AI in Productive follows instructions from several places at once. Your organization sets shared context for everyone, you tell your AI Assistant how you like to work, each Agent has instructions for its own job, and triggers and Skills add instructions for the job at hand.
Knowing what each one does and which takes priority helps you put every instruction where it does the most good. It also explains why the AI responds the way it does.
For example, an admin adds “Write anything client-facing in British English” to the organization instructions. Every draft the AI Assistant or an Agent writes for clients now uses British spelling, while you keep your preference for short, bulleted answers in your personal instructions.
📌 All AI features require AI to be enabled by an admin in Settings > AI.
Standing Instructions
Standing instructions apply every time the AI works. They set the rules and context.
Organization Instructions (Beta)
Admins set organization instructions in Settings > AI. They apply to everyone's AI Assistant and to all Agents, and they take priority over personal and Agent instructions.
Use them for what's true across your organization: internal names, time-tracking rules, and the tone you use with clients.
👉 To set them up, see AI: General Information.
Personal Instructions
Each user writes their own personal instructions in Settings > AI Assistant. You can also open Settings from the chat input and select Personalization.
👉 For more, see AI Assistant: Custom Instructions.
Agent Instructions
An Agent's manager writes its instructions on the Agent's Info tab. They define the Agent's job: what it knows, the rules it follows, and how it handles specific situations. They apply to that Agent on every run.
📌 Personal and Agent instructions never apply together. Your AI Assistant follows your personal instructions; an Agent follows its own, so it behaves the same for everyone who uses it.
👉 For more, see Managing AI Agents.
Triggers and Skills
Triggers and Skills add instructions for a specific job on top of the standing instructions.
Trigger Instructions
Agent and assistant triggers let the AI work on its own, on a schedule or when something happens in Productive. Each trigger carries instructions for what to do when it runs.
On your AI Assistant: write what it should do each time the trigger runs. It runs as you, with your permissions.
On an Agent: turn on Use custom instructions to give the trigger its own prompt. Without them, the Agent runs on its general instructions.
For example, one Agent can write a delivery digest every Friday and review each new task as it's created, with the same Agent instructions and a different prompt on each trigger.
👉 For more, see Setting Up Triggers for AI Agents and Setting Up Triggers for AI Assistant (Beta).
Skills
Skills are reusable instructions for one kind of task, like writing client status updates in your team's format. You can pick a skill in a chat, assign it to an Agent, or let it activate automatically when it matches the request.
👉 For more, see What Are Skills?
Which Instructions Take Priority
When instructions conflict:
Organization instructions take priority over personal and Agent instructions.
Trigger instructions take priority over Agent and personal instructions for that run.
Choosing the Right Place for an Instruction
True for everyone in your organization: organization instructions. "We call our clients partners."
How you personally like to work: personal instructions. "Address me by my first name and keep answers short."
One Agent's job: Agent instructions. "You review project health. A project is at risk when it's over 80% of its budget or has overdue tasks. Flag risks in a short comment and tag the project manager."
A task that should run on its own: trigger instructions, for example, on a weekly schedule. "Review all active projects and flag any that are at risk."
One kind of task you repeat: a Skill. "Write client status updates in three short sections: progress, risks, next steps."
📌 Keep organization instructions short and true for everyone. A rule that suits only one team still applies to the whole organization, so it works better as a Skill.
How It All Fits Together
Standing instructions set the rules and context. Triggers and Skills add the job at hand.
