Ask

Ask is a chat under CommSync AI in the sidebar. It answers questions like "I remember this team said something about a bio change — find me that message." You describe what you half-remember. Ask turns your description into several searches over your conversations. It reads the most promising matches and answers with citation chips that jump to the exact message.

Ask can draft — you send. Ask can search, read, and write reply drafts for you, but it can never send anything itself. A drafted reply lands in your composer for you to review, edit, and send, or discard. It also cannot archive, delete, or change anything.

Where to find it

• Sidebar → CommSync AI → Ask — its own destination in the left rail.
• A conversation — the sparkles button in a thread's header.
• A team — the sparkles button in a team's list header.

The sidebar destination sits alongside the Daily Brief and Agents; questions there search everything you can see. In a conversation, the sparkles button opens the AI menu for that thread. Ask about this conversation starts a chat scoped to that thread ("what did they ask us to do?"). The same menu can draft a reply or summarize the thread directly — see writing tools. In a team, the sparkles button opens Ask scoped to that team's conversations only.

The active scope shows as a pill above the message box. Clear it with the × to ask across your whole inbox again.

How Ask shows its work

Ask shows its work the way a coding agent does. Every search and every conversation it opens appears live as an activity row in the chat. Expand a row to see the actual matches — each one is a link into the inbox. When the answer arrives, numbered chips like 3 sit next to each claim; click one to open that exact message. A small footer under each answer shows how long the turn took, and suggestion chips offer natural next questions.

Ask about CommSync itself

Ask is also the in-app help agent. It answers questions like "how do I connect a Twilio number?" or "what does a seat include?" from the CommSync documentation. Those are the same pages under Docs, and Ask reads them live. Ask links the page it used, so you can read the rest.

Ask never answers a product question from memory. If the documentation does not cover something, Ask says so. It does not guess at a setting.

Attach a file to your question

Drop a file on the chat, click the paperclip, or paste one from your clipboard. Attach up to five files per message, up to 12 MB each.

• Images — Ask looks at them. "What is wrong in this screenshot?"
• PDFs — Ask reads the pages, layout and all, so tables and charts survive. A scanned document works too.
• Other documents — Word and OpenDocument files, spreadsheets, slide decks, calendar invites, and plain text. Ask reads the contents.

An attachment is context for that one question. CommSync does not store the file: it reads it for the answer, and the chat keeps only the file name.

What it can do

Ask searches messages, but its tool belt goes further. Each tool renders as its own card in the chat.

• CommSync's own docs — answers how the product works, from the live documentation.
• Contacts — looks up a contact and shows recent activity.
• Files & media — searches inside attachment contents, not just filenames.
• Look at images — reads what is in a screenshot or photo, beyond OCR.
• Charts — draws a trend, comparison, or breakdown from real data.
• Tables — renders line items as a real table instead of bullets.
• Meetings & availability — turns calendar invites into real events.
• Pinned facts — remembers a fact you tell it, for every future chat.
• Reply drafts — writes a reply draft you can open in the composer.
• Your past chats — searches your saved chat history.
• Your workspace's tools — calls your org's connected MCP tools.

Contacts. "What is outstanding with Priya?" looks up the contact. It shows recent conversations with unread counts. An awaiting reply marker appears on anything where their message was the last word.

Files & media. CommSync indexes attachments by their contents, not just filenames. It reads PDFs by their text and reads images and screenshots by OCR. It reads Word and OpenDocument files by their body, spreadsheets by their cells, and slide decks by their slides. It also reads RTF, forwarded .eml messages, and code or config files. CommSync recognizes even a file that arrives without a proper type by its extension.

A question like "find the contract that mentions net 30" or "that screenshot with the error" searches inside the files. Ask can also quote what a file actually says. Ask reads long documents in passes, so a 40-page contract is no obstacle.

Look at images. Beyond OCR, Ask can actually look at an image attachment. Ask can answer "what does the chart in that report show?", "describe the mockup Jordan sent", or "what error is in this screenshot?"

Charts. Ask for a trend, comparison, or breakdown, and Ask draws it: "how much back-and-forth with this client last month?", "chart my invoice totals by month". Ask builds charts only from data it actually found, and it cites the messages the numbers came from.

Tables. Line items get a real table instead of a wall of bullets. "List the payments that came in this month" renders vendors, amounts, and dates as rows. Each row links through to the message it came from.

Meetings & availability. CommSync parses calendar invites in your mail into real events. Ask "when is my next call with Priya?" or "did we cancel that appointment on Thursday?" and it answers with a card for the event. The card shows the date, time, location, attendees, and a cancelled badge when a later invite killed it.

"When am I free to meet Priya this week?" computes the actual gaps between your meetings during the hours you work. Only meetings that arrived as invites count as busy.

Pinned facts. Say "remember that Neil prefers Thursday calls" or hit the pin icon under any answer, and the fact lands in your pinned notebook. Every future chat already includes your pinned facts, so Ask does not have to re-derive what you already established.

Reply drafts. "Draft a reply that tells Neil Thursday works" reads the thread and writes a reply draft. The chat shows the draft with an Open in composer button. CommSync saves the draft to your Drafts like one you typed yourself. It does not send anything until you send it, and a Discard button throws it away.

Your past chats. CommSync saves every Ask conversation. "What did we find yesterday?" searches your chat history, so Ask does not have to work out the answer again.

Your workspace's tools. If your org has connected external services over MCP — for example, project trackers, calendars, and ticket systems (see Agents) — Ask can call the same tools. This lets it answer questions that reach outside your inbox. Members only get this when an Owner or Admin turns on Settings → Team → AI agents.

What it can see

Ask searches through your normal permissions — the same visibility rules as the search bar. It can only find conversations on channels you have access to, plus threads shared with you. A team scope narrows further; it never widens.

By default it searches everything except Spam and Trash. This includes the Automated and Promotions folders (receipts, order confirmations, and notifications often live there). It can also filter by date or channel type when your question implies one. File contents follow the same rule — Ask can only read attachments on conversations you can open.

Grounded citations

Answers only cite messages Ask actually retrieved during the chat. A citation chip always opens a real message. If the model tries to reference something it never found, the reference simply does not render as a link.

When Ask cannot find what you described, it says so. It shows the closest near-misses rather than guess.

Cost and control

• Each chat turn draws from your AI credits.
• Turn Ask off in Settings → AI → Ask.
• CommSync saves every conversation to History.
• Answers continue in the background.

CommSync bills each chat turn from your workspace's AI credits, like every other AI feature. When you turn off Settings → AI → Ask, the sidebar row stays visible but inactive.

CommSync saves every conversation to History (the clock icon in Ask). Reopen any past chat to continue it, or delete it permanently with the trash icon. Chats are personal — teammates never see them.

If you start a new chat or open an older one, that does not interrupt an active answer. Answers continue in the background: the sidebar shows the busy chat with a spinner and "Answering…". The finished reply is there when you come back. If your connection hiccups mid-answer, Ask recovers the completed reply automatically rather than let it spin forever.