Ask Base
The chat beside every page. Base's assistant reads your plans, builds and prices estimates, drafts documents and emails, files costs, answers questions about the screen you are on and runs the long jobs (a take-off, a programme) while you keep working. It can see the page you are looking at and your data. Everyone in the business uses it; what it is allowed to do for you follows your role and modules.
- Nothing to switch on. The Ask Base AI pill is on every screen once you are signed in.
- A microphone, if you want to dictate or use the wake word. Both use the browser's own speech recognition.
- Money actions need the Money modules and your role's permission; the assistant tells you when it cannot act.
Press the Ask Base AI pill at the edge of the page (on a phone, Ask Base in the bottom bar or top bar). The panel opens beside the page. Press Close panel to put it away; the pill shows an unread count when something arrived while it was closed.
- Type in the box (Ask anything…) and press Send message, or Enter.
- To attach, press the paperclip (Attach a file or take a screenshot), drag files onto the chat (Drop to attach), or paste. PDFs, images, spreadsheets, Word files, text, CSV and zips of plans all work.
- On a document anywhere in Base, Open in AI sends that document into the chat.
Files you attach stay pinned to the conversation across messages. A long job shows its progress inline; press Stop response to end it. Progress already committed is kept.
Press the mode pill at the foot of the chat (Chat mode: General. Tap to change.) to pick a mode: general, estimating, programme, project manager and any your admin has added. Modes change what the assistant is set up to do and the model it uses. The assistant usually picks the mode from what you ask; the pill says when it has.
Press Dictate. Keep talking; each pause sends and the assistant replies in text. End dictation stops. Press the orb above the box to hear replies read aloud instead.
- Open Settings → Voice and switch Wake word to On.
- On any page, say "Hey Base" followed by what you want. The chat opens, listens and sends.
The setting is per device. Base listens only in the browser tab that is open.
- New chat starts a fresh thread. Chat history lists earlier threads, with unread counts for anything the assistant posted while you were away.
- Split — new chat beside this one opens a second pane in the dock; drag the edges to size them. Close this pane removes one.
- Open this chat in its own window pops the thread out as a standalone window with no nav. Open as many as you like; a run streams into every window showing its thread.
Ask in plain words: "certify Pacific Plumbing's claim", "approve this bill", "issue a credit note for the retention". Because you asked, the assistant files the action to the Money page's Decide list and carries it out as you, in one step; Decide is the record of what was done. It reports the result, or why it could not act.
- The assistant posts into a thread when a background run finishes: a take-off completes, an automation it runs reports back. These show as unread until you open them.
- A run started here keeps going if you close the panel or move to another page, and finishes in the thread.
- On your first dashboard visit with no projects, the chat opens with an offer to build an estimate from a plan. Once per device.
- The help panel's Ask Base about this page questions and Ask Base to walk me through it both start a conversation about the screen you are on.
- Nothing the assistant does in a background run touches money. A background run that notices something (an unpaid claim, an over-invoiced order) files a proposal and waits for a person on Money → Decide. Only a person's own ask in a live chat runs straight through.
- Asking is approving. When you tell the assistant in chat to certify, approve or pay, it does it as you and records it; there is no second confirmation step. If you want to look first, ask it to show you rather than do.
- The same ask repeated within the day is treated as a repeat, not a second instruction. Asking twice for a credit note does not issue two.
- The chat can see the page you are on and act on it (change a filter, open a task), which is why a question like "why is this margin wrong?" works without you explaining which job.
- The assistant never writes a price into its memory. Rates belong in the rate book; a rule it learns ("we always run tradesman plus apprentice") is proposed in AI memory for you to keep or bin.
- Pop-out windows and split panes are views of the same thread, not copies. Closing one changes nothing.
- The wake word is a browser feature, so it works only while a Base tab is open and the browser has the microphone.