Skip to main content

Chatting with Companion

Companion is Harmony's AI assistant. You ask questions in natural language and Companion answers using the data you have access to — meetings, transcripts, contacts, accounts, projects, integrations, and (when enabled) the public web.

Start a conversation​

  1. Click Companion in the sidebar.
  2. Type your question or instruction in the composer at the bottom of the page.
  3. Press Enter to send.

You can also attach files (text, PDF, images) from the composer's attach action so Companion can read or summarise them.

Voice / Talk input for Companion lives in the Harmony Desktop App floating panel — it is not available in the in-app chat composer in the browser. See Hardware preferences for the desktop voice surface.

Pick a model​

Companion can run on different AI providers and models. To switch the model for a thread:

  1. Open or start a new thread, before you send any messages.
  2. Click the model selector (it shows the current model name) in the composer or new-thread toolbar.
  3. Use the Search models… input to narrow the list.
  4. Pick a model. It applies to the current thread immediately.

Once a thread has any messages, the model is locked. The tooltip on the disabled selector reads "Start a new chat to change model."

To set a personal default model for new threads:

  1. Open User Preferences → Models.
  2. Click an AI Provider tile (e.g. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, Groq, OpenRouter).
  3. Pick a specific model from the Model dropdown.
  4. Click Save Changes.

The list of available providers and models is controlled by your workspace admin under Settings → Intelligence. See Intelligence. The current provider catalog includes OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, Groq, and OpenRouter — Cohere is not part of the current catalog.

Companion has a built-in Web Search tool for questions that need information from outside your workspace.

  1. Open the composer's tools / capabilities menu.
  2. Enable Web Search.
  3. Ask your question.

Web Search is powered by Exa, a neural search index. Companion uses it to look up the public web and will summarise sources and link to them inline. There is also a Fetch website tool that retrieves a single public URL via Exa — Companion uses it automatically when you give it a link to read.

Important caveats:

  • Results may differ from Google or Bing because Exa indexes differently.
  • Both tools only reach the public web — internal hostnames, localhost, and private IP ranges cannot be reached (a deliberate SSRF protection).
  • Pages behind login walls or strict bot protection often return empty content.

Manage threads​

Companion organises chats into threads — one per topic, project, or task.

  • Start a new thread. Click the + icon (or New Chat in the sidebar). New threads start with the model and instructions you've configured as your default.
  • Browse history. Past threads are listed in the sidebar history. Click any thread to reopen it.
  • Expand to full screen. When chatting in a side panel or pop-up, click the expand icon to switch to a full-page view.

Tools and approvals​

Companion can call tools to do things — search a meeting, look up a contact, create a Linear issue, send a Gmail draft, fetch a URL. Available tools depend on:

  • The built-in tools Harmony ships with (web search, fetch, search conversations, etc.).
  • Integration tools generated automatically from your connected apps (HubSpot, Salesforce, Linear, Slack, Notion, Gmail, Google Calendar, etc. — see Marketplace overview).

When Companion wants to call a tool, you usually approve the call before it runs. To pre-approve specific tools so they run without prompting, configure Auto-Approve Tools in User Preferences → Companion. Auto-approve patterns match against tool IDs (e.g. hubspot_create_contact, linear_create_tasks), so you can be as broad or as narrow as you want.

For more, see Companion overview.

Where Companion gets context​

Companion reasons over:

  • The data the current user has read access to (workspace permissions are enforced at every step).
  • The workspace Handbook (under Settings → General) — workspace-wide context for jargon and product positioning.
  • Anything you attach as a source to a specific thread (a conversation, a contact, an account, a project, etc.) — see Asking questions.

For more, see Companion context and Handbook.