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.
BetaSidekick 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. Sidekick is not yet available on Enterprise accounts and some Team accounts.
- Accounts on one or more apps you'd like Sidekick to connect to (for example, Google Calendar, Slack, or Jira).
Access Sidekick
- Go to sidekick.zapier.com.
- Log in with your Zapier account. You'll land on the Home page, where you can start a conversation.
Your personal space is where you'll find your conversations, files, and preferences.
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.
Start with the apps you check most often, like your calendar, email, and messaging tool. You can add more at any time.
Have your first conversation
To start a conversation:
- From your personal space, click New chat in the left sidebar.
- Type your request in the message field.
- Click the Submit button or press Enter on your keyboard.
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:
| What you type | What happens |
|---|---|
| "What meetings do I have tomorrow?" | Pulls your calendar and summarizes your schedule. |
| "Draft a Slack message to #marketing about the campaign launch." | Writes a message and asks you to confirm before sending. |
| "Find my open Jira tickets and list them by priority." | Searches Jira and returns a formatted list. |
| "Summarize the last 3 emails from Alex." | Reads your inbox and gives you the key points. |
NoteSidekick 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.
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, click Knowledge in the left sidebar. This opens a panel where you can browse your files.
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.
You can also organize files into folders, just like a regular file system.
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 view and manage your automations:
- In the left sidebar, click Toolkit.
- Click Automations.
From here, you can see all your automations, filter the list, and check their status (active or inactive).
Pause an automation
To pause an automation without deleting it:
- In the left sidebar, click Toolkit.
- Click Automations.
- Click the automation name to expand it.
- Click the Published dropdown.
- Select Not published.
The automation will now show an Inactive label and will not run until you publish it again.
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 team's 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.
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 team's 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.