Clay's global agent

Agent is the tab in your left nav where you brief Clay's global agent. It decides which parts of Clay the job needs, runs them, and tells you what it did.

Everything that comes out of one request lives in one task. The agent can still make mistakes, so check what it built before you rely on it. You can also open the agent beside the page you're working on, from the Agent icon in the top bar.

Note: Using Clay's global agent is free while in Alpha. Downstream work like enrichments and workflow runs consumes credits the same way it does when you run it yourself.

Agent or Sculptor?

Sculptor, Clay's assistant for focused work, hasn't moved. Which one you reach for depends on how much of Clay the work touches.

In Sequencer, where your campaigns live, Agent takes over from the in-page assistant, so start from the task instead. See Sculptor for what it does in a table and in Claygent Builder, where you build Claygent, Clay's AI research agent.

What Clay can reach

Clay works through the same tools you do, so the quickest way to brief it well is to know what it does in each one. One habit carries everywhere: ask for a workflow whenever you want the result saved, written onto records, or built into something you can re-run.

For the tools themselves, see Workflows, Audiences, Search for Find leads, Sequencer, and Signals. Account Agents in Workflows covers the workflow step that researches one account at a time, and when to add one.

Starting a task

1. Open Agent in the left nav, then select New task. The start screen asks What should we work on today?
   • The suggested prompts underneath are drawn from what your workspace can do, so you may see fewer of them than a colleague does.
2. Say what you want to end up with, not just what you want to look at. "Save these to a segment" and "build this as a workflow" get you something you can use; "show me some accounts" stops at a list.
   • Clay's own suggested prompts are shaped this way: Route inbound leads, Build a prospecting workflow, Score and prioritize accounts, Build and enrich a lead list.
3. Say what to leave out. Accounts you already own, and anyone you've already engaged — naming them up front is what keeps them out of the results.
4. Answer the questions it comes back with. Clay asks for the detail you left out before it starts building, and you can Skip any question you'd rather not answer. Closing the question card instead stops the task.
5. Open what it built. The Artifacts panel collects what Clay made in this task.

To have Clay run the same task on a cadence instead of once, see Scheduled tasks.

Pointing Clay at your business context

Clay starts from your Knowledge Hub, your workspace's record of what you sell and who you sell it to. When a task should lean on something specific, add a reference to it as you write the message:

• Type @ for your Business context sections — the parts of your Knowledge Hub your team has written — and any Documents you've uploaded there.
• Type $ or / for your Workspace skills, the instructions your team has written for work Clay does often. Your team creates them on the Agent skills page in workspace settings.
• Select Attach file to add one file to a message: spreadsheets including CSVs, PDFs, Word documents, text files, and images, up to 50 MB.

Note: One message can carry up to 50 references. Add more and the send button stays locked until you remove some.

See Knowledge Hub for what lives there and how to change it.

Permissions and approvals

Each task runs at a permission level you choose before you send your first message. A schedule carries its own, set from the schedule's page, so a recurring task can be held tighter than one you're watching.

• View only — Clay reads and plans, and asks before anything that changes data or spends credits.
• Ask before runs and sends — the default. Clay creates and spends as it goes, and stops before the heavier actions.
• Allow all — Clay doesn't stop to ask.

Note: A permission level only shapes what Clay stops to ask you about. It doesn't change what you or your teammates can reach in Clay.

When a step needs your sign-off, the task pauses and shows a card naming the action, with either an Estimated cost or Cost can't be estimated.

• Allow once — runs that one step.
• Deny — opens a box where you can tell Clay what to do instead. Confirming there stops the step.

Once you've decided, the card reads Approved or Denied, so a task you come back to later still shows what you chose. Approving picks the step up from what Clay had already prepared rather than starting it over.

FAQs

Why is this taking a few minutes?

Work that spans several steps runs for as long as it needs and shows its progress as it goes, so a task that builds something takes longer than one that answers a question. Your task list marks it Working while it runs, and Unread when there's something new.

You don't have to wait it out — send your next message while it runs and Clay queues it, marked Sends after this run. Stop ends a run you no longer want, and you can send again straight away. If a run fails, the partial output is saved and the task offers Retry.

Can my teammates see a task I started?

Only if you share it. Select Share task, turn on Share with workspace, and copy the Task link.

Anyone in the workspace with that link can read the task's saved messages. They can't send anything in it, and only the person who started a task can rename it.

Does Clay know which page I'm looking at?

Yes. Clay can see the page you have open, so you can ask about what's in front of you — "score the accounts in this segment", "why is this workflow failing" — without naming or linking it first. Opening the agent inside a workflow, an audience, a search, or a table also changes the suggested prompts to match.

Why don't I see Agent in my workspace?

It's rolling out gradually, so you may not see it in your workspace yet. To get access, join the Beta program — Clay's route into features before they're broadly available. Only a Workspace Admin can enroll a workspace, from the Beta program section of workspace settings.