--- title: "AI Activate - Asking Effective Questions" slug: "ai-activate-asking-effective-questions" description: "Connect your AI tool to Nasuni files with AI Activate. Ask clear questions to retrieve relevant content and enhance your productivity." updated: 2026-10-05T19:29:48Z published: 2026-10-05T19:29:48Z canonical: "docs.nasuni.com/ai-activate-asking-effective-questions" --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.nasuni.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # AI Activate - Asking Effective Questions AI Activate connects your AI tool to your organization's files in Nasuni. After AI Activate is set up, you can ask questions in plain language, and your AI tool pulls relevant content from files you have permission to access in order to inform the AI tool's answers. This guide covers the kinds of questions that work well and a few tips for getting better results. ## How to ask effective questions Have a normal conversation with your AI tool. You do not need special commands or syntax. The clearer and more specific you are, the better the results, so include details like topics, time frames, departments, project names, or document types when you can. The same guidance applies to AI tools in general and matters even more when the tool is working across a large set of files. ## Questions that work well Here are some kinds of questions that work well, with examples you can adapt. Replace the bracketed text with your own details. **Finding and summarizing** - "Summarize the key points in our most recent report on [topic]." - "Find the [document type] we have for [project or account] and tell me what it covers." **Answering questions grounded in your content** - "What does our policy say about [topic]?" - "How do we usually handle [process or situation]?" - "What are our documented best practices for [task]?" **Finding precedent** - "Find an example of how we have approached [a situation like this] before." - "Pull up a past [proposal, response, or case] similar to [what I am working on] so I can see how we handled it." **Pulling context from multiple files** - "What common themes come up across our [feedback, retrospectives, or reports] from the past year?" - "Pull together what we have on file about [topic or account]." **Getting up to speed on something** - "I am new to [project or account]. Explain what we are doing and why, based on what we have on file." - "Give me the background on [topic] so I can come up to speed." **Getting help with your own work** - "I am preparing a [brief, proposal, or summary] on [topic]. Gather the relevant material we have." - "What can you tell me about [internal topic, product, or process]?" **Drafting and writing from your content** - "Draft a first pass at a [summary, brief, or update] using our existing material on [topic]." - "Help me write [what you need], grounded in what we already have on [topic]." **Preparing for a meeting or conversation** - "I have a call with [account] tomorrow. Pull together the relevant background from our files." - "What is the recent context on [topic] before I go into this discussion?" ## Saving what your AI tool creates Your AI tool can also turn what it finds into a new document, such as a summary or a first draft. AI Activate is read-only and does not write back to Nasuni. To keep that new file, save it into Nasuni the way you normally would, over a mapped drive or through Web Access. ## Things to keep in mind AI Activate retrieves the most relevant files for your question and lets your AI tool answer from those files. AI Activate is excellent for finding and understanding information. AI Activate is not a database, a reporting tool, or an exhaustive scan of every file. A few things to keep in mind: **Complete lists and counts.** AI Activate finds relevant files, but cannot guarantee that the results include every relevant file. For a guaranteed complete answer, such as "everything we have on this topic" or "how many of these we have", use the file system (such as Windows Explorer or macOS Finder) or a purpose-built reporting tool. **Finding files by location, or browsing folders.** AI Activate is not a file browser. AI Activate does not mirror the folders and drives that you navigate when you open your files, so AI Activate cannot reliably tell you where a file lives, list what is in a folder, or map out a directory. *Ask about the content you are looking for, not the file's location*. To browse folders or confirm where a file lives, use your normal file browser. **Authoritative numbers and reporting.** AI Activate can find a document that contains a figure, but AI Activate does not know whether that file is the official source or an outdated copy. For numbers that matter, verify against your system of record. **Content that is not text.** AI Activate reads text, not images. Scanned PDFs, photos of documents, and text inside charts or diagrams are not searchable. See the [Supported File Types](/v1/docs/ai-activate-supported-file-types) reference for details. **A quick note on freshness.** When new versions of your volume are committed to the cloud, AI Activate activates your content. If a file was recently added or edited, the file appears after the next activation pass and might take a short time to become available. ## When to use AI Activate and when to use another tool If you are looking for help to find and understand something, AI Activate is a great fit. If you need a guaranteed complete, auditable answer, reach for a different tool. The same guidance applies to working with any AI tool, not only AI Activate.