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Meet your assistant ​

Phi comes with an assistant built into the browser, on once you are signed in. You do not set up a separate AI account or sign in anywhere else, it is simply there. One of the first things you do is give it a name, and it generates a matching avatar for itself, which you can ask it to adjust. From then on you just call it by that name.

That naming is the point. Rather than thinking of it as "an AI", a chatbot, or a model you operate, it is meant to feel like someone who works alongside you in the browser, a presence with its own identity that gets to know you over time. The rest of this guide describes the different sides of that companion:

  • Memory, how it gets to know you.
  • Talking to it, how you reach it and ask for things.
  • Chat with Tabs, bringing open pages into the conversation as context.
  • Browser Skills, workflows it can carry out for you.
  • Acting on your behalf, because it can take actions and run tasks, not just answer. See Automation & Phi Link.

Prefer a plain browser with none of this? You can turn it all off. See Privacy & Your Data.

Memory ​

Memory is how it gets to know you. As you browse, it quietly builds a picture of what matters to you, automatically, stored locally on your device, and yours to view, manage, and delete. See Memory for the full picture.

Talking to it ​

Because you named it during onboarding, it has its own identity rather than feeling like a generic chatbot, and you talk to it by name.

There are a few ways to reach it:

  • Click the Chat button. Where it sits depends on your layout: the bottom of the sidebar in Performance, or the top-right of the page header in Balanced and Comfortable.
  • Right-click selected text and choose Ask [your assistant] about… to ask about it directly, with the selection coming along as context.

Asking in context beats copying things into a separate chat window. It can answer questions, summarise content, explain pages, and help with tasks, drawing on the current tab, what it remembers about you, and your connected external data.

Chat with Tabs ​

The assistant can bring the pages you have open into a conversation as context. Attach one or more tabs and ask across them, comparing them, summarising them, or pulling details from several at once, without copying anything into a separate window. Because it understands Split View and Tab Groups, opening a chat while your current tab is in a group attaches the whole group, and you can attach a Tab Group or Split View as a single unit. That way you can ask about related pages without explaining how they fit together.

By default, opening the assistant attaches the tab you are currently on, so you can ask about what is in front of you right away. If you would rather start each conversation with nothing attached, turn off Automatically add current tab as context to new conversation under Settings → Phi AI → AI Sidebar. You can still attach tabs by hand whenever you want.

Browser Skills ​

Browser Skills are reusable workflows. Teach it a multi-step task once and it can repeat it later on demand, turning a recurring job into a single request. Phi ships a set of built-in Skills you can browse and add, and you can create your own. See Browser Skills for the full picture.

Where your questions go ​

Worth knowing, because "built in" can sound like "never leaves your Mac". Memory does stay on your device. Your questions do not: when you ask something, the content needed to answer it goes to the provider of the model you are using, because that is the only way a model can answer. It passes through us without being stored, and it arrives under our account rather than yours, so the provider is not told who you are.

If you want the AI itself to run on your Mac, Phi Sentinel offers Private AI, which keeps some tasks entirely local. Privacy & Your Data covers all of this properly.

What's next ​