The AI assistant

The assistant is the fastest way to build in Vireo: describe the analysis and it assembles the pipeline while you watch. It is built on one premise: the AI builds, you audit. Every change it makes is visible and undoable, and you choose how much it can do without asking first.

What the assistant can do

• Build multi-step pipelines. "Filter to closed deals, group by region, chart the totals" becomes three connected nodes on the canvas, wired to your table, with the chart at the end.
• Add formula columns. Row-level math like =[Revenue] - [Costs] goes in as a formula column on the table, checked for valid syntax and real column names before it lands.
• Analyze data. Ask for a read on a table and it computes summary statistics per column, trends over time, outliers, and correlations between columns, then reports what it found in chat.
• Explain any node. Ask "what does this Pivot node do?" and it describes the settings, what feeds in, what comes out, and the current result.
• Build dashboard forms. Charts, KPI cards, and input controls arranged on a form you can publish: a one-page view of the model for someone who never opens the pipeline.

How to prompt well

State the goal, name the table, and mention columns when you know them. The assistant sees your tables' structure (names, column types, a few sample values), so it usually finds the right columns. Naming them removes the guesswork.

• "From the Transactions table, total Amount by Region for 2025 and show it as a bar chart."
• "Forecast Monthly_Revenue 12 months out and chart actuals and forecast together."
• "Build a 5-year DCF from the FCF column in Forecast. Discount rate 10%, terminal growth 2%. Show PV and implied value as KPI cards."
• "Anything unusual in the Expenses table? Check for outliers."

Then iterate. The assistant keeps the context of the conversation, so "now exclude refunds" or "make the chart quarterly" adjusts what it just built. One clear goal per message beats a paragraph of requirements.

Trust levels decide what needs your approval

The Trust dropdown in the chat panel header sets how much the assistant can do without asking:

• Supervised. Every action pauses for your approval, including read-only ones. Each proposed step appears as a card in chat with Accept and Reject.
• Assisted. Reading and analyzing run freely; anything that changes the workbook (creating nodes, writing columns, removing connections) pauses for approval.
• Autonomous. The assistant works freely and reports what it did. This is the default.

Rejecting a step does not end the conversation; the assistant is told the step was declined and works with that. The setting persists across sessions, so set it once to match how much rope you want to give.

Planning mode puts the plan before the work

Turn on the Planning mode checkbox, next to the Trust dropdown, and the assistant proposes a numbered plan before touching anything:

1. Unpivot the quarterly columns into rows
2. Group by fiscal year
3. Chart the yearly totals

The plan arrives as a card in chat with Execute and Cancel buttons. Until you press Execute, the assistant can read but cannot change anything; the app enforces that restriction. Useful for larger builds where you want to approve the shape of the work once instead of step by step.

Auditing what the AI built

• Change summaries. After each turn, chat lists what was created, changed, or removed: nodes, connections, columns, tabs.
• Highlighting on the canvas. Newly created nodes are marked in green, modified ones in amber, so a glance shows what this turn touched.
• The audit panel. Toggle it from the canvas toolbar, click any node, and see where it came from: built by the AI or by hand, when, the prompt you gave, and the assistant's reasoning at the time. The provenance saves with the workbook, so "why is this Filter here?" has an answer weeks later.
• Undo. Every assistant change lands on the same undo stack as your own edits. If a turn went wrong, Ctrl+Z walks it back.

What gets sent

When you message the assistant, Vireo sends your message plus working context: table and column names, column types, summary statistics, and a small number of sample values. Requests route through Vireo's server to the model provider. Your .tgraph files never leave your machine, and nothing is sent when the assistant is idle. The privacy policy spells out the rest.

Know its limits

The assistant can misread intent: it may pick the wrong column when names are ambiguous, or read "top customers" as revenue when you meant order count. That is what the audit tools are for. Read the change summary, then check the numbers on the result tab against what you expected. Treat its output like an analyst's first draft: usually right, and worth the review. When something is wrong, say so and it corrects its own work.