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Coda AI features

Learn how to use Coda AI to create tables & better content quickly, generate instant insights, organize your data, and take action at scale.


Coda AI is a work assistant that integrates with other Coda building blocks. You can give Coda AI instructions, called prompts, and reference other content in your doc, such as pages, tables and rows. This means it knows your work— you can use context from across your doc as background information, and you can update your prompt or refresh the generated output as much as you like.

Coda AI is included for Doc Makers in paid workspaces. If you are an Editor and have reached the end of your free Coda AI trial, you can learn more about what Doc Makers can do here.


Coda AI’s feature set includes the following (use the links to jump to the corresponding section):

  • AI chat: your brainstorming partner, and insights generator that’s always available in your doc’s side panel.

  • AI assistant: your table & content creation assistant that can turn raw notes into polished briefs, or suggest edits.

  • AI column: a task assistant that creates content in table columns You can add AI to any column type (select list, text, number, date, etc.) and @ reference other data within the row. As more rows are added, AI column will auto-populate new content.

  • AI block: an insights generator that can summarize, find action items, or highlight key themes, and can refresh as more data gets added.

  • AI reviewer: a candid collaborator who can leave feedback and edits as comments throughout your doc.
     

 

AI chat

AI chat can give you personalized insights about content in your doc, such as where to find something, pros and cons, or key themes based on data. It can also help you brainstorm new ideas, or iterate with you, and you can provide as many instructions or ask as many questions as you’d like. The answers and content generated remains in the side panel, just for you, unless you choose to insert it into your doc.

AI Chat demo.gif
 

To use AI chat:

  1. Open the AI icon, in the bottom right corner of your doc (next to the ? icon).

  2. Select one of the prompts, or write your own. You can find tips for writing great prompts here. Examples include:

    • Where can I find more information about what this team is working on?

    • What are the key milestones and dates?

    • What are the pros and cons with the suggested plan?

    • Write 5 suggestions of titles for this page.

  3. Use the Context dropdown to choose the context you want to provide: no context, the current page, or the current doc. You can also highlight text or tables on the current page, and choose that selection as the context.

  4. Click on the gear icon to toggle between Faster responses and Higher quality responses. The default is set to Faster.

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  5. After Coda AI generates a response, you can add it to the current page (or open up a new one), by pressing insert.

  6. You can also provide more instructions, and AI chat will generate more content.

  7. When you’re done, close AI chat, and open it back up again whenever you want.

 

AI assistant

AI assistant can help you build content, including turning raw notes into writeups and generating tables filled with data. It can create blog posts, FAQs, taglines, poems, and more.

Create text

You can use Coda AI to generate formatted headers, checklists, bullet points, paragraphs and more.

  1. Type / (forward slash) or Ctrl+Space into a new line in your doc.

  2. Under the AI options in the dropdown, select Write a...

  3. Then write a prompt of your choice (or choose from some of our pre-set suggestions). See guidance on writing good prompts here. Examples include:

    • What are 10 activities our team can do at an offsite?

    • List 5 potential icebreakers for a team meeting

    • Create an outline for a brief

    • Write a list of pros & cons to consider when opening a new office

  4. Hit Create.

  5. Once the content is generated, you’ll see a pop-up where you can provide further instructions to Coda AI, such as making the generated text shorter. You can also change the original prompt.

  6. When satisfied, press Keep to finalize.

  7. If you want to make further iterations, highlight the desired text and open up AI chat to further collaborate.

AI text demo.gif
 

Create tables

  1. Type / (forward slash) or Ctrl+Space into the canvas of your doc.

  2. Under the AI options in the dropdown, select Make a table...

  3. Write a prompt of your choice (or let the suggestions guide you), but include instructions to create a table. Examples include:

    1. Make a table of 15 questions and answers for a new hire

    2. Make a table of name ideas for an image editor feature. Add a column using the name in a sentence.

    3. Make a table of pros & cons to consider when opening a new office

  4. Once the table is generated, you’ll see a pop-up where you can provide further instructions to Coda AI, such as converting to bullet points. You can also change the original prompt.

  5. When you have the results you want, hit Keep.

Coda AI create table.gif
 

Edit text

  1. On the canvas or in a canvas column, highlight the text you want to edit.

  2. In the inline toolbar popup, select the AI option.

  3. Choose from one of the options, or select write your own prompt.

  4. AI chat will open up, where you can give more instructions and iterate until you are happy with the output.

  5. When you’re ready, select insert to add it to your page.

AI edit text.gif
 

 

AI column

AI column can act as your task assistant, and create content, tag data, assign metrics at scale. To create an AI column, follow these steps:

  1. Press the Add column button (upper right corner of a table) to add a blank column.

  2. You'll be prompted to choose the column type. Search for and select AI.

  3. Then choose from the list of options: Summarize, Find action items, Find key insights, or Custom prompt. If you're not sure, just choose your best guess and you can change it later.

  4. Use the structured column builder to select the inputs and add additional instructions. You'll see a preview for each row, and you can adjust your prompt as needed. At any point, you can change the AI action via the dropdown.

  5. If you want to use more than one input, reference multiple columns, or access the formula builder for your prompt, you'll need to switch the first drop-down to Custom prompt.

    1. Use the freeform prompt builder to write your own prompt. Then select your desired length, tone and type.

  6. Once you are happy with your prompt, select Fill column.

💡 What if you want to use AI to only fill a few cells, rather than all the cells of a column? You can do this without actually changing the column type to AI.

To have AI generate content in just one cell, press the AI button in the desired cell to open up the prompt box. To have AI fill multiple cells, highlight the desired cells and then select the Fill button at the bottom of the table.


Auto-fill rows with AI

AI column can auto-fill rows in your data set, by following the pattern of your existing data. This helps you build out your data much faster.

  1. Select the rows in the column that contain data. Drag down until you’ve selected them all.

  2. Hover over the blue dot that will appear in the bottom right corner, which will say Drag down to auto-fill with AI.

  3. Continue dragging down, until you have covered all of the rows you want filled.

  4. AI will then auto-fill these selected rows.

📣 For more on AI column, check out this guide from the Coda team.

 

 

AI block

AI block can generate insights like summaries, action items, or key themes, and auto-refresh as more data gets added.

Summaries & insights

  1. Type / (forward slash) or Ctrl+Space into the canvas of your doc

  2. From the AI dropdown options, select Summarize. If you’d like specific insights, such as a summary of one topic, add this to your prompt’s instructions.

  3. In your prompt, @ reference the table or the page that contains your notes or relevant. You can also type type = to open the formula builder. See guidance on writing good prompts below.For example:

    • Summarize [customer feedback page] and group by three key themes.

    • Find two positive quotes from [user feedback table]

    • Highlight three things the marketing team is working on based on [weekly meeting notes page].

  4. Choose your desired length, tone and type.

  5. Select Create.

💡 You can also create page summaries with only one click. Simply hover over the top of any page that contains text, and hit Summarize. An AI block with an auto-generated page summary will be added to the top of the page.


Whenever you need to update the summary block, just hover over the block and click the rounded arrow in the upper-right corner.

Action items

  1. Type / (forward slash) or Ctrl+Space into the canvas of your doc

  2. From the AI dropdown options, select Find action items from...

  3. In your prompt, @ reference the table or the page that contains your notes. You can also type = to open the formula builder.

  4. Choose your desired length, tone and type. We recommend checkboxes.

  5. Select Create.

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Whenever you need to update the action items block, just hover over the block and click the rounded arrow in the upper-right corner.

 

AI reviewer

AI reviewer is a candid collaborator who can leave comments throughout your doc. It also opens an AI chat window to continue the conversation.

To use AI reviewer:

  1. Open AI chat, and select Give me feedback.

  2. Alternatively, you can open the comments rail in the upper right (near your avatar). Select get feedback from AI.

  3. Select the type of feedback you want: comprehensive edits, grammar & spelling, or write your own prompt for feedback.

  4. Review each comment and action or resolve it.