Copilot & AI Assist
FactoryThread has two editor-time AI assistants that help you author faster:
- Copilot — a chat assistant in the Designer that builds a Flow from a plain-language description.
- Formula Assist — an inline helper inside the Formula node that turns a description into an expression.
Both run only while you are editing. They produce ordinary Flow definitions and expression strings — exactly what you would have built by hand — so nothing about them runs when your Flow executes.
"AI" means three different things
FactoryThread uses AI in three distinct places. Keeping them straight avoids confusion:
| Feature | When it runs | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Copilot / Formula Assist | While you edit | Editor-time authoring help — generate a Flow or an expression. No AI at run time. |
| Classify (AI) node | At flow execution | A node inside a Flow that sends each row to an AI model to categorize it. |
| AI connection | — | The configured credentials for the AI provider that the Classify node uses. |
This page and its children cover the first row — the editor-time assistants. The Classify node and AI connection are documented under Designer and Connections respectively.
What the assistants can and cannot see
The editor-time assistants work from structure, not your data:
- They can see your Flow, and the entities and field definitions in your connections (so Copilot can wire real sources and Formula Assist knows which fields exist).
- They do not read the actual rows in your source systems. When Copilot needs a specific value it cannot infer from structure alone — for example, which status code means "overdue" — it asks you rather than guessing.
This matches FactoryThread's data-virtualization model: your business records stay in your source systems and are not sent to the AI provider for authoring help.
Next steps
- Copilot — build a Flow from a description
- Formula Assist — write expressions in plain language