You select some text in the editor and click the AI button. The AI reads your selection, writes a reply, and puts it in your clipboard. A message tells you “The answer is in the clipboard”. You can then paste the reply wherever you like. Nothing is inserted into your document automatically.

Use it for quick, self-contained requests: rephrase a sentence, explain a formula, translate a paragraph, suggest a title, and so on.

• The AI only sees what you selected. It does not read the rest of your document, so it cannot answer questions about parts you did not select. If your request needs context, include it in your selection.
• The AI has no memory. Every click is a fresh start. It does not remember your earlier questions or its earlier answers.
• Nothing is saved. The exchange is not stored by the application. If you do not paste the reply, it is gone.
• The reply is written in LaTeX, ready to paste into your document, not as plain text.

1. You select text in the editor and click AI.
2. The application sends your selection to the AI service you have chosen in your AI settings, using your own key. No other service is involved. It adds a set of standing instructions on how to answer. Those instructions are set by the site’s administrators, not by you.
3. The AI service writes a reply and sends it back.
4. The application converts the reply to \LaTeX and copies it to your clipboard.

Your selection ──▶ Application ──▶ AI service
                                         │
 Clipboard  ◀── (converted to LaTeX) ◀───┘

Vendors’ rules change. Check the current terms of the services you use.

• When you use a vendor’s own chat website, your conversations are usually kept in your account there. Here, the application keeps no conversation.
• Vendors typically apply different rules to their own websites and to the connections used by applications like this one, for example about whether your text may be used to improve their models. The connections used here are generally treated more strictly, but you should read the terms yourself.
• You use your own key, so requests are linked to your account with the vendor and billed to you.
• Only your selection leaves the application, and it goes to a single company, never your whole document.

If your selection contains confidential information, remember that it is sent to the AI service you chose.

• “No API key available…”: add or update your keys in your AI settings. You only need a key for the service that writes answers.
• Nothing happens: check that you actually selected some text.

You open a chat attached to a document, or to one of your document sets, and ask questions in plain language. The AI answers using the content of those documents, and the answer appears progressively as it is written. You can keep asking follow-up questions: the AI remembers what was said earlier in that chat, and you can come back to the chat later.

Think of a library with a librarian and an expert:

• The librarian (the embedding service) does not answer anything. Their only job is to find which passages of your documents are relevant to your question.
• The expert (the AI service) never visits the shelves. They receive your question, the recent conversation and the few passages the librarian picked, and they write the answer.

Both are outside companies that you choose in your AI settings, each with your own key. They can be the same company or two different ones.

1.2.3.1 Phase 1 — Getting a document ready (once)

Document ──▶ passages ──▶ embedding service ──▶ numbers
                 │                                   │
                 └──────────── saved in the application ◀┘

1.2.3.2 Phase 2 — Each question you ask

┌───────────────────────── saved passages
                          ▼                          (in the application)
 Question ─▶ embedding ─▶ numbers ─▶ application finds 3 best passages
             service                                │
                                                    ▼
 Answer ◀── AI service ◀── instructions + 3 passages + chat history + question
    │
    └──▶ shown to you, and saved in the chat history

If the two services are different companies, they never communicate. Each receives its own separate request, and the application is the only link between them. The AI service does not see your whole document, only the 3 passages picked for your question. The embedding service never sees the answers.

• Ask specific questions. Only 3 passages are given to the AI each time. A precise question finds the right passages more easily than a vague one.
• Follow-up questions need to make sense on their own. The librarian only sees your latest question, not the conversation. “And the second one?” gives the librarian nothing to search with. “What is the second step of the proof of the main theorem?” works better. The AI service does see the earlier conversation, but it can only work with the passages that were found for the new question.
• Answers are based on the documents. The instructions tell the AI to answer from the provided passages. If the relevant passage was not found, the answer may be incomplete or say it does not know.
• Very long chats get shortened. When a conversation grows past what the AI can handle, the oldest exchanges are removed automatically, including from the saved history. Start a new chat to change subject.

Vendors’ rules change. Check the current terms of the services you use.

• Less text leaves the application. On a vendor’s own website you might upload whole files. Here, the AI service only receives 3 short passages per question, and only the embedding service sees the whole document (once).
• Neither company sees the whole picture. With two different companies, one sees the document and the questions, the other sees the questions, answers and selected passages. Neither sees everything the other does.
• The history is kept in this application, tied to your chat, not in a vendor account. It is sent again to the AI service with each question so that it can follow the conversation.
• Vendors’ policies usually differ between their own websites and the connections used by applications like this one, for example on whether your text may be used to improve models. Read the current terms of the services you chose.
• Your keys link requests to your accounts at the vendors, and usage is billed to you.

This is not absolute confidentiality: both companies see your questions, and the AI service sees the selected passages. For sensitive material, choose services whose terms you have read, and consider whether the document should be prepared for AI at all.