The AI Assistant builds an application from a description written in plain language. It designs the datasets, workflows, sample data, pages, and widgets, shows you everything it intends to create, and creates nothing until you confirm.

Understanding the AI Assistant #

The assistant works in two stages. First it produces a plan: a list of every part of the application it intends to create, which you can review, change, and correct. Then, when you select Create application, Auclio creates the parts in the plan.

The plan is built as a sequence of steps — the application, then its workflows and datasets, then sample data, pages, and widgets — and each step is checked against the others before the plan is shown to you. Because the work is a sequence of steps rather than a measurable quantity, progress is reported as the stage the assistant has reached, such as Designing your application…, Building your application…, and Checking everything fits together…, rather than as a percentage.

The generated application is a starting point, not a finished solution. Review its pages, datasets, properties, permissions, and workflows before using it with real business data.

Whether the AI Assistant is available depends on how your Auclio tenant has been set up. Where it is not available, Create with AI does not appear in the New application menu.

Who can use it #

Generating an application requires tenant administrator permissions, because it creates a new application. The assistant is opened from the New application button on the tenant homepage, which is shown to tenant administrators only.

Generate an application #

To generate an application:

1. On the tenant homepage, select New application.
2. Choose Create with AI.
3. Choose Describe it to write a single description of the whole application, or Step by step to answer a short series of questions.
4. Describe the application, or answer the questions.
5. Select Generate.
6. Review the plan, and change or retry any part of it that is not what you want.
7. Select Create application.
8. Select Open application to open the result.

Describe it offers a few example prompts under Describe the application you want. Selecting one copies it into the field, where you can edit it before generating.

Step by step asks for the Application name and an optional Description, then where the data should live, then how the pages should be built, and finishes on a Review step that summarises your answers. Under Local you either Describe it — list the things you track and their fields under Describe your data — or Import files to build the datasets from spreadsheets. Under How should the pages be built?, Standard pages builds a list page and a details page for each dataset without using AI, and Describe with AI lets you describe the pages under What pages do you want?. See Applications for detailed instructions on the M-Files option, which creates the application and its connection without generating anything.

A useful description names the things the application tracks, their properties, how they relate to each other, and what users should be able to do with them:

A help desk with tickets, priorities and a status workflow. Each ticket has a title, a description, a requester, an assignee, and a priority of Low, Medium or High. Users should see a list of open tickets and open a details page for each one.

Work in the background #

Generation takes a while, and you do not have to watch it. Select the minimise control in the dialog title, whose tooltip reads Keep working — this carries on in the background, and the generation continues in the background task tray while you do something else, including in another application. Select the entry in the tray to reopen the dialog.

Selecting Cancel while generation is running asks you to confirm with Discard this application?, because closing the dialog stops the generation and discards the attempt.

Review and change the plan #

When the plan is ready, the dialog lists what will be created, grouped under Application, Workflows, Datasets, Sample data, Pages, and Widgets, with a heading such as Here’s the application that will be created (24 items). The assistant may also add a short explanation of what it built above the list.

You can change the plan in three ways before anything is created:

• Change one part. Select the pencil icon on a card, whose tooltip reads Ask the AI to change this, describe the change — for example call this Bookings — and select Apply. Only that part is rebuilt.
• Change the plan as a whole. Under Anything you’d like to change?, describe the change — for example Add a Payments dataset linked to contracts or Drop the dashboard page — and select Update the plan. Everything you do not mention stays as it is.
• Start again. Select Edit prompt to change your description, then Regenerate to produce a new plan. This replaces the whole plan, including the parts you were happy with.

A card marked Needs attention has a problem that has to be fixed before the application can be created, and Create application stays unavailable until it is. A card marked Note carries a warning only and does not block creation.

When a step fails #

Sometimes a step cannot be built — the assistant could not produce a valid table for a page, for example — even after trying several times on its own. A failed step does not fail the whole generation. The rest of the plan is still shown, the heading adds how many parts could not be built, and each failed part appears as a card in the place it would have occupied, with the reason it failed.

A failed card is marked in one of two ways:

• Not built — this step itself failed.
• Skipped — this step was not attempted, because something it depends on did not build. A widget on a page that failed is skipped, for example.

To retry a failed step:

1. On the card, select Retry with AI.
2. Optionally, under Anything the AI should do differently? (optional), describe what you wanted. The reason the step failed is passed back to the assistant automatically, so you can leave this empty.
3. Select Retry.

Only that step is run again, and the rest of the plan is left untouched. If the retry succeeds, the card is replaced by what was built. If it fails again, the card stays, showing the new reason, and you can retry again with a different description.

You do not have to retry every failed step. Create application remains available, and creates the parts that were built. Anything left out can be added by hand afterwards in layout edit mode.

When creation fails #

Occasionally a part of the plan is rejected when the application is created. In that case Auclio shows Couldn’t create the application, lists each item that could not be applied with the reason, and saves nothing. Items that only failed because they were waiting on another item are listed separately, under a control that reads, for example, 3 more were waiting on those.

To fix an item, select Fix this with AI beside it, optionally describe what you wanted under Optional: what did you want here?, and select Fix. Once every item is fixed, select Create application again.

AI credits #

Every AI operation spends AI credits, Auclio’s unit for AI usage. Your organisation’s plan sets how many credits can be spent.

What spends credits #

Classification reads only the opening pages of a document, so it costs less than extraction, which reads the whole document. The rates shown are the standard rates.

See Upload widget for detailed instructions on suggesting a dataset for uploaded files.

Monthly allowance and daily cap #

Credits are limited in two ways:

• This month is your plan’s monthly allowance. It resets automatically at the start of each month.
• Today is a daily safety cap, not a separate allowance. It exists to stop a runaway job or a bulk import from spending a whole month’s allowance in a single day. It resets automatically every day.

Both windows are counted in UTC, so the daily cap resets at midnight UTC rather than at midnight in your timezone.

Either limit can be unlimited, in which case your plan does not restrict AI usage at that level.

When the limit is reached #

Reaching either limit blocks further AI operations until the next reset. Nothing already created is lost.

The operation that hits the limit stops with a message saying which limit was reached:

• Your organisation has used its AI allowance for today. It becomes available again tomorrow.
• Your organisation has used its AI allowance for this month.
• AI features are not included in your organisation’s plan. — shown where the plan includes no AI credits at all.

A generation that reaches the limit part-way through stops as a whole, rather than recording every remaining step as failed. Retrying a step stops in the same way.

Only tenant administrators can see how many credits have been used. Other users see only the message, and only once the limit has been reached.

Advanced #

Check AI credit usage #

Tenant administrators can see the tenant’s AI credit usage in the tenant settings.

To check AI credit usage:

1. On the tenant homepage, select the gear icon in the top-right corner.
2. Open General.
3. Find AI credits under Subscription Details.

AI credits shows two meters, This month and Today, each with the credits used against the limit, for example 120,000 / 500,000. An unlimited window is shown as ∞ and has no bar. Each bar is green while there is plenty of room, turns amber at 75 per cent of its limit, and red at 90 per cent.

Select the information icon beside AI credits, whose tooltip reads How AI credits work, to open Understanding AI credits, which summarises what spends credits and how to read the two meters.

The limits are set by your plan and cannot be changed from the tenant settings. Contact your Auclio representative if you need a higher allowance.

See Navigate the Auclio interface for detailed instructions on the other tenant settings.