Get started
If the agent is a member of your Google Group, you can use it now. There's nothing to install and no account to create: you email the group the way you always do.
The examples here use @cloud, the default name. Your organization may have renamed its agent. Its name is in the From line of its emails.
Check that it's in your group
Send this to the group:
@cloud !help
If the agent is on, it replies in the thread with the commands it understands and a link to the group's settings. If nothing comes back within a few minutes, see Troubleshooting.
Send your first request
Mention the agent anywhere in a message to the group. Name the outcome you want:
@cloud what did we decide about the Q3 offsite in the last month of threads?
Give me the decision, who made it, and anything still open.
These all count as a mention:
@cloudanywhere in the message- the name opening the message:
cloud, …,Hi cloud —,cloud can you … - the agent's own address in To or Cc (but send to the group as well, and see why the group matters)
- a reply to one of its posts
Once the agent has replied in a thread, it reads every later message there. Reply in the thread to steer it, add detail, or ask a follow-up. You don't need to mention it again. If a follow-up is clearly meant for someone else, it stays quiet.
What you see
- A reply in the thread, from the agent's address, threaded under your message. It's written in Markdown and rendered for your mail client.
- Attachments, when you asked for a file: a spreadsheet, a document, a chart. Files it makes are saved to the group's files too.
- A footer under every reply with the model that wrote it and a Configure link to the group's settings.
- A note asking for approval, if the work needs a tool call that a group admin must approve first. The thread continues once they answer. See Approvals.
Big tasks take a while. Ask @cloud !status to see whether it's still working; the answer is emailed only to you.
What it can read
- The whole group's history, not just your thread: every message it has seen since it joined, plus any past mail an admin imported. It searches the archive and reads other threads when the answer depends on them.
- Every group file: attachments anyone posted, files admins uploaded, and files it made. Attachments on your message are opened for that reply.
- The group's memory: notes it keeps across conversations. See What it remembers.
- Google Drive files the group can reach: files linked in the group's mail, shared with the group's address, or shared with everyone in your Workspace domain.
- The tools the group has connected: connectors, GitHub repositories, secrets and the web, as the admins set them up. For your own requests, it can also use your own connectors. Ask it:
@cloud what can you access from this group?
It can't read other groups, people's inboxes, or anything posted before it joined unless an admin imported it.
Files
Attach a file to your email and mention the agent. To get a file back, ask for one by type: "as a spreadsheet", "as a Word doc", "as a PDF". The group's admins choose which document skills are on.
Shape how it behaves in your group
The group's admins write standing instructions for it: tone, scope, who's who,
what not to do. Only Group admins and the organization's Owners and Admins can
open the Group's web pages or change its configuration. Posting to the Group
does not grant that access. Admins can click Configure in a reply footer or
send @cloud !configure for the link, then sign in with Google. The first sign-in
also creates an empty organization; reopen Configure to reach the Group.
Files returned as email attachments are available in the reply. The Group's web file downloads require admin access; ask an admin for a file too large to attach.
Next
Email privately
You can also email an agent directly, without a group or @mention. Personal Gmail agents accept their organization's Owners and Admins; Workspace agents accept authenticated senders on their exact domain. Each person has separate DM settings and memory.