Getting the most from Curatorial
The Curatorial Assistant
A research partner that's always in the room — it knows your library, follows what you're working on, and answers from your sources, not the open internet.
The tool the other tools plug into
Most of the features in these guides are things you run on demand. The Assistant is different — it's the surface you actually live in. It sits alongside your work throughout the app, holds a conversation across many turns, and reaches into your materials to answer. Learn this one well and everything else becomes a specialised extension of it.
Open it wherever you are
The Assistant lives in a sidebar you can open from anywhere in the app — reading a source, building a project, drafting an essay. You don't navigate to it; it comes to you. Because it's always a click away, it becomes the place you think out loud, not a destination you make a trip to.
The Assistant sidebar open beside the workspace
Screenshot
Ask about your own materials
Ask a question and it answers from your library — the sources you've uploaded and indexed — carrying the thread across follow-ups. "What does this catalogue say about the artist's early period?" then "and how does that square with the other essay?" It remembers the conversation, so you can push on an answer instead of re-explaining from scratch each time.
A multi-turn conversation grounded in the library
Screen recording (~15s)
It answers from what you've given it. A vague answer usually means the source isn't in your library yet — add it and ask again.
Let it follow your context
The Assistant changes with where you are. On a specific artwork or person, it offers to answer about that thing directly. In the writing workspace, it surfaces coaching and repurposing modes instead of general chat. You're not switching tools — the same partner re-tunes itself to the task in front of you.
The Assistant adapting to the current page
Screenshot
Reach past your library when you need to
When a question clearly needs current or outside information, the Assistant can search the web and fold that into its answer — while still keeping your materials as the anchor. It's grounded by default and reaches out by exception, which is the right way round for research you intend to stand behind.
An answer that combines your sources with a web result
Screenshot
Set its voice once
In settings, you can shape the Assistant's register — how formal, how academic, how plain-spoken it is with you. Set it to match how you actually work, and every answer arrives in a tone you don't have to mentally re-translate. It's a small setting that changes the feel of every exchange.
Tuning the assistant's register in settings
Screenshot
What it will — and won’t — do
It's a research partner grounded in your work, not an oracle. It answers from what you've collected, remembers your conversation, and knows where you are in the app — but it won't invent sources you don't have, and it's at its best when your library is well-stocked. Treat it as the colleague who's read everything you've read and never forgets a thread, not as a substitute for your own reading.
The Assistant is only as good as your library. The more you upload and index, the sharper and more grounded its answers become.
What comes next
Give it something to work with
Projects & Library
5 minWhere everything lives — organize exhibitions as projects and build a searchable library of materials
Notebooks
6 minA focused workspace for a question — add sources, chat with grounded answers, generate briefings and timelines
Insight Extraction
4 minMap the argument inside a source — claims, evidence, and counter-positions — not a summary
Meet the
assistant.
Create your account, add a few sources, and start a conversation with your library. Free to start.
Try it free