**Source:** https://heykiku.com/help/ai-chat

# AI Chat Assistant

The chat is where your team gets answers. heykiku's [AI chat assistant](https://heykiku.com/features/ai-chat) takes a question in plain language and answers it from your documents, with citations. Ask a question, get an answer.

## How It Works

heykiku has one AI agent trained on your uploaded documents. When someone asks a question:

1. The AI searches your knowledge base
2. It finds relevant content the user can access
3. It generates an answer with source citations
4. The user can verify by clicking through to the original document

## Access Control in Chat

The AI only searches documents the user can access. A freelancer asking about pricing won't get answers from Sensitive-tier content—even if that content would answer their question.

This happens automatically. No configuration needed.

## What Makes heykiku Different

**Only your content:** Answers come from your documents, not the general internet. No hallucinations from random web content.

**Source citations:** Answers show where the information came from. Citation chips appear inline — click one to open that document directly in the Knowledge panel without leaving chat. If a document was deleted after the answer was generated, clicking its chip won't open anything — the chip turns into plain text, and hovering it shows "Document no longer available". Deleted documents are also left out of the Sources list under the answer.

**Sidebar locked during answers:** While an answer is streaming, the conversation list in the sidebar is locked — you can't switch conversations or start a new one until the answer finishes. This prevents the partial answer from getting cut off.

**Role-aware:** Different team members get different answers based on their access level.

## Conversation Context

Within a session, the AI remembers what you've discussed. You can ask follow-up questions:

- "What's our revision policy?" → Answer
- "What about rush projects?" → Knows you're still asking about revisions

Start a new chat when switching topics.

## Find a past conversation

Use the search field at the top of the conversation list to filter by title. Conversations are titled automatically based on your first message, so searching for the topic usually finds the right one.

Press Cmd+K (or / on the chat page) to jump to the search field. Search works while heykiku is mid-answer. If you click a result, heykiku waits for the current answer to finish before switching.

## When There's No Answer

If heykiku can't find relevant content, it tells you honestly rather than making something up. This is a signal to:
- Upload a document covering this topic
- Record a voice memo explaining it

## Related terms

- [Agency Knowledge Base](https://heykiku.com/glossary/agency-knowledge-base)
- [Single Source of Truth](https://heykiku.com/glossary/single-source-of-truth)
- [Institutional Memory](https://heykiku.com/glossary/institutional-memory)