Start a chat
A mention appears in the message box as a chip. Ari reads the exact cell, row, block, or Page it points to, so you do not have to describe it. See Ask Ari about a number.
The empty chat
A new chat shows the heading How can I help you? and the placeholder Ask anything about your business or data… in the message box. Four chips below it open suggested prompts for four kinds of question: Explain (what something means), Benchmark (whether a number is good), Decide (what to do), and Pressure-test (whether you are wrong). Selecting a suggestion puts it in the message box.The message box
The message box shows Markdown formatting as you type and keeps it when you send. Typing
1. or * at the start of a line starts a numbered or bulleted list, **bold**, _italic_, and `code` show as formatted text, and headings, quotes, and dividers work the same way. A sent message keeps its formatting when you open it again. Shift Enter starts a new paragraph, continues a list, or leaves a list from an empty item; inside code it inserts a line break. ⌘ Enter inserts a line break. Underlining is not kept, because Markdown has no underline.
Why Send is unavailable
When Send cannot be used, its tooltip says why.Attachment messages
While Ari works
Ari keeps working on cfo.ai’s servers until it finishes, even if you close the tab or switch chats. When you come back, the chat shows everything Ari did.Activity group
Ari’s reasoning and actions collect in an Activity group under your message. The group is open while Ari works and while it is on your screen. Once you scroll past it, it closes and stays closed. Your own click to open or close it always wins, and groups in an earlier conversation start closed. A closed group reads as one sentence naming up to three things Ari did, such as “Searched the web, checked memory and integrations”, followed by and N more for the rest, then the time and tokens the turn used. A group with only reasoning reads Thought it through. A step that was stopped reads Cancelled. The group does not report failed steps. A failed step shows the normal check mark and folds into and N more, because Ari often recovers by retrying or reading the data another way. Anything you need to know about a failure is in Ari’s answer.Messages you send while Ari works
Waiting messages sit above the message box until Ari takes them. A message that started a turn cannot be edited or deleted. Some waiting messages cannot be edited, only deleted, and editing says why:
For when to steer, queue, or stop, see Steer, stop, or add to Ari’s work.
Edits playing on the Page
When Ari edits a table you are looking at, it plays each edit on the Page. A caption moves to the cell, the editor opens, the new value or formula is typed in, and the changed cells are highlighted. The caption’s first line is Ari’s note for the change. Its second line is a sentence that says what the edit does, and it turns to the past tense once the edit is saved:
A formula in a caption is drawn the way the table draws it, with reference chips, rather than as its source text. A command Ari runs in its workspace is captioned with the line Ari wrote for it, not the command itself.
While a change is still running, the caption shows Ari’s note alone, and adds · Still working after about eight seconds.
The first edit of each kind in a turn plays at full speed with a short explanation; repeated edits play at twice the speed. Rest the pointer on the caption to pause. If your system asks for reduced motion, captions and highlights appear without movement.
The caption’s … button (Thinking animation options) offers Hide for this turn and Turn off animation for all turns. Turning the animation off applies to this browser and is the same switch as Show Ari’s edits as they happen in Settings. With the animation off, edited cells are still highlighted, and the chat shows Page and Formulas cards for Ari’s changes.
While Ari works, the Page follows it to each table it edits. Scrolling by about a third of the screen stops following; a smaller scroll, a click, or typing only pauses it. A pill near the bottom of the Page then reads Stopped following · Click to follow Ari (Tap on a touch screen) and then Ari is working…. Select the pill to jump to Ari’s newest edit and follow again. You can drag the pill to another spot, and the spot is remembered. A text block Ari rewrites while you have its Page open updates in place; if you are typing in that block, your save replaces Ari’s version.
Cards in the chat
Question form
Ari asks for details it needs as a short form in the chat.
Your answers appear in the chat as a record of the form, each question above your answer. If you scrolled up when a form arrived, select Scroll to latest messages to reach it. When a scheduled Trigger run asked questions at more than one point, they appear together on one form in its chat, and your one reply answers all of them.
Plan card
For a larger piece of work, Ari shows a plan before it starts. Under Included in this plan, the card lists what the plan covers, such as Pages and tables, whether Ari will create them or change ones you have. Under Assumptions, it lists each assumption Ari intends to use, with suggested choices.
While Ari works through an approved plan, a plan card lists its steps with a count such as 2/5. An Assumptions group under the steps names the decisions the plan rests on.
Tool-call approval card
When Ari wants to call a service you connected under Settings → Connections, such as an MCP server or an API, it pauses and shows Ari is asking to run “[tool]” on [service].
After you choose, the card reads Allowed, Always allowed, or Declined, and the chat sends Ari a short message for you, such as I approved the pending tool request — please go ahead and run it. Ari then continues on its own.
If the call can no longer be acted on, a notice titled Could not approve tool call or Could not decline tool call (Could not approve API call or Could not decline API call for an API) says why:
If the approval saved but the message to Ari did not go out, a notice reads Approved, but Ari was not prompted to continue. Send any message to have Ari run the call.
View from an MCP server
Some MCP servers bring their own form, such as an issue form. It appears under View from [server]: [tool], filled with what Ari proposed, and you finish it there. The note under it reads Runs in a sandbox. Calls it makes use your [server] connection and its approvals.- A call the view makes that needs approval shows its own card, The [server] view is asking to run “[tool]” on [server]., with the call’s Arguments, Allow, and Decline. A view’s call never offers Always allow.
- A link the view wants to open asks first with The [server] view is asking to open a page on [site]., the full address, Open link, and Cancel.
- A view from an earlier turn, or after a reload, starts closed with Open view. Opening it shows the original call again.
- Views appear only in chats in the cfo.ai web app, not in Slack or in scheduled work.
Email preview card
Ari emails you at your sign-in address as soon as you ask. An email to anyone else waits for you: Ari shows a card headed Preview with the recipients (To), Subject, and message, and the footer Review the recipient and message before sending.
If the mail provider accepted only some addresses, the card keeps only the addresses it refused, so you can send to them again without emailing the others twice. Scheduled Triggers work the same way, so a run that addresses someone else stops at the preview.
Email and Slack messages to you
When Ari emails you or messages you on Slack, the step in its activity group has one of these titles.Memory service messages
Ari’s saved memory lives in an outside service. When that service cannot answer, the memory search or save step in Ari’s activity group carries one of these sentences in its detail, and Ari reads the same sentence.Download a file Ari made
A file Ari makes for you, such as a workbook, an image, or a document, appears as a card with its name and size directly under the answer that ends the turn. PNG, JPEG, GIF, and WebP images show a preview. When the answer names the file by its exact file name, with the same letter case and extension and outside a code block, that name is a link to the same download. Selecting a file makes a download address that works for 5 minutes without a sign-in. A link Ari sends you, for example in a scheduled run’s message, works for 24 hours for anyone who has it, and stops sooner if the file or its chat is deleted. An expired link opens a page that says This download link has expired or is not valid. A file that was not deleted is still in its chat.Scenario confirmation card
When you ask Ari to merge, delete, or revert a Scenario and to let you confirm first, Ari posts a card instead of acting. You press its one button yourself.
The button turns off when the action is no longer possible, for example because the Scenario changed after Ari’s summary. See Scenario and version history controls.
Other cards
Reply to part of an answer
A Reply button appears above words you select in one of Ari’s finished answers. Reply, or ⌘ L, quotes the passage in the message box as an excerpt, for you to send with your question. The sent message shows the excerpt above your words, and selecting an excerpt scrolls to the original passage and highlights it. For the steps, see Steer, stop, or add to Ari’s work.- A message can quote up to 5 excerpts; past that, a notice says A message can reply to up to 5 excerpts. A long passage is cut to 2,000 characters.
- Reply is not offered while the answer is still being written, when the selection spans two answers, or in a read-only chat.
When a reply stops early or shows an error
For what to try when Ari is slow or stuck, see When Ari is slow, stuck, or wrong.
Billing stops: out of AI usage or over a limit
When billing stops a turn, the reply ends with Ari’s own explanation, which starts I had to stop here. No Retry is offered, because the same request would stop again. Fix the cause, then send a new message. The AI usage recovery panel and the low-usage notices that appear above the message box are listed in Plans and billing; to add usage, see Buy AI usage, set a spend limit, or turn on auto-reload.A message that never reached Ari
A message that could not be delivered shows Not sent. under it, with the reason. Send again sends the same text as a new message, and the delete button removes it.Earlier messages
A chat opens on its newest messages, and scrolling up loads older ones.The chat list: find, rename, and archive chats
The Chats section of the sidebar lists your chats, newest activity first. A chat moves up only when something happens in it, not when you open it. You cannot pin a chat to the top of the list, and you cannot delete a chat you sent a message in: Archive chat hides it and keeps its messages and files. To have data deleted, see Cancel your subscription or delete your data.
Changing the filter, or closing the Chats section and opening it again, returns the list to its short form.
A mark beside a chat shows its status. Point at it to read the status.
A chat that an AI assistant started through the cfo.ai MCP server carries an MCP chat mark; point at it to read Started from an AI assistant over MCP. See Connect an AI tool.
An empty list says No chats yet., No active chats., or No archived chats.
Notifications when Ari finishes
After a turn that ran longer than 20 seconds ends while you are watching, a line above the message box offers Get a heads-up when Ari finishes with Turn on. Turning it on asks your browser for permission. From then on, when Ari finishes a chat you are not looking at, the browser shows a notification from Ari that reads Replied in “[chat name]” or Needs your response in “[chat name]”. Selecting it opens the chat. The switch is per browser; see Change your theme, sounds, and notifications.Ari in Slack
Ari chats in Slack direct messages once your workspace is connected in Settings → Ari → Slack. See Talk to Ari from Slack.
Slack shows the text, bold, and links of Ari’s replies, and prints tables and headings as the characters typed. Question forms, approval cards, plan cards, download cards, and Guides do not appear in Slack; open the chat in cfo.ai to see them. A link to a Page or block opens it in your browser, under your own access.
The Welcome chat and the starting card
A new workspace opens on a chat named Welcome, with Ari’s greeting and a starting card docked above the message box.Company research and brief
When you verify your email, cfo.ai starts a public web search for the email address and, for a work address, for the company behind its domain. While the search runs, the Welcome chat shows a Searching the web step. When it finishes, Ari posts a short brief about you and your company. The brief ends with a Sources list: your signup’s email domain first, then each public page the research used, linked by its site and labeled with what ties it to you.
When cfo.ai could not research a company for your email, for example a personal address such as a Gmail address, a page that matches only your name is left out. The brief is researched for the person who created the workspace; a teammate who joins later gets a greeting and the starting card without a brief. To correct what the research found, see Teach Ari your company’s conventions.
Starting card
The card asks one question, and your answer picks one follow-up. Answer and select Get started to send your answers. Dismiss sends the answers you already picked and declines only the open questions. When your answer can take files, Attach files to your answer appears beside Dismiss and Get started; files sent without text read See attached files.
When nothing has established which business you run, for example a personal email address and no company named, Ari asks what the business does before it builds. A number Ari had to estimate is labeled as an assumption. For a guided first run, see Build your first Model.