An app built around a model
You give an AI assistant a question or instruction, called a prompt, and can refine its reply in follow-up messages. People use assistants to draft text, summarise documents, explain ideas, or work through problems. Some assistants can also work with images or other kinds of information.
The assistant is the app you interact with. An AI model helps produce the response; the app adds an interface, instructions, and sometimes access to tools or documents. A model may also be available through an API inside a different app. A company that supplies models can offer several products, so the company, model, and assistant are different things.
Check the result and what it can access
An assistant can sound confident while giving a wrong or incomplete answer. Check important claims and decide when a person needs to review the work. Follow your organisation’s rules for sharing information with an outside service.
An assistant may be a standalone app or part of a work tool. What it can see or do depends on the product, account, permissions, and setup. Some assistants focus on a particular task, such as GitHub Copilot helping with code.
Examples of AI assistants
- ChatGPT is an assistant from OpenAI.
- Claude is an assistant from Anthropic; Claude also names its model family.
- Google Gemini is Google’s assistant; Gemini also names a family of models.
- Microsoft Copilot can appear in Microsoft workplace apps, depending on the setup.