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Work with AI

AI collaboration overview with whiteboard, cards, and PDF

TL;DR​

In Heptabase, you can open Chat on a whiteboard to chat with the latest AI models. By adding cards, sections, whiteboards, or content like PDFs, videos, and journals to the chat context, you enable AI to respond based on the content you select. You can also edit and annotate important messages before placing them back on the whiteboard, where they can be visually organized alongside your existing notes for centralized management of topic-related discussions. By working with AI, you can transform linear chat records into a more complete knowledge structure, continuously building deeper understanding of knowledge topics.

Introduction​

In the AI era, people use prominent AI apps like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Claude to learn and research topics they care about. However:

  1. When topics are complex and involve connections between many different concepts, you may wish to extract key knowledge points provided by AI from linear conversation threads and place them on a large whiteboard for easier research and review.

  2. When you ask AI questions, you may want AI to read notes you've previously written or saved knowledge content, and provide valuable responses based on this content.

These are exactly what Heptabase's AI features excel at. In this article, I'll walk you through methods for using AI in Heptabase to accelerate learning and research, and share common use cases and workflows for different types of knowledge sources.

Overview​

Generally, collaborating with AI in Heptabase includes the following core actions:

  1. Open Chat in a topic whiteboard to centrally manage conversations related to that topic.

  2. Use the add button "+" or "@" mention to provide the whiteboard and specific content to AI as context.

  3. Right-click on PDFs, videos, journals, and cards on the whiteboard to add them to Chat, and have conversations based on these sources.

  4. Drag valuable messages to the whiteboard or copy them to cards for editing and adding your own annotations.

  5. Use sections, sub-whiteboards, or arrows to gradually integrate AI-assisted understanding into your knowledge graph.

Chatting with Whiteboards​

Whiteboard with AI chat panel open

In Heptabase, each whiteboard represents a topic you care about. When you open a whiteboard, you can click Chat in the upper right corner to view chats related to this whiteboard. In each chat, you can not only discuss with other collaborators on this whiteboard, but also enable AI mode to converse with the latest AI models from tech companies like OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and xAI.

Whiteboards serve three main purposes for AI conversations:

  1. Thinking tool: When you want to better organize messages from AI, you can directly drag messages you find valuable onto the whiteboard for visualization. As accumulated chats and messages grow, you can use these messages as a foundation to build deeper, more comprehensive understanding of the topic on the whiteboard.

  2. Topic-based folder: You can centralize AI chats related to a specific topic on the same whiteboard for easy future reference.

  3. Knowledge context: You can add the entire whiteboard to the context of your AI chats, allowing AI to answer your questions based on the whiteboard's content. For example, you can add all journals from the past six months to a whiteboard with one click, ask AI to read them and then ask about things you don't know about yourself, or ask for advice based on these journals; or put multiple PDF files and YouTube videos on a whiteboard, letting AI answer your questions based on them.

Specifically, you can follow these steps to start an AI chat:

  • Open a topic whiteboard, click Chat in the upper right corner, where the default mode is AI Chat.

  • Select an AI model and context in Chat, enter your question and start the conversation.

  • Drag messages you find valuable onto the whiteboard and develop more understanding of the topic based on this information.

Providing Context to AI: Add Button and "@" Mention​

Adding context is one of the features that allows AI to deliver maximum value. Both of the following methods enable AI to read your specified content before answering your questions:

  • Add button: Click "+" in the upper left corner of the chat box to add specific cards or an entire whiteboard to the context.

    Add button menu showing options to add context

  • @ Mention: Type "@" in a message, search for and select the card, section, or whiteboard you want as context to make it a key reference. This method is suitable for quickly finding specific materials.

    @ mention showing sections list

Chatting with PDFs​

If your learning and research sources are often PDF files (for example: academic workers doing literature reviews, product managers reading industry reports, students reading reference books), through Heptabase's PDF Parser and AI, you can have AI help you understand PDF content, even discuss specific pages and paragraphs with AI, and break key points into cards to place on the whiteboard while maintaining traceability to page numbers and paragraphs.

For example, when you want to discuss a PDF with AI, you can:

  1. Drag the PDF directly onto the whiteboard.

  2. Right-click on the PDF and select New Chat to start a conversation with AI.

PDF right-click menu with New Chat option

When chatting for the first time, Heptabase will automatically parse all text, tables, images, formulas, and other content in the PDF into a format suitable for AI to read, so some waiting time is required.

Once parsing is complete, you can specify page ranges when chat with AI based on this PDF. The specific method is as follows:

  1. Confirm that the PDF has been added to the current AI chat context (currently not applicable to PDFs mentioned using @).

  2. Click the PDF title above the chat box.

  3. A range selection menu will appear; select the specified page range.

PDF page range selector

Besides, you can directly select the paragraph you want as context and provide it to AI. In the image below, I selected part of section 3.2, then added the content of that range to the conversation context through the button on the left.

PDF paragraph selection and add to context

If you want to learn more about actual use cases for deep learning in Heptabase, you can read The Best Way to Use AI for Learning; if you want to know how to read and learn from different types of sources in Heptabase, please refer to Read PDFs, media, eBooks & webpages.

Chatting with Videos​

YouTube video with AI chat panel

If you prefer to learn or research through videos (for example: watching videos on specific topics and taking notes, attending online courses, reviewing replays of seminars and lectures), you can discuss specific videos with AI directly on the whiteboard. If this is a YouTube video, please follow these steps:

  1. Copy the YouTube video URL you want to add.

  2. Return to the whiteboard and paste the video using the shortcut (Cmd/Ctrl + V).

  3. Right-click on the video and select New Chat to start chatting with AI.

This way, AI can respond based on the video content and attach timestamps to help you trace back to key segments at any time. Through this method, you can quickly transform key points scattered throughout a video into a digested knowledge structure.

Additionally, if the video you want to discuss with AI is not from YouTube, or if you have other types of learning materials like audio files or podcasts, you currently need to drag the file onto the whiteboard first and use Heptabase's speech-to-text feature to generate subtitles before you can chat with AI based on these files. For these operations, please read the Podcast section of Read PDFs, media, eBooks & webpages.

Chatting with Journals​

Chatting with Journals

As you accumulate more and more content in your Heptabase Journal, you can discuss with AI based on journals from any date range. This is suitable for helping you identify recurring themes, improvement suggestions, and more, digging out unexpected insights from daily records!

  1. Right-click in a blank area of the whiteboard and select Calendar, specifying to add all journals from a specific date range to the whiteboard.

  2. Open Chat in the upper right corner of the whiteboard, click the add button and enter your question, allowing AI to read the entire whiteboard and respond based on your question.

  3. AI's answers will directly locate specific content in the journals.

Chatting with Cards​

Chatting with Cards

Of course, you can also discuss specific cards and paragraphs in Heptabase with AI. Here are several ways to chat with cards:

  1. Select a card on the whiteboard, right-click and select New Chat.

  2. Select text within a card and choose Add to Chat.

  3. Mention specific cards using @ in your messages to AI, having AI answer your questions based on these cards' content.

When using Heptabase's AI chat feature, one of my favorite uses is to edit AI's reply messages, highlighting paragraphs I find important, adding some of my own annotations, and deleting information that's not useful to me. You can click the Edit button in the upper right corner of an AI's reply message to modify its content.

Upcoming Features​

Heptabase's AI features are currently in public beta and require users to enter their own API Key to use. In the coming months, we will gradually provide free AI credits to Pro Plan users and offer more advanced AI plans for users who don't want to use API Keys. At the same time, we will also launch many advanced AI features, such as:

  • Allowing AI to answer questions based on your entire knowledge base and other MCP services;

  • Enabling AI to edit and manipulate cards and whiteboards according to your instructions;

  • Allowing other AI services (such as ChatGPT) to call and read/write Heptabase data through Heptabase's MCP Server;

  • …

Stay tuned!