Quickstart: Annota Brain

This quickstart shows you how to ask questions about your own documents. You create a knowledge base, upload a few documents, ask a question, and open the pages Brain cites. You need an account and an organization: see Create your account.

1. Create a knowledge base

1. Open the product switcher at the top of the sidebar and choose Brain.

2. Select Knowledge in the sidebar, then Create knowledge base.

3. Enter a Name, for example Supplier contracts.

4. Under Documents, choose Upload files. Brain creates a new document dataset for this knowledge base.

5. Select Create knowledge base. The knowledge base page opens.

Tip

Already have a document dataset in Annota Studio? Choose From an existing document dataset instead, or open the dataset in Studio and select Use in Brain. Each dataset can back one knowledge base.

2. Add documents

1. On the knowledge base page, drag your files onto the upload area, or click it to browse. PDFs, scans, Office and text files, and audio recordings are accepted.

2. Select Upload followed by the number of files, for example Upload 5 files.

3. Wait for the documents to be ready. Annota first extracts their text, then indexes them. Each document shows Indexed when Brain can search it, and the knowledge base shows Up to date when it has finished syncing.

Text extraction of PDFs and scans, and transcription of recordings, use credits. Text and Office files are converted for free. Indexing also uses credits for each page of a new or changed document. The upload area shows the cost before you upload. See Add documents and Credit usage.

3. Ask a question

1. Select Ask Brain at the top of the knowledge base page. A new chat opens with your knowledge base already selected.

2. Type your question in Ask anything, for example What are the payment terms in each contract?

3. Optionally, open the mode menu and choose Fast (answers at once) or Think (reasons further before answering, but slower).

4. Press Enter or select the send button.

While Brain works, it shows its steps, such as searching your documents and reading pages. You can select Stop response at any time.

To search other knowledge bases in a later question, select the + button in the question box and choose them under Knowledge. See Ask questions.

4. Read the sources

Brain answers with numbered citations. Each citation points to a document and a page.

• Select a citation to open the document at the cited page. Use Document pages to read the original pages, Summary for the document summary, and Download original to get the file.
• Each answer shows how many sources it used. If an answer says General knowledge, not from your documents, it does not come from your knowledge bases.
• Parts of an answer that Brain could not check against the sources are marked To check. Read the cited page before you rely on them.

Caution

Brain is AI and can be wrong. It cites its sources but does not check every statement, so always check the cited pages for important decisions.

See Sources and citations.

Next steps

• Knowledge bases
• Skills: teach Brain the procedures your team follows.
• Conversations
• Documents and OCR