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AI in Amplify

Amplify AI brings artificial intelligence into Amplify, to help you find answers in your data and get routine work done faster. Ask Amplify, an AI assistant, is available from the top of every page, with specialist agents that help create initiatives and complete status reports. You can also connect your own AI assistant, such as Claude or Microsoft Copilot, to your Amplify data.

This article covers both the Advanced and Simple Models. Amplify AI needs to be turned on for your organization — see Turning on Amplify AI.

Ask Amplify is in beta. Its features may change as it's improved, and your feedback helps shape it — see Giving feedback.

Ask Amplify and its agents

Ask Amplify has three agents, each suited to different work:

Click Ask Amplify at the top right of any page to open it beside the page you're on, with the general assistant. You can switch to Crystal or Anthony there to talk through an idea or a report, but they can only fill in forms from where they're built in — Crystal from the form to create an initiative, and Anthony from a status report. Where you ask one agent for work another does, it points you to the right one.

Your conversations are kept, so you can start a New Chat, or go back to an earlier one from your Conversation History.

Asking about your data

Ask Amplify answers questions in plain language, such as which projects are behind schedule, what's driving a program's costs, or who owns the benefits in a portfolio.

  • Questions about your data — it looks up your initiatives, benefits, costs, RAID items, tasks, and custom fields, and checks its answers against your live data. It only sees what your own permissions allow.
  • Questions about using Amplify — for questions such as "how do I take a baseline?", it answers from this Help Center, with links to the articles it used.
  • Documents — where document search is turned on, it can find documents attached in Amplify.

Ask Amplify answers in the chat only. It can't create downloadable files or send emails, and it doesn't create or change items.

Creating an initiative with Crystal

Crystal, the Transformation Agent, helps turn a rough idea or problem into a well-shaped initiative, then fills in the form to create it for you. She's built into the side sheet for creating an initiative, so the initiative is already placed under the initiative you're creating it from. To create an initiative with Crystal:

  1. Start creating an initiative. At the top of the side sheet, Generate Initiative with Ask Amplify invites you to ask Crystal.
  2. Describe your idea — as roughly as you like — and send it. The side sheet widens, with your conversation with Crystal beside the form.
  3. Answer Crystal's questions. She asks only what's needed to shape the idea: the problem or opportunity, what success looks like, what's in and out of scope, who owns it and who's affected, and any constraints. She also checks related work in the same part of the hierarchy, and points out anything that looks like it overlaps.
  4. Review the preview of the fields Crystal will fill in, and confirm it, or ask for changes.
  5. Crystal fills in the form, and asks you to review the changes. Check it, complete anything still missing, and create the initiative.

Crystal never creates the initiative herself — you always review and create it. She only fills in values you've given or confirmed, and leaves the rest blank rather than guessing. To work without her, close Generate Initiative with Ask Amplify with its ×. Closing the side sheet clears the conversation and the form.

For creating initiatives, see Managing Initiatives.

Generating a status report with Anthony

Anthony, the Data Analyst Agent, drafts a status report from the initiative's data, and compares it with its previous reports. He's built into the status report you're completing, and can only fill in that report from there. To generate a status report with Anthony:

  1. Open the status report you're completing, and click Generate Status Report, beside Publish Report. Ask Amplify opens on the page with Anthony, and he starts on the report straight away.
  2. Review Anthony's draft. He checks the report against the initiative's live data and its most recent approved reports, and separates what's confirmed by the data, what he's inferred, and what needs your judgement.
  3. Answer his questions about anything the data can't tell him, such as why something changed.
  4. Confirm the draft. Anthony fills in the report's text fields.
  5. Review the report, choose any RAID items and tasks to include, and click Publish Report.

Anthony only fills in text fields — he can't choose items for the Featured RAID or Featured Tasks tables, but he names the ones worth including, such as overdue tasks. He never publishes the report — you do. Generate Status Report is offered only while the report can still be edited. See Submitting Status Reports.

Summarizing a status report with Anthony

On a published status report, click Summarize, at the top of the report. Ask Amplify opens on the page with Anthony, who summarizes the report and highlights its key changes and updates since the initiative's previous reports.

Ask him follow-up questions, such as what's driving a change in status. Once a report is published, Anthony only explains and compares it — he doesn't change it. Summarize isn't offered on expired reports. See Requesting Status Reports.

Connecting your own AI assistant

Your organization can connect an AI assistant it already uses, such as Claude or Microsoft Copilot, to Amplify through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). The assistant can then answer questions about your Amplify data, with each person seeing only what their own Amplify permissions allow. Where write access is turned on for your organization, the assistant can also create and update initiatives on a person's behalf, as that person and within their Amplify permissions. Otherwise, MCP access can read Amplify data, but not change it. See MCP Overview.

Unlike Crystal and Anthony, a connected assistant with write access makes its changes in Amplify straight away, with no review step in Amplify. That's why write access is turned on for each organization separately, and approved by each person when they connect.

For setting it up, see:

Helping Ask Amplify understand your organization

Ask Amplify gives more relevant answers and drafts when it understands your organization and your data. Administrators can help in two ways:

  • Business context — describe your organization once, for everyone. It's used as background for every answer, though Ask Amplify always trusts your live data over it. See Adding your business context.
  • Custom field descriptions — give each custom field a Description of what it's for, and how it's used. Ask Amplify reads these to understand your organization's own fields, and Anthony uses them as guidance for what to write in each status report field. See Custom Fields (Advanced Model) and Custom Fields (Simple Model).

Adding your business context

To add your organization's business context:

  1. Navigate to Administration > Amplify Intelligence.
  2. Under Business Context, describe your organization and the industry it operates in, in up to 4,000 characters — for example, what you do, your strategic priorities, and the terms your teams use.
  3. Save your changes.

Access to Amplify Intelligence can be given to administrators through an admin role. See Admin Roles.

Giving feedback

Every response in Ask Amplify can be rated, to help improve it. To give feedback on a response:

  1. Below the response, click the thumbs up or thumbs down.
  2. Optionally, say why it was a good or bad response.
  3. Click Submit.

To use a response elsewhere, click Copy Response below it.

Turning on Amplify AI

Amplify AI, including Ask Amplify and its agents, is turned on for your organization by your Customer Success Manager. MCP access, write access through MCP, and document search are turned on separately. MCP access also needs Amplify AI: where Amplify AI is turned off, connected assistants can't read or change anything in Amplify. To have any of them turned on, speak to your Customer Success Manager.

For how Amplify AI uses and protects your data, see AI Data and Privacy.

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