Get started with Sidekick

Sidekick is Zapier's AI assistant for getting work done across all the apps you use. Describe what you need and Sidekick will complete it: update a ticket, send a message, pull data, or draft a doc. It can connect to thousands of apps through Zapier, remember what you've told it across conversations, and keeps working in the background even when you're not there.

This article walks you through getting started with Sidekick and getting your first results.

Available on plans:

Free

Professional

Team

Enterprise

Beta

Sidekick is in open beta. It's available for use, but still in active development and may change.

Before you begin

To use Sidekick, you need:

• A Zapier account on a Free or Professional plan. Sidekick is not yet available on Team or Enterprise accounts.
• Accounts on one or more apps you'd like Sidekick to connect to (for example, Google Calendar, Slack, or Jira).

Access Sidekick

1. Go to sidekick.zapier.com.
2. Log in with your Zapier account. You'll land on the Home page, where you can start a conversation.

Connect your apps

Connect more apps to expand what Sidekick can do for you. You can connect apps in two ways:

• During a conversation: Ask Sidekick to do something with an app (for example, "What's on my calendar today?"). If the app is not connected yet, you'll be asked to authorize it.
• From your connections page: Go to the App Connections page to connect apps ahead of time. Learn how to connect your apps.

Have your first conversation

To start a conversation:

1. Go to sidekick.zapier.com. The Home page opens with a message field.
2. Type your request in the message field.
3. Click the Submit button or press Enter on your keyboard.

Sidekick will figure out which apps and actions are needed to fulfill your request. If it needs more information, it'll ask.

Here are some things to try:

Note

Sidekick goes beyond answering questions. It can take actions on your behalf, such as sending messages, creating documents, updating records and more, depending on the apps you've connected.

Build dashboards, pages, and tools

Studio is where you build things you can use. You can build three types of Studio artifacts:

• Dashboards: Live displays of your data.
• Interactive pages: Reports that turn data into decisions.
• Custom tools: Custom solutions for exactly what you need.

To start building:

1. In the left sidebar, click Studio.
2. On the Start Building page, describe what you want to build in the message box. Or click New dashboard, New interactive page, or New custom tool.
3. Sidekick opens a chat and asks you a few questions about what to build. Answer them, and Sidekick builds your Studio artifact.

To find what you have built, click All in the Studio menu. You can also go to Dashboards, Interactive Pages, or Custom Tools to filter by type.

Save and organize your work

Sidekick stores conversations, notes, and documents so it can reference past work without you re-explaining context.

To access your personal space:

1. In the left sidebar, click Knowledge.
2. In the Knowledge panel, go to the Personal section.

Your personal space

Your personal space is private. Only you and Sidekick can access it. This is where you'll find:

• Notes and summaries Sidekick creates for you.
• Documents you ask it to draft.
• Reference files you upload or create.

Set up work that runs without you

Sidekick does not stop working when you close the tab. You can set up automations, which are background tasks that run on a schedule or in response to specific events.

Examples:

• "Every weekday at 8 AM, check my calendar and post my schedule to #standup in Slack."
• "Whenever a new lead comes in from HubSpot, add it to the Google spreadsheet and notify the sales channel."
• "Every Friday, summarize this week's Jira activity and save it to my personal space."

To create an automation, describe what you want in a conversation. Sidekick will propose the automation and ask you to confirm before activating it. Once confirmed, it runs in the background on the schedule you set.

To find and manage your automations:

1. In the left sidebar, click Automate.
2. Click Automations.

From here, you can find all your automations, filter the list, and check their status (active or inactive).

To start from a ready-made automation, click Discover in the Automate menu. Discover has preconfigured templates that Sidekick can install for you in one click.

Teach it how you work

The longer you use Sidekick, the less you need to explain. Part of this happens automatically because it remembers your conversations and files. But you can also explicitly teach it by creating skills.

A skill is a set of reusable instructions for a specific task. For example:

• How you like your weekly update formatted.
• The steps for triaging a support ticket.
• Your tone of voice for customer emails.

To create a skill, you can ask Sidekick in a conversation: "Save this as a skill so you remember it next time." Once saved, the skill applies to future conversations automatically.

To find your skills, click Automate in the left sidebar, then click Skills.

What to expect over time

Sidekick gets more useful the longer you use it:

• First use: You'll connect your apps and try a few requests. Sidekick can already act across your tools, but it does not know your preferences yet.
• After a week: If you create automations or chat regularly, it'll learn your patterns, including which tools you use most, how you like things formatted, and what context matters. Requests that you would have to explain before now work right away.
• After a month: It knows your projects, your processes, and your priorities. You can ask high-level questions ("What's the status of Project X?") and get answers drawn from across your tools and past conversations.

This happens through a combination of your conversation history, the files in your personal space, and any skills you've created.

Next steps

• Find guides for other Zapier AI products.