Start a conversation with the assistant

Ask the assistant a question, get a post drafted or ask it to do a task for you, all in a chat.

Before you start

• The assistant may not be available on your account yet. If you work in someone else's account as a team member, it's available when that account has it, and it follows the account you switch to.
• Check you're in the right workspace. The assistant works with that workspace's social accounts, and switching workspace starts a fresh chat.
• Don't paste passwords, API keys or private customer details into the chat.

Open the feature

Press Ctrl + J (⌘ + J on Mac) to open the assistant panel on the right. You can also open your profile menu at the top right and choose Ask Switch. On the dashboard, you can also type in the Switch box at the top of the page, or choose one of its suggestions, such as What's waiting for approval?. To use the full-page chat, click the Switch icon in the left menu (on a phone, open the menu and tap Switch). A small orange dot marks it as new until you open it once. You can also click the full-screen icon at the top of the panel.

Steps

1. Click the new chat icon at the top of the panel, or New chat on the full page, to start fresh.
2. Pick a suggestion under Start here (or For this post when the composer is open), or type your request in the message box. Say what you want, which network it's for and who it's for.
3. Press Enter, or click the send arrow. Use Shift + Enter for a new line. While the reply is coming in, you can click the stop button to cancel it.
4. Read the reply. Ask a follow-up in the same chat to change it, for example "make it shorter". A follow-up can point at an image or post from an earlier reply, for example "make the background blue" or "attach that image to my Friday post".
5. If the reply includes a draft post, choose what to do with it:
   • Copy: copies the text.
   • Edit draft: puts the text back in the message box so you can ask for changes.
   • Schedule…: puts a scheduling request in the message box. Check it, then send it.
   • Send to composer: opens the post in the composer so you can finish it yourself.
6. If the assistant asks you to confirm an action, read the summary and preview in the dialog, then click Confirm or Cancel. The preview shows what will change, for example the accounts and dates of a calendar link, or the question and answer under Save to FAQ Knowledge Base?. For some actions, such as deleting a post, tick I understand this action cannot be undone. first. If you delete a post that was still scheduled, you can ask the assistant to undo it right after.

Use the assistant from other screens

Open the side panel while writing a post or working in Calendar, Engage or Analytics. Review the current workspace and page context before asking for help. Browse the offered actions or request a task directly, including asking for a post label. Use the reply-rating controls to give feedback on a response. Rating a reply does not approve an action or publish a post.

Expected result

The reply appears in your chat, and the chat is saved automatically. A draft marked Draft · not scheduled has not been scheduled. What happens next depends on the task's autonomy level: Draft only leaves work as a draft, Ask approval queues it, and Auto within limits can schedule or publish without a chat confirmation. See Review proposed assistant actions.

Example

You want a launch post for your Facebook Page. Press Ctrl + J, type "Write a short Facebook post announcing our new spring menu, friendly tone" and press Enter. Ask "Add a call to action to book a table" to refine it. When it's right, click Send to composer, check the post in the composer, choose Schedule under When to post and click Schedule.

Limits and permissions

Ask approval and Auto within limits require the autonomy service to be enabled. Otherwise tasks remain at Draft only.

• The assistant can get things wrong. Check anything before it goes out.
• The Switch entry in the left menu and the phone menu isn't shown to advocates, in a client portal, or on a white-label domain. If the account you're working in renamed the assistant, the entry shows that name instead of Switch. When you switch accounts as a team member, it changes to that account's name.
• What the assistant can do for you depends on your role, your plan and the networks involved.
• The number of chats you can send depends on your plan. See Check assistant usage and action history.
• Some tasks queue for approval instead of running straight away. See Review proposed assistant actions.
• You can't upload files, photos or CSV files in the chat, and the assistant can't see images. Describe the photo in a line instead. To schedule posts from a CSV file, use Publish > Bulk Upload.
• To rate a reply, use the thumbs up or thumbs down under it. Click the same thumb again to clear your rating. Thumbs show only while Switch telemetry is On in the Brand profile panel; a workspace admin can turn it Off, and the assistant works the same either way.

Troubleshooting

If a provider stops responding, the assistant ends the idle stream. Retry your request after the error.

• The message box is greyed out: the assistant is still connecting. Wait a moment. If it stays greyed out, reload the page.
• You can't find an old chat: click the history icon in the panel, or use Search chats on the full page. Check you're in the same workspace where you started it, or choose All Workspaces from the workspace menu at the top of the chat list. Chats you started in Slack show a Slack label; see Ask the assistant in Slack.
• The post didn't change after you asked the assistant to schedule it: check Calendar before asking again, so you don't create a duplicate.
• You've run out of chats: see Connect your own AI key. Only the account owner and the workspace's admins can add a key, so if you can't, ask one of them to add it for the workspace.

Rename a chat

On the full-page chat, point at a chat in the left list and click the pencil icon. Type the new name, up to 80 characters, and press Enter. Press Esc to keep the old name. A new message in the chat doesn't change the name you gave it. If the rename fails, the old name comes back with We couldn't rename this chat. Try again. under it.

Find chats from other workspaces

Your chat list shows only the chats from the workspace you're in.

1. On the full-page chat, open the workspace menu at the top of the chat list and choose All Workspaces. Each chat shows the workspace it belongs to. To see another workspace on its own, pick it under My workspaces: Switch moves you to that workspace.
2. Use Search chats to filter the list by name. It searches the 50 most recent chats shown in the list.
3. Click a chat from another workspace. Click Open [workspace name] to switch to that workspace and open the chat, or Cancel to stay where you are.

A chat always continues in the workspace where you started it, with that workspace's accounts, brand and AI key. When you switch workspace, the list goes back to that workspace's chats. The side panel shows only the current workspace's chats. Chats you started in Slack follow the same rule and keep their Slack label.

Chats from before this change have no workspace. They appear only under All Workspaces, in Legacy chats. You can read, rename or delete them, but not continue them: click New chat to carry on in the current workspace. Point to the info icon next to Legacy chats to see this reminder. If you've been removed from a workspace, its chats leave your list.