The Advisor

The Advisor is where you ask Groupthink about the people in your life.

Summary

• Open it from the sparkle button at the top of any page, or from the full page at app.groupthink.com/advisor. See Where to Find It.
• Ask a plain question, like "When did I last talk to Priya?" or "What do I owe Sam?", and it answers from your own records, with a link to every record it used.
• Ask it to do something, like "log that I had coffee with Priya", and it proposes the change for you to confirm. Nothing changes on your record until you do.
• It never sends a message for you. A draft is yours to copy and send. See Drafts Are Never Sent.
• Every change it can propose, what each card shows, and the limits on each are in Reference.
• The Advisor is part of Pro. It is included in your 30-day trial; after that, asking it something needs Pro. Your past conversations stay readable on Free. See What happens when your trial ends.

Where to Find It

• From any page: click the sparkle button at the top of the page (Ask your advisor). The Advisor opens in a panel beside what you were looking at. On a person's page, it answers about that person.
• From a block on Today: click Discuss with Advisor on a block with only you on it. The panel opens already talking about that block. See Talk a block through with the Advisor.
• The full page: click Open the full Advisor under the chat in that panel, or go to app.groupthink.com/advisor. The full page also shows a short list of things worth your attention about the people who matter, each with a link to the record behind it.

Give It a Name

The Advisor can go by a name you choose. Until you give it one, it is called Advisor.

• When you sign up: right after A little about you, a step asks what you want to call your assistant. Type a name and click Continue, or click Skip to keep Advisor.
• Any time after: go to Settings > Account and find the Your assistant card. Type a name and click Save name. To go back to Advisor, clear the field and save.

The name shows at the top of the Advisor panel and above each of its replies. Ask it its name and it answers with the one you gave it. If you text with Groupthink, the first text after you link your phone greets you by that name too. See Text with Groupthink.

A name can be up to 40 characters long. It can use letters, numbers, spaces, apostrophes, hyphens and full stops, and must start with a letter or a number.

Buttons that name the feature, like Open the full Advisor and Discuss with Advisor, still say Advisor.

Straight Questions Get Straight Answers

When you ask for a fact, the Advisor answers it in the first sentence. Good questions to ask:

• "When did I last see Priya?"
• "What did I promise Sam?" or "What am I still waiting on from Ana?"
• "Who haven't I been in touch with lately?"
• "Who am I overdue to reach out to?"

Each fact in the answer carries a small number, like [1]. Under the answer, From your record: lists the sources with the same numbers. Click a source to open the person or record it came from, so you can check the answer yourself.

If your records do not hold the answer, the Advisor says so in a sentence. It does not guess.

It Looks Things Up

The Advisor does not answer only from the people you were in touch with most recently. When a question needs it, the Advisor goes and reads your record before it answers. It can:

• Search everything you recorded: notes, captures, imported texts and emails, meeting summaries, what was said in meetings you attended, and calendar events. "What was the Thai place Haley mentioned?"
• Find people by name, email address or its domain (like acme.com), role, how recently you were in touch, or cadence. "Who at Acme have I not talked to since the summer?"
• Read your day and your prep. "What's on tomorrow?" or "What should I know before my 2pm?"
• Read when you are free, and your booking links. "When am I free Thursday afternoon?"
• Read your settings: which notifications you get, and how Groupthink attends your meetings.
• Read the notetaker: whether it is in a meeting now, and which of your meetings in the next 24 hours it will join. "Is the notetaker coming to my 3pm?"
• Read what is connected: your calendars and when each last synced, Messages, the desktop app.

When your Mac sends Groupthink texts from a number none of your contacts has, the Advisor can ask whose it is. See Texts From Numbers on None of Your Contacts.

These only read. Asking about a setting, the notetaker or your calendar does not change it. To change one, ask for the change and the Advisor proposes it for you to confirm (see Changes It Proposes), or tells you where in the app to do it.

An answer that needs a lookup takes longer. While it works, the line under your question says what the Advisor is doing, such as Reading your record, Reading up on Karlie Shields or Writing your answer, and it changes as the work moves on. When there is no step to report, the line reads Thinking…, and after ten seconds Still working on your answer. A long one can take a minute or two. If it cannot finish, it says so and you can ask again.

It only ever reads your own records. Nothing from anyone else's account is searched or shown.

Talking Something Through

Questions like "How should I handle this with Sam?" get a different kind of reply. The Advisor asks a question or two about what is going on, then offers two or three ways forward with the tradeoff of each. It does not tell you what to do. You pick, and you can come back later to say how it went.

Telling It About Someone

Much of what you know about a person is in your head and not in any meeting or note. Tell me about is where you tell Groupthink.

1. Open the person from Relationships.
2. Click the button with their name on it, for example Tell me about Priya. It is under the Ask box. On a person with nothing on file yet, it is next to Show all sections, under the line that starts Nothing on file for.
3. A chat box opens on the page. Write about them: who they are to you, why they matter, what you are working through with them. Start anywhere.
4. Click Send, or press Cmd+Enter (Ctrl+Enter on Windows).

What you tell it is saved to that person's record. Facts you write there, like where someone works or what you are working on together, can be used when Groupthink drafts or prepares for that person, in answers in the Ask box, and by AI assistants you connect. Anything that reads as your own feelings about them stays private to you: only the Advisor in the app uses it, when you talk to it. The Advisor replies with something it heard and, at most, one follow-up question. It does not give advice here. It is one conversation, so each reply builds on what you said before. Cancel closes the box, and New conversation starts a fresh one.

This is the reverse of asking the Advisor a question. Asking gets answers out of your record. Tell me about puts what you know into it.

Confirming a Change

Ask the Advisor to do something, or agree to something it offered, and it proposes the change on a card. Every kind of change is listed in Changes It Proposes.

Each proposal appears as a card under the reply. The card names the person, shows What will be written line by line, and says why the Advisor suggested it, with links to the records it is based on. A card about your own settings, an event on your calendar or the notetaker names no person.

• Confirm writes what the card shows. The card then reads Written to your record, with a link to the person's page. Confirming a logged interaction also does what logging one yourself does: it updates when you last spoke, and Groupthink reads the note in the background for facts about them, the same way it reads any note you add.
• Dismiss writes nothing.
• A card that takes an event off Today has its own buttons instead, Take off Today and Keep it. See Moving an Event and Taking It Off Today.
• A suggestion lasts 24 hours. After that the card reads This suggestion expired. Nothing was written. Ask the Advisor again if you still want it.
• If confirming fails, the card says so and Confirm stays, so you can try again. Nothing is saved until it works.
• If you already confirmed a suggestion somewhere else, in another tab or on your phone, the card shows it as saved.
• After you confirm a card that adds a phone number, to someone you have or with a new person, an Undo button sits beside Phone number added or Person added. Click it if the number was wrong. Only the number comes off; a person the card added is still in your contacts. The card then reads Undone. This number is back under Who is this?

The reply above the card also states each proposed change in a sentence and says that nothing is saved yet, so you can read what you are confirming before you click.

Drafts Are Never Sent

Groupthink never sends a message for you. A drafted follow-up shows who it is to, the subject (for an email) and the message. Click Copy draft to put it on your clipboard, then paste it into your email or Messages and send it yourself.

To change it first, click Edit draft. The same draft box you get from Draft outreach on a person's page opens under the card, with To, Subject (for an email) and the message filled in. Edit any of them, then click Open in mail app or Open in Messages to start a new message in your own app with your edits in it, or Copy draft. You press Send there. Regenerate writes a new draft for the same person.

Confirming the card saves the draft on your record; it does not send it.

Reference

The full list of changes the Advisor can propose, and what each kind of card shows.

Changes It Proposes

Ask the Advisor to do something, or agree to something it offered, and it can propose one of these changes to your record:

Proposal	What confirming it does
Draft a follow-up	Saves a draft email or text to the person. Nothing is sent. See Drafts are never sent.
Log an interaction	Adds a note that you talked with them, on the date it shows, and updates when you last spoke.
Add a commitment	Adds something you owe them, or something they owe you, with a due date if you gave one.
Set a cadence	Changes how often you want to stay in touch with them, for example from Monthly to Weekly.
Add a note	Adds a note to what you know about them.
Rename a person	Saves the name you gave as the person's name. "Catherine is Catherine Ruiz."
Add a person	Adds someone new to your contacts, with the email, phone, role and cadence you gave. "Add Sam Lee, he's a client at Acme."
Set a role	Makes a role the person's main one, like Client at Acme. The role they had before stays on their page as another role. "Dana's my sister."
Add a phone or email	Adds the number or address to the person. What they already have stays. "Sam's cell is 206-555-0100."
Set how you sound with them	Changes one setting Groupthink uses when it drafts a message to that person for you: a note on how they communicate, how formal, direct, warm or long to be, or whether emoji are fine. "Keep it casual with Dana."
Fix a logged interaction	Changes the day or the channel of an interaction the Advisor logged for you. "That coffee with Dana was yesterday, not today."
Confirm or dismiss a suggested fact	Confirm keeps a fact Groupthink picked up about the person. Dismiss takes it off their suggested facts. "Yes, Sam did move to Denver."
Move a note	Moves a note from the person it is on to another person in your contacts. "That marathon note is about Dana, not Sam."
Mark a commitment done	Marks it done. If you say the other person knows, it also records that you told them. Nothing is sent. "I sent Sam the deck, and told him."
Accept or dismiss a suggested action item	Accept keeps an action item Groupthink suggested. Dismiss drops it. "Yes, add that one about the intro."
Close an open thread	Marks a topic covered, with what came of it, or defers it to a day you name. "We covered the move. She took the job."
Close a planned touchpoint	Marks it done, which counts as being in touch, or cancels it. "Coffee with Sam happened."
Turn a notification on or off	Changes one notification on one channel, like the Daily Overview by email, which sends the Daily Brief. Every other notification and channel stays as it is. "Stop the daily brief email."
Change how Groupthink attends your meetings	Switches to Privately Take Notes or Let Me Choose Each Time, the same choices as How should Groupthink attend your meetings? in your calendar settings. "Don't auto-join my meetings."
Export your data	Starts the same export as the button in your account settings. Groupthink emails the download link to your account's address. None of your data appears in the chat. "Export my data."
Move an event that has only you on it	Moves the event to the new time on your calendar, as Reschedule on its Today card does. Nobody is emailed. "Push my focus block to tomorrow."
Take an item off Today	Takes the event off your Today page, as Dismiss on its card does. Nothing changes on your calendar. "I'm not doing that today, drop it."
Put time with someone on your calendar	Adds the event to your calendar. If the card names someone under Invite goes to, the invite goes to them from your own calendar. "Set up coffee with Sam Thursday at 10."
Send the notetaker to a call	Sends the notetaker into the call at the link you pasted, now. "Send the notetaker to https://meet.google.com/..."
Set the notetaker for one meeting	Sets whether the notetaker joins one meeting, or every meeting in its series. "Record my 3pm."
Stop the notetaker	Takes the notetaker out of a call it is in now. "Stop recording."

The Advisor proposes at most three changes in one reply, and only for people in your own contacts, for your own settings, or for your own calendar and meetings. It never proposes a change to your own record, and it only proposes a commitment for something you said yourself, not something someone else told you.

In the app, the Advisor makes no change other than the ones in the table above. The only changes it makes to your calendar are putting time with someone on it and moving an event that has only you on it. Ask for anything else, and it tells you where in the app to do it.

Adding and Updating People

The card for one of these shows the change in the same words the person's page uses. Where something is being replaced, it shows what it was and what it will be, for example Name: Catherine → Catherine Ruiz, Role: Friend → Family or Formality: Formal → Casual. After you confirm a rename, the card reads Name saved, and the person's page and your people list show the new name. A new person's card lists the name, email, phone, role and cadence you gave. After you confirm it, the link on the card goes to the person you just added.

• Someone already in your contacts is not added twice. If the name, email or number matches someone you have, the Advisor says so. Anything new you gave (a role, a number, an email) is proposed as a change to the person you already have.
• A number or address someone else has is not moved. The Advisor tells you who has it. Remove it from that person first if it belongs to someone else now.
• A new person is added on their own. Confirming Add a person adds them and nothing else. If you also mentioned a note or a coffee with them, ask again once they are added and the Advisor will propose it.
• A role, number, email or setting they already have is not proposed again. There is nothing to change.

Fixing the Record and Closing Loops

Tell the Advisor what happened, and it proposes the change to the record that matches: a commitment done, a topic covered, a fact confirmed. The card shows the commitment, thread, fact or note itself, so you can see which one you are changing, and then what changes about it: what it was and what it will be. For example Status: Open → Done on a commitment, Status: Suggested → Confirmed on a fact, Date: Oct 3, 2026 → Oct 2, 2026 on a logged interaction, or Person: Sam Lee → Dana Lee on a note that is moving. After you confirm, the person's page and Today show the change without a reload.

• Only interactions the Advisor logged can be corrected here. After you confirm a logged interaction, you can tell the Advisor in the same conversation that the day or the channel was wrong. An interaction you logged another way is not changed from the Advisor.
• A note only moves between people in your own contacts. After you confirm, it is on the new person's page and gone from the old one, and the link on the card goes to the new person.
• "Told them" is a record, not a message. Groupthink notes that the other person knows. It does not email or text them, and the card says so: Told Sam Lee: Yes. This is only recorded; Groupthink sends nothing.
• Cancelling a planned touchpoint does not change your calendar. The card says Calendar: Any calendar event stays where it is. If there is an event for it, delete the event in your calendar.
• If the record changed after the Advisor proposed it, for example you already closed the thread on the person's page, Confirm says so and nothing is written. Dismiss the card, and ask again if there is still something to change.

Changing Your Settings

Ask the Advisor to change one of your own settings and it reads the setting first, then proposes the change. The card shows What will change: what the setting is now and what it will be, for example Daily Overview by email: On → Off or How Groupthink attends your meetings: Automatically Join All Meetings → Let Me Choose Each Time. An export card shows What will happen instead: what is exported and the email address the download link goes to. These cards change your settings and nobody else's. After you confirm, the card reads Changed in your settings (or Started for an export), and your notification settings, calendar settings or the export card in your account settings show the change without a reload.

• One notification, one channel. "Stop the daily brief email" turns off the Daily Overview by email, which is the Daily Brief, and leaves everything else in your notification settings alone. If it is already off, or that notification does not come by the channel you named, the Advisor says so and proposes nothing.
• How Groupthink attends your meetings is one choice for all of them. Privately Take Notes means the desktop app records and nothing joins the call. Automatically Join All Meetings means the notetaker joins as a visible participant. Let Me Choose Each Time means nothing joins unless you add it. Choosing Privately Take Notes applies to every calendar you have connected. Choosing Let Me Choose Each Time turns the Auto-join switch off on every calendar you have connected. The Advisor does not turn on Automatically Join All Meetings. That choice sends the notetaker into every meeting, where everyone in the call sees it, so you make it yourself under How should Groupthink attend your meetings? in your calendar settings. To change the notetaker for one meeting or its series, ask the Advisor (see Planning Time and the Notetaker) or do it on the meeting itself.
• An export is emailed, not shown. Confirming starts the export described in Export your data. The download link goes to the email address on your account, works once, and lasts 48 hours. If one is already being prepared, email to your account is turned off, or you have started five exports in the last minute, the Advisor says so and starts nothing. If you reach that limit on Confirm, the card says so and Confirm stays: the same card works a minute later.
• If the setting changed after the Advisor proposed it, for example you changed it in your settings or on your phone, Confirm says what it is now and changes nothing. Confirm then leaves that card, because what it shows is no longer true. Dismiss it, and ask again if you still want the change.

Moving an Event and Taking It Off Today

Ask the Advisor to move something on your calendar, like "Push my focus block to tomorrow," and it proposes the move. The reply says it in a sentence, for example Move "Focus block" from Mon Oct 5, 2:00 PM to Tue Oct 6, 2:00 PM. The card shows What will change on your calendar: the Event, When with the old time and the new one (for example When: Mon, Oct 5, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM → Tue, Oct 6, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM), and Guests: Nobody else is on it, so nobody is told. Nothing moves until you click Confirm. After you confirm, the card reads Event moved, and your calendar and Today show the new time without a reload.

• Only an event with only you on it. Moving an event that has other people on it makes your calendar send each of them an update, so the Advisor does not do it. It tells you so, and you can move that event in your calendar.
• Only an event the Reschedule button could move. It has to be on your own calendar, organized by you, not repeating and not all-day. For anything else the Advisor says why it can't.
• "Tomorrow" and "next week" keep the time of day. Next week means the coming Monday. You can also give a day and a time. The event keeps its length.
• If the new time overlaps something, the reply says what. For example It overlaps your 4:30 PM "Dentist". You can still confirm.
• Confirm moves it on your real calendar, in Google Calendar or Outlook, the same as Reschedule on Today. No one is emailed.
• If the event changed after the Advisor proposed the move, for example you moved it yourself or someone was added to it, Confirm says so and nothing moves. Ask again if you still want it moved.

"I'm not doing that today, drop it" gets a different proposal: Take "Focus block" (Mon Oct 5, 2:00 PM) off your Today page. Nothing changes on your calendar. Its card names the event and its time in your time zone, and under the heading about what will change on Today it says the event leaves Today and stays on your calendar. Its buttons say what they do: Take off Today and Keep it. Take off Today does what Dismiss on the Today card does, and the card then reads Taken off Today. The event stays on your calendar exactly as it was. Keep it leaves the event where it is, and the card says nothing was changed.

Planning Time and the Notetaker

These cards put something on your calendar or change what the notetaker does. The reply above them ends Nothing happens until you confirm it. Each card shows what will happen, and when it reaches anyone besides you, it says so in a line above Confirm.

• Putting time with someone on your calendar. "Set up coffee with Sam Thursday at 10" gets a card for Sam that shows What will change on your calendar: New event, When, Calendar: Yours, and either Invite goes to: Sam Lee (sam@example.com) or Invite: Nobody is invited. Only you see this event. If the time overlaps something, a Conflict line says what. When someone is invited, the line above Confirm reads Confirming sends Sam Lee a calendar invite from you. Confirm adds the event and sends the invite from your own calendar. The card then reads Event added and invite sent, or Event added to your calendar when nobody is invited. You need Google Calendar or Outlook connected first; if you have neither, the Advisor says so.
• Sending the notetaker to a call. Paste a Zoom, Google Meet or Teams join link and ask the Advisor to send the notetaker. The card shows What will happen: Meeting (the link), Joins as (the notetaker's name) and When: Now, and above Confirm: Everyone in the call will see the notetaker join. After you confirm, the card reads Notetaker sent. If what you pasted is not a join link, the Advisor asks for the full one.
• The notetaker for one meeting. "Record my 3pm" or "Don't record my 1:1 with Sam" gets a card that shows What will change: Meeting, When, Notetaker (it joins the call, takes private notes, or stays out) and Applies to: This meeting only, or Every meeting in the series when you said every one. When the notetaker will join, the line above Confirm reads Everyone in the call will see the notetaker join. After you confirm, the card reads Notetaker will join, Private notes set or Notetaker will stay out. This changes only that meeting, or its series. Your choice for every meeting stays under How should Groupthink attend your meetings? in your calendar settings.
• Stopping the notetaker. "Stop recording" gets a card that names the Meeting and says the notetaker Leaves the call now. After you confirm, the card reads Notetaker stopped.

After you confirm any of these, your calendar and Today update without a reload. If something changed after the Advisor proposed it, for example the meeting ended or the event moved, Confirm says what happened and nothing changes.

Texts From Numbers on None of Your Contacts

When your Mac sends Groupthink texts from a number no contact has, those texts are filed to nobody, so they don't count toward anyone's "last interaction". The Advisor knows how many such numbers you texted in the last 30 days, and for the busiest few, the number, how many days and messages, the latest day, and a name your texts suggest. So before it tells you that someone with no phone number on record is falling behind, it mentions that it may be missing texts with them and asks whose a number is. Tell it ("the 310 number is Karlie") and it suggests adding that number to that person. Confirm, and every day of texts from that number is filed under them.

Related

• Typed & pasted: the capture box. Type a sentence about someone, or ask a question, from the top of the sidebar.
• Staying in Touch: cadences and commitments, and how Groupthink uses them.