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How AI Apps work

How to create an AI App with the AI App Builder

Sue Kim avatar
Written by Sue Kim
Updated today

What is the AI App Builder? What is an AI App?

The AI App Builder enables your organization to create your own generative AI applications (AI Apps). Without writing any code, your teammates can streamline workflows and improve productivity. An AI App can generate responses from a specified set of your organization's knowledge sources, and it can take on a persona or perform specific actions via Instructions and Tools.

AI Apps tap into all of Glean's core competencies including enterprise search, conversational AI assistant, enterprise data connectors, user permissioning, and data governance.

Part 1: Creating an AI App

Who can create AI Apps?

Admins, Setup Admins, and Members with the AI App Creator role can create AI Apps. Please refer to How to enable your organization to create AI Apps to learn how to assign the AI App Creator role to other teammates.

Navigate to AI Apps

If you have the permission to create AI Apps, you will see Platform as an option in the dropdown menu when you click on your avatar. Click Platform and then choose AI Apps to open the overview page.

Create a new AI App

From the AI Apps overview page, click on the New AI App or Add button to create a new AI App.

Setup

In the Setup tab, you can specify Basic info, Knowledge source, Instruction, and Tools.

Basic info

  1. Choose an icon that is appropriate for your AI App.

  2. Choose a name that reflects the purpose of your AI App. For example, if your AI App is intended to answer HR-related questions, you might name it HR Assistant.

  3. In Description, state the purpose for your AI App. When a teammate interacts with your AI App in Glean Chat, this description will display in the initial screen.

Knowledge Sources

Knowledge sources are information that the AI App will have access to. You can choose to include individual documents, specific containers (e.g., a folder in GDrive, a channel in Slack, a Collection in Glean), or entire apps as knowledge sources for your AI App.

Glean’s permission awareness and data governance for each teammate still apply, so adding a source doesn't mean that everyone will get to see answers from all the docs.

To add a document as a knowledge source

  • Currently, you need to enter a Glean document ID in the input field. To find the Glean document ID, click on the Find document ID link.

  • Search for the document.

  • If you see the document you’re looking for in the autocomplete dropdown, hover on it and then click on the Add ID button.

  • If you don’t see the document you're looking for in the autocomplete dropdown, press Enter to view all search results. Hover on a result, and click the Add ID button

To add a container as a knowledge source:

  • Currently, you need to enter a Glean container ID in the input field. To find the Glean container ID, click on the Find container ID link.

  • Search for the container.

  • If you see the container you're looking for in the autocomplete dropdown, hover on it to copy its ID. Otherwise, press Enter to view all search results.

    • If the result is the container itself, click Add ID.

    • If the result is an item inside another container, and you want to add that container, click on Add container ID.

  • Important: If your container includes another container, the nested container is not added as a knowledge source. We are working to support nested containers.

To add an app as a knowledge source:

  • Click in the input field and choose an app from the dropdown. Assistant will reference all information available from this app when generating an answer.

Instruction

Enter instructions to further customize how AI App behaves. You can give your AI App a persona or specify how you want it to interact.

Soon, we will allow you to specify Tools to enable additional functionalities, including taking actions in other apps.

2) Publish

In this tab, you will specify how to publish the AI App, such as in Slack or with API.

All AI Apps are enabled by default to be published as a Chat API endpoint. You can also choose to publish the AI App in a Slack channel.

  • To publish an AI App to Slack, choose a Slack channel where you want the AI App to respond.

    • If your deployment has multiple Slack instances, you will see an option to first choose the instance and then the channel.

  • If you don't see the channel in the list of dropdown, click on Can't find a channel and add the Slack channel ID by following the directions below.

How to find channel IDs

To find a channel's channel ID, go to the channel in Slack and click on the channel name in the top bar. In the modal that appears, scroll down to the bottom of the "About" tab. Copy the channel ID shown and paste it into Glean.

Finalize and Publish

When done, click the Publish button at the bottom of the screen. You will then see your new AI App listed in the AI App overview page.

Part 2: Using your AI App

Chat

After you publish your AI App, you will see a URL at the bottom of the AI App Builder screen. Click the link which will open your AI App in Glean Chat.

Slack

If you published to Slack, add the Glean app to each channel listed above.

  1. Type /add and click Add apps to this channel

  2. Select the Glean app
    ​

Start asking your AI App some questions! Your AI app will generate answers based on the knowledge sources and instructions you've provided.

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