Triggers let your AI Assistant run on its own, without you opening a chat. Set a trigger once, and your assistant runs whenever the conditions you define are met: on a schedule or when something happens in Productive.

For example, you could have your assistant tag you on overdue tasks every weekday morning, or flag new tasks assigned to you that are missing a due date.

Your assistant always runs as you, with your permissions. It can see and change only what you can.

👉 Triggers are one of several ways to make your assistant your own. For the rest, see Customizing Your AI Assistant (Beta).

📌 If you've set up triggers for an Agent or built an Automation, this will feel familiar. A trigger has the same parts: a When step that starts it, an optional Check if step, and a Then step where the action delegates the work to your assistant.

Go to Settings > AI Assistant and open the Triggers tab. Click + Add trigger.

You can also get there from the assistant itself: open Settings in the chat input and select Personalization. Then, open the Triggers tab.

Choose a trigger type, then click Continue:

Choose the item the trigger watches, such as a task, deal, budget, invoice, or others.
​
You can choose from a variety of triggers for different item types. The table below shows which triggers are available for each item type.

The triggers available to you depend on your permissions. If you can't access an item type, you can't set a trigger on it.

📌 Form is an item type that can only be triggered when a response to that specific form is submitted. Learn more in How to Use Automations and Forms?

📌 When the item type is a task, you can choose where the trigger runs: on all current and future projects, or only the projects you select. Projects you don't have access to don't appear in the list.

Choose a frequency and time:

Daily: run every day at a specific time.

Weekly: select the day(s) of the week and the time.

Monthly: Choose between:

To narrow when your assistant runs, add a Check if step. Click + between the When and Then steps and select Check if. For example, you could have it run only when a task's assignee is you.

📌 The Check if step is only available for event-based triggers.

The Then step is set to Delegate to AI Assistant.

Write the instructions for this trigger in the instructions field. You can also choose which AI model runs it from within the field.

📌 Your assistant can't send you a message from a trigger. In your instructions, tell it where to put the result. For example, it could leave a comment that mentions you, or create a task assigned to you.

To see what your assistant did during a trigger run, open the three-dot menu next to the trigger and select Show Runs.

​
To run a trigger manually, select Run now.
​

Agents are specialists: you set each one up for a specific job, and it works with its own access.

Your assistant is your generalist, working as you across everything you can access.

That's why your assistant's triggers always run with your permissions, while an Agent's triggers run with the Agent's access, and its task triggers only run on projects the Agent can access.

Agents can also be triggered when someone mentions them in Slack, but your assistant only responds to activity inside Productive. You also choose the AI model for each assistant trigger, while Agent triggers use the model and thinking effort set on the Agent.

👉 For agent triggers, see Setting Up Triggers for AI Agents.