider handles your questions	Gemini
Voice Output	Whether AI responses are read aloud	Off
Voice Input Language	Language for speech recognition	Device language

#Every Answer Is Signed

ambientChat lets you use models from all three frontier labs, so every answer tells you exactly which one wrote it:

In the chat, each answer carries the provider's brand icon and the friendly model name (e.g. Gemini 3.1 Pro, Claude Opus 5) above the bubble — including answers in reopened conversations and each expert's answer in Panel mode. Answers that arrived from an external AI connected over MCP are labeled "via " instead.
In the Q&A view (myAI Context → Q&A), every saved answer card shows the same brand icon + model name, a chip for the surface it came from (Text, Voice, or MCP), when it happened, and — if the exchange was part of a named conversation — the conversation's name, so you can tell at a glance which chat it belongs to.
The Q&A view is a scannable index: every conversation — single question or long thread — shows as one compact row with the stacked logos of every model that took part, its name, answer count, and time, so a screenful shows dozens of conversations. Everything starts collapsed; tap a row to expand its full answers in place (your expansions are remembered next time), and searching expands the matches automatically.
The ↗ glyph on a row reopens that conversation in Chat so you can pick up where you left off.

#When a Big Document Would Cost You

Your AI reaches for your own documents when a question looks related to one. Usually that is exactly what you want. Occasionally it would pull in something enormous — a scanned contract, a long report — and a large document is the most expensive part of an answer.

It now asks first. ambientChat knows how big your documents are before it opens them, so anything big enough to crowd out the rest of your context — around two or three pages of text, or a few pages of scanned images — is held back and offered to you rather than quietly added:

A large document was held back Scanned contract · 12 pages · ~24k tokens if included [ Include it ] [ Leave it out ]

The answer is written without it, and the AI is told the document exists and was not read — so it will say so rather than pretending it looked. If you tap Include it, the question is asked again with the document in.

Occasionally you will see the older wording, "A large document was used for this answer". That means the document was cheap enough to include without asking, and you are simply being shown what it cost. The buttons then offer Use summary only (keep the text, drop the scanned pages) or Answer without it.

#Your choice sticks for the rest of the conversation

That is the point: the same document would otherwise match your follow-up questions too, and you would be asked about it — and charged for it — over and over. A chip appears above the message box showing what you decided (e.g. Scanned contract · Not using · this chat).

Tap the × on the chip to change your mind. The document goes back to normal from your next question onwards.
Starting a new chat clears it. The choice belongs to the conversation, not to the document.
Reopening an old conversation brings its choices back, on whichever device you reopen it — phone or web.

Nothing appears for ordinary documents. A receipt, a short note or a one-page manual flows straight through, as before.

#Documents are matched by meaning, not by matching words

Your AI finds relevant documents by comparing meaning, not by looking for shared words. That matters: a question about your health plan and a document about your health plan share obvious words, but so do a dozen documents that have nothing to do with your question.

Very occasionally that meaning-based search is unavailable. When it is, ambientChat will not fall back to guessing from word overlap — it would rather use no document than the wrong one. The answer will say that document search was unreliable, so you know to ask again or name the document you meant. It won't quietly answer as though it had checked.

#Known Limitations

The AI cannot take actions on your behalf yet — it can tell you what's expiring, but it can't order replacements or throw things away for you. (Probably for the best.)
Token limits depend on your subscription tier. Free users have a limited number of AI interactions per month. If you hit the ceiling, you'll get a friendly nudge to upgrade.
Very long conversations may truncate older context. If the AI seems to have forgotten something from much earlier in the chat, start a new conversation — it still has access to your full inventory and documents.
Image analysis in chat depends on the selected AI model's vision capabilities. Not all models handle images equally well.

#Version History

Version	Date	What Changed
21	2026-08-21	Documents are no longer pulled into an answer on word overlap alone when meaning-based search is unavailable — the answer tells you search was unreliable instead of quietly using a document that merely shared some words
20	2026-08-21	The size at which a document gets held back now adapts to the AI model you have chosen, instead of a fixed figure that never triggered on the default model
19	2026-08-20	A big document is now held back and offered to you BEFORE it is used, instead of being added and billed first — with the page count and token cost shown up front, for every document type rather than just PDFs
18	2026-08-20	Choosing to drop a big document now sticks for the whole conversation — the note under the answer says what was applied instead of looking like nothing happened, and a chip above the message box shows the choice with an × to undo it
17	2026-08-19	The copy sheet now opens on Blocks — tap the paragraphs, bullets or code blocks you want and Copy selected; press-and-drag selection moved to a Free text tab beside it, so copying part of an answer no longer depends on the drag working
16	2026-08-14	Word, Excel and PowerPoint files can now be attached to chat directly and asked about — their text is extracted for you; an unreadable one says so instead of being answered as if it had been read
15	2026-08-14	Named the file types chat actually accepts (it used to say "or other documents", which read as though Word files worked); a file chat can't take now says so instead of disappearing
13	2026-08-08	The mic joined the button row above the message box (it used to vanish as soon as you typed); the model button now shows the price band as $–$$$$ instead of the band name
12	2026-08-05	"Pick from My Stuff" renamed Pick from myAI Context — My Stuff was never a real surface; the picker at Home now shows only Home's documents instead of every document in the library
1	2026-03-01	Initial guide
11	2026-07-26	Attachments now take ONE choice — Just discuss / Save as document / Add to inventory — and the folder picker shows only folders that can hold what you're saving; both surfaces
11	2026-07-26	Attaching a photo also works for items you already own — adds or replaces that item's picture
10	2026-07-25	Attach a photo and ask the AI to save it — the item keeps your photo as its image; see Inventory v10
9	2026-07-23	Corrected Panel mode description — it's sequential (switch model, then ↻ re-ask) not "ask several models at once"; see Panel of Experts v3
8	2026-07-20	Q&A is now a collapsed-by-default index — every conversation is one row, tap to expand, ↗ opens it in Chat; search auto-expands matches — both surfaces
7	2026-07-19	Q&A conversation collapse choices are now remembered across visits — both surfaces
6	2026-07-18	Q&A view groups answers by conversation (stacked model logos, collapsible); conversation names are tappable and reopen the thread in Chat — both surfaces
5	2026-07-16	New "Every Answer Is Signed" section — model brand icon + friendly name on every answer (chat + Q&A view), surface chip and conversation name on Q&A cards
4	2026-07-16	"Ask AI about this" from item/document detail on iOS and web — fresh thread with the asset attached, you frame the question; noted Pick from myAI Context in both attachment sections
3	2026-06-07	Added Web section — chat in the web interface (Enter to send, model picker, Panel, attachments); fixed "web console" wording
2	2026-06-06	iOS: Return now adds a new line; tap the ↑ button to send. Documented the web Enter / Shift+Enter convention and the ↻ re-ask-the-panel shortcut in Panel Discussion mode.

Chat — Talking to Your AI Assistant