# The AI Assistant in chat

Start a chat with the AI Assistant from the app's Chat tab. It answers from your knowledge base, looks up your tasks (and, for managers, sales and who's on shift), and can read a photo you take.

For: Admins, Managers, Employees · On: iOS, Android · [Help Center](https://www.mays.app/help) › [AI & automation](https://www.mays.app/help/ai-automation) · Last updated October 2, 2026 · Mays Team

Start a chat with the AI Assistant from the app's **Chat** tab. It answers from your knowledge base, looks up your tasks (and, for managers, sales and who's on shift), and can read a photo you take.

Everyone can use it, in the iPhone and Android apps. It isn't on shared kiosk tablets, which don't have Chat. Each answer uses AI credits.

## Start an AI chat

1. Open **Chat** and tap **+** at the top.
2. On **New Message** (iPhone) or **New Conversation** (Android), tap **AI Assistant** (*Start a new AI chat*).
3. Type your question and tap send.

![The New Message screen on iPhone with AI Assistant — Start a new AI chat at the top, then New Group, then the team listed under North and South](https://mays-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/site/help__ai-assistant-in-chat__01-new-message.cb72e5d9d0.png)

The answer appears as a message in the chat, after a moment of *typing*. Keep asking follow-up questions in the same chat: it remembers the conversation.

![An empty chat with the AI Assistant on iPhone: the AI Assistant name at the top and, at the bottom, the Type a message... box with only a camera button next to it](https://mays-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/site/help__ai-assistant-in-chat__02-ai-chat.f44cabbc3b.png)

Each tap on **AI Assistant** starts a new chat. Your AI chats sit in the **Messages** list with a purple sparkle, named after what you asked about.

## What you can ask

| Ask about | Who can |
| --- | --- |
| Your SOPs, recipes and policies, from the knowledge base. See [AI answers from your knowledge base](https://www.mays.app/help/knowledge-training/ai-answers-from-your-knowledge-base). | Everyone |
| Your own tasks: what's left today, what's overdue | Everyone |
| Who's on shift right now, and everyone's scheduled hours this week at your locations | Managers and admins |
| Sales totals for your locations, from a connected POS such as Square | Managers and admins |
| Thermometer readings and recent task activity at your locations | Everyone |
| Searching all tasks, finding a team member, labor cost, low stock, invoices waiting for review, answers from custom forms | Managers and admins |
| Building a report | Managers and admins |

If an employee asks for sales, who's on shift or weekly hours, the AI Assistant replies *Ask your manager for sales and hours figures.* Sales follow the **View Operations Dashboard** permission, and who's on shift and hours follow **View Schedule**. Managers and admins have both unless a custom role takes them away. See [Roles and permissions](https://www.mays.app/help/team-roles/roles-and-permissions).

Managers and admins can also ask it to **create a task** or **update someone's details** (phone, email, notes). It can't change the schedule, and it can't tell you when your next shift is: check the **Schedule** tab for that.

It answers in the language you write in.

## Send it a photo

In an AI chat, the camera button next to the message box is the only attachment. Take a photo, for example of a label or a delivery note, and add a question in the caption. Without a caption, the AI describes the photo and responds to it.

Photos from your library, voice notes, files and GIFs can't be sent in an AI chat.

## Delete an AI chat

1. Open the chat and tap **AI Assistant** (or the chat's name) at the top.
2. Tap **Delete Conversation** and confirm.

## AI credits

Each answer uses AI credits from one of the locations you work at. It shows as **Chat** under **Usage by Feature** on the location's **Billing & Credits** tab. A short answer uses a few credits; long chats and photos use more.

When the location runs out of credits, or its trial has ended without a plan, the AI Assistant replies *I can't reply right now — this branch is out of AI credits.* Ask your admin to add credits. See [AI credits](https://www.mays.app/help/account-billing/ai-credits).

## Good to know

- **No notification for answers.** The AI Assistant's replies don't send a push notification, so stay in the chat for the answer.
- **Check what matters.** The AI can misread a question or a photo. For allergens, temperatures and money, check the article or report it's based on.
- **Other messages from the AI Assistant.** When AI photo verification flags a photo, the location's escalation manager gets a message from the AI Assistant about it. The AI doesn't reply in that chat. See [AI photo verification](https://www.mays.app/help/tasks-checklists/ai-photo-verification).
- **On the web** there's Mays AI instead, for admins and managers. See [Asking Mays AI on the web](https://www.mays.app/help/ai-automation/mays-ai-on-the-web).

## Related articles

- Knowledge & training: [AI answers from your knowledge base](https://www.mays.app/help/knowledge-training/ai-answers-from-your-knowledge-base) — The AI Assistant in the app's Chat tab answers your team's questions from your knowledge base. How articles and documents get ready for it, who sees which answers, and what it costs.
- Team chat: [Messaging your team](https://www.mays.app/help/team-chat/team-chat-basics) — Message your coworkers in the Chat tab of the Mays app — start a conversation, find an old message, see who has read yours and mute a busy chat.
- AI & automation: [Asking Mays AI on the web](https://www.mays.app/help/ai-automation/mays-ai-on-the-web) — Mays AI is the round button in the corner of every web page. Ask it about today's tasks, who's on shift, sales, temperatures or labor cost, or have it build a report you can save.
- Account & billing: [AI credits](https://www.mays.app/help/account-billing/ai-credits) — Mays's AI features use AI credits from each location's balance. What uses them, how many your plan adds every month, how to check a balance and how to buy more.
- Knowledge & training: [Your knowledge base](https://www.mays.app/help/knowledge-training/knowledge-base-basics) — Keep your SOPs, recipes and policies in one place. Admins and managers build folders of articles and documents on the web; the whole team reads and searches them in the app.
- Team chat: [Photos, files and sharing in chat](https://www.mays.app/help/team-chat/photos-files-and-sharing) — Send photos, videos, voice notes, files, your location, GIFs, tasks and Knowledge Base articles in chat, and share photos, text and links into Mays from other apps.

## Still need help?

Send us a support request and a real person on the Mays team will get back to you.

[Contact support](https://www.mays.app/contact?topic=support) · [Call +1 (561) 286-3939](tel:+15612863939)

Canonical: https://www.mays.app/help/ai-automation/ai-assistant-in-chat