Add-ons

Add-ons are the things Else can already do inside a run — read the live web, open a PDF, write a spreadsheet, produce a design, build a file you can download. There are 13 of them and they are all on. There is nothing to install, no per-account switch to find, and no upgrade that unlocks them.

What the 13 let it do

The panel above the composer groups them the way it uses them.

Research — getting the facts in. Web research searches, reads and cites current sources. Browser reading opens pages and follows links across websites, which is what a search result page alone can’t do. Assistant knowledge uses files you have uploaded and your team context.

Workspace — opening what you hand it. Convert to text turns any file into clean, editable text. PDF reader pulls the readable text out of a PDF. Word documents, Spreadsheets and Slide decks each read and write their format, so “take this deck and rebuild section 3” is one job rather than two.

Create — producing the thing you asked for. Documents creates reports, sheets and briefs. Code files creates downloadable source-code artefacts. Visual design generates a downloadable design. Generative art generates procedural artwork from a seed. Website builder builds and previews a site — which arrives as files you download, not as a hosted address you can send someone.

If you ask for an outcome, you generally don’t need to think about any of this. The list matters in one direction: it tells you what is genuinely in reach, so you can ask for the artefact instead of hoping for it.

Switching them off for one run

The panel is headed This run — Just for what you’re about to send, and its footer says Only what you pick here is available to this run. Take that literally. It is a per-run control, not a global setting — narrowing it now does not change your account, and the next thing you send starts from the full set again.

All 13 rows start marked Ready and switched on. Turning one off is a way of saying don’t go there for this job — no web for a run that should only use the file I attached, no browser for a run that shouldn’t wander.

The consequence of switching something off is worth knowing: if the run then turns out to need it, it stops and asks you rather than quietly reaching for it. A capability the run wasn’t granted is one of the things that puts work into Needs you — see When it checks with you. That is usually the behaviour you want, but it means an over-narrowed run comes back with a question instead of a result.

What having them all on costs you

Nothing by itself. You are not charged for an ability being available — you are charged for what a run actually used, and every charge lands on the receipt for that run. Leaving all 13 on doesn’t spend money; a run that decides to read fifteen web pages does. What bounds that is not the Add-on list — and in a chat it is not the spend limit you set either, because nothing acts on that number today. A chat is bounded by a fixed per-turn ceiling; the limit you set is read only on work you hand off. See Spending limits.

The honest second half: a broader set gives it more ways to be slow. A run allowed to browse may browse. If you already know the answer is in the file you attached, narrowing the run is a speed decision as much as a safety one.

Teaching it one of your own

You can add your own. On the Assistants screen, the second section is headed Things you taught it: “Teach it something once — a format you like, a checklist you follow — and reuse it in any chat.” If you haven’t made any, it says so plainly — “You haven’t made any yet. Create your first one below.” — and offers Create your own.

The right use is a repeatable expectation rather than a one-off instruction: the structure your weekly summary always takes, the checklist a draft has to survive before you’ll read it, the house rules for how numbers get formatted. Teach it once, then reference it in any chat instead of re-typing it.

Two boundaries, stated up front:

• What you teach it is guidance, not new machinery. It shapes how the work is done. It does not grant Else an ability the 13 built-ins don’t already cover, and it cannot reach anything on its own.
• It belongs to you. What you teach it stays on your account. It is not published, shared or pooled with anyone else’s.

The word for all of this in the product is add-on — or, for the ones you make, things you taught it. If you’re looking for a marketplace, there isn’t one, and you don’t need one to get the 13 working.