Using the chat

Start a new chat

Click “Chats” in the sidebar, the entry with the speech-bubble-and-plus icon: one click takes you straight to an empty chat. On a phone and in a narrow browser window the sidebar is collapsed; there the same icon sits at the top left of the header.

The chat automatically uses your workspace’s default model, but you can switch the model at any time.

Choose an AI model

Via the model selector in the chat area you choose which AI model processes your messages. The available models are defined by your administrator.

Model information

Each model shows you:

Information	Description
Name	Name of the model (e.g. Claude 3.5 Sonnet)
Provider	Vendor (e.g. Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Mistral)
Location	Where the model is operated (e.g. EU, USA)
Speed	Relative response speed
Quality	Relative response quality

Data protection labels

Watch for the colored badges on each model:

Label	Meaning
EU-Sovereign	The model runs on EU-sovereign infrastructure. Full data control within the EU
GDPR	GDPR-compliant. Data is processed exclusively in the EU. No data outflow to third countries
Global	Servers outside the EU. Data outflow to third countries possible

Tip: When you work with confidential company data, choose a model with the EU-Sovereign or GDPR label. More on this under Data protection & data sovereignty.

Switch model

You can switch the model at any time within a chat. Just click the model selector and choose another model. All subsequent messages are then handled by the new model. The choice applies to that chat only: a new chat starts with your default model again.

If you always want to start with a particular model, set it as your personal default model under Settings → AI models. You can set a personal Premium model the same way.

Using files in the chat

You can upload files directly into the chat so that the AI can analyze and process their content.

How it works

Drag & drop: drag files directly into the chat window
Click: click the upload icon in the input field

Limits

A maximum of 10 files per message
Maximum file size: 50 MB per file (can vary by workspace)
All common file formats are supported

Pasting very long text

The input field holds up to 100,000 characters, roughly 40 pages of text. Above that, 9brains blocks sending and tells you why.

The reason: an AI model can only read a limited amount of text per request. A complete log file or a long export exceeds that limit, and the request fails without a result.

Attach such content as a file instead. It is then available in the chat and the AI searches it selectively, rather than having to read all of it at once. For very large content, or content you need permanently, a data source is the better route.

Many images in a long chat

Each request lets the AI look at a limited number of images at once. That limit comes from the AI providers themselves and cannot be raised.

When a chat accumulates more images than that, the older ones stay as images. For the rest, 9brains automatically inserts a description written by an image model, so their content is not lost. The file itself stays available in the chat, and you can ask the AI to look at it again at any time (“Take another look at image XY”) — it then receives the image at full resolution.

Manage attached files

After upload, you see the attached files with name and size below the input field. You can remove individual files before sending.

Examples of use:

“Summarize this PDF”
“Analyze the numbers in this Excel file”
“Translate this document into English”

Dictate a message

Instead of typing, you can also speak your message.

Click the microphone in the input field. When you hover over it, Start dictation appears next to it.
Wait until Microphone starting … gives way to the red recording display with a running time, then start speaking. The bars show that the microphone can hear you.
When you are done, you have two options:
- Click End dictation: your text appears in the input field, and you can check or add to it before sending.
- Click Send or press Enter: the recording ends, and the message is sent as soon as the text is ready.

Press Esc to discard a running recording without producing any text.

If the microphone hears nothing for a few seconds, 9brains asks below the input field whether it is muted. This happens, for example, when a mute key on a laptop or headset is on. A recording with nothing audible on it is not converted; instead you get a notice and can try again once the microphone is on.

The same goes for a recording with sounds on it but nobody speaking, such as typing, knocking or a fan: 9brains does not send it off for conversion, so no made-up text lands in the input field, and lets you know.

The first time you dictate, your browser asks whether 9brains may use the microphone. If you do not allow it, 9brains tells you it has no access.

How long is your chat?

Next to the send button, a small ring shows how full your chat’s context window is, that is, how much of the conversation so far the AI reads along with every answer. The ring turns yellow once the chat is long enough that answers get less precise and every further answer uses more of your quota, and red shortly before 9brains summarises it anyway.

Click the ring for the details: the context window in percent, what the chat has cost so far and how much of your monthly AI quota is used (during the trial: of your daily limit). The ring and the cost keep updating while an answer is being written: after every step the AI takes you see the new figures. If an answer gets more expensive than expected, you can end it in time with Stop.

With “Summarise chat”, 9brains summarises the conversation so far together with your next message. The AI then continues with the summary and the most recent steps; details from the beginning may get lost. Until you send that next message, “Never mind” takes it back.

When a chat gets too long, 9brains also summarises it on its own; either way, the place is marked in the chat with “Earlier history summarised”. With a Pro licence, during the trial and once your quota is used up, this already happens at the yellow mark so that your quota lasts longer. What helps most is still starting a new chat for each new task.

Manage your chat history

Overview

All your chats appear in the sidebar, grouped by time:

Today
Yesterday
This week
Last week
Older periods

Scroll down to load older chats.

If you lose access to a project or an agent, you find your own chats from it here in the regular chat list; a chat with an agent can then only be read, not continued.

If a chat name is too long for the sidebar, hover over it: the full name appears as a tooltip. Alternatively, drag the sidebar’s right edge to make it wider. Drag it far enough to the left and the sidebar collapses completely; a pull to the right brings it back. It fades just before it collapses, so you can see what is about to happen. Width and state apply to the current moment only: the next time you load the page, the sidebar is expanded at its default width again.

There is no longer a separate collapse button on the desktop; dragging replaces it. It still works without a mouse: Ctrl+B (Cmd+B on a Mac) collapses and expands the sidebar. On a phone there is no dragging; there you open the sidebar via the menu icon at the top left.

Search chats

Use the search field at the top of the sidebar to search chats by keyword. For a full search across all chats, click “Search all chats”.

Rename a chat

In the sidebar, hover over a chat and click the three dots next to it
Select “Rename”
Enter the new name and confirm with Enter

It is quicker to double-click the title of one of your own chats. Esc cancels, clicking elsewhere saves.

Archive a chat

Once something is done, you can clear the chat out of your list without deleting it:

Hover over the chat and click the three dots next to it
Select “Archive”

This works for every chat you can open: your own, chats in projects, including the chats others shared with the project, chats with agents and their automatic runs, and chats under “Shared with me” and “Shared by me”. On a project’s overview page, the three dots sit at the top right of each chat card.

Archived chats are at the very bottom of each list under “Archived”: in the sidebar, in an agent’s context panel, in the project panel and on a project’s overview page. The section appears once you have archived a chat there and is collapsed; click it to open it. Use the three dots and “Unarchive” to bring a chat back into the regular list.

Only for you: Archiving only clears the chat out of your own lists. Everyone else who sees the chat, such as your project team or the people it is shared with, keeps seeing it as before.
Writing brings it back: If you send a new message in an archived chat, it is back in your regular list right away.
Search still finds it: In search, an archived chat shows the label “Archived”. The assistant still knows archived chats too, for example when you ask it about your chats from last week.

Delete a chat

In the sidebar, hover over a chat and click the three dots next to it
Select “Delete thread”
Confirm the deletion in the dialog

Caution: Deleted chats cannot be restored. If you had shared the chat, it is gone for everyone you shared it with, too.

Send emails from the chat

The chat sends emails for you, even without a connected mailbox: “Send the summary to Anna” or “Report this to support”. Before anything goes out, it shows you recipients, subject and text, and sends only once you agree. It can attach files from the chat, up to 2.8 MB together.

The mail comes from a 9brains address. A line at the end says that you sent it, and replies go straight to your own address. If you name no recipient, as in “Send me that by email”, it goes to you.

Who can receive a mail. So that no company data leaves the company, the chat only writes to:

yourself, including plus addresses like max+project@company.com
members of your workspace
addresses on your workspace’s company domain, meaning the domain your members sign in with. Consumer providers such as gmail.com or web.de do not count.
9brains support at support@9brains.de

It sends nothing to any other address. A chat sends at most 50 mails per hour.

With your own mailbox. Once you have connected your mailbox, for example through the Microsoft 365 integration or Google Workspace, the chat writes through it: from your own address and to any recipient, customers and partners included. Only reports to support still go through 9brains, so that your workspace comes along automatically.

Report a problem. Just say “Report this to support”. The chat writes the report, shows it to you and sends it to support@9brains.de. Your name, your address and your workspace go along automatically, and support’s answer reaches you by email.

You can share a chat with colleagues in your company, either via a link or directly with specific people. Shared chats are read-only by default: anyone with access can read the entire conversation.

Create and send a link

Open the chat you want to share
Click the share icon in the top right of the chat header
Select “Create link” and copy the link using the copy icon
Send the link, for example by email or chat

Instead of sending a link, you can share the chat directly with specific people. Open the share dialog, click “Add person” and search for the colleague by name or email. The person then appears in the access list and finds the chat right away in their sidebar under “Shared with me”, even without a link.

As soon as you add someone, they immediately get a notice that you shared a chat with them and can open it straight from that notice. The notice stays visible until they dismiss it, so it still reaches them if they were away from the screen.

Choose read or edit: For each added person you can choose between “Read” and “Edit” in the access list. “Read” is the default: the person sees the conversation but cannot write. With “Edit” they may write in the chat and stop responses in progress. You can change the choice at any time; it takes effect immediately.

Revoke access

Open the dialog again via the share icon. Use the remove icon next to a person to take away one individual’s access. With “Revoke access” you disable the link and remove all access at once. After that, no one has access anymore, not even with a link you already sent.

What the other person sees

The shared chat lands permanently in the other person’s “Shared with me” section, so it’s easy to find again. Where that section sits depends on the chat: a chat with an agent appears in that agent’s context panel, a chat from a project in that project’s panel, every other chat in the regular chat sidebar. If the person may not open the agent or the project, they find the chat in the regular chat sidebar. A chat with an agent, however, needs a Business or Max license: without one it does not show up for the person at all, and they get no notification either; the share dialog points this out next to such people. With read-only access the conversation is shown with a “Shared by …” note and the input field is locked.

Find your shared chats again

You won’t lose track of the chats you share: they appear in the “Shared by me” group, right next to “Shared with me”, in the same place as the chat itself: agent chats in the agent, project chats in the project, all others in the regular chat sidebar. That way you can see at a glance which conversations you have shared. Such a chat also carries a “Shared by you” note with a small two-person icon, so you can easily tell it apart from your other chats.

Follow along live

If you keep writing in the shared chat, the other person sees new messages and answers in real time, without reloading the page.

Who has access?

Sharing works only within your company; external people get no access. Treat the link as confidential: anyone who has the full link can read the conversation. The plain chat link without sharing, i.e. the normal address in the address bar, grants no access.

If you need help with a specific chat, create a link via the share function as described above and send it together with your request to support@9brains.de, or ask the chat to send both to support for you. That way support can open the exact conversation and follow your issue directly on the actual history, instead of reconstructing it from a description. Support only gets read access to this one chat, and you can revoke the share at any time via “Revoke access”.

Share externally (read-only). Sometimes you want to share a chat with someone outside your company, for example a client or a service provider without a 9brains account. That is what external sharing is for: a PIN-protected link that lets outside people follow the chat live but not write in it.

Create an external link: here is how it works:

Open the share dialog via the share icon
Switch from “Internal” to “External” at the top
Set a PIN of 4 to 8 digits and pass it to the external person separately from the link
Click “Create external link” and then “Copy link”
Send the link and the PIN separately, for example the link by email and the PIN through a different channel

Below the link, the “Valid until” line together with the date shows how long the access stays valid. The link expires automatically after 30 days and becomes invalid afterwards.

End external access. Use “Disable external access” to switch the external link off again at any time. After that no one can get in through this link anymore, not even with the PIN you already sent. If you later create a new external link, the link, PIN and expiry date are all reset, so an old link stays permanently invalid.

What the external person sees. Whoever opens the link lands on a page titled “Shared chat” with the note “Read-only · shared via 9brains”. First the person has to enter the PIN; only then does the conversation become visible. If you keep writing in the chat, they see new messages in real time but cannot type anything themselves. After too many wrong PIN attempts, entry is locked for 15 minutes. If the link has expired or you disabled access, a note appears instead saying the shared chat is no longer available.

Images and files in a shared chat. The external person also sees the files from the conversation: uploaded images appear as a preview and open full size on click, other uploaded documents can be downloaded via their file name. Images and files the assistant produced in the chat are visible and downloadable as well, as is a document from the project that the answer links to. Only what appears in this one chat is reachable — the link never reaches other files in your workspace or your agents. So if a chat contains files that have no business outside your company, don’t share it externally.