Agents

Agents handle recurring research and actions so your team can spend more time on the next useful conversation. Use one to review target accounts, find relevant contacts, prepare a prospecting brief, or support a defined outreach workflow.

An agent carries out a saved workflow with the tools and access available to it. Start with the result you want: useful research, proposed outreach, or enrollment. Explain the audience, source list, exclusions, volume, and schedule, then work through the details with Athean.

For a one-off question or action, use Chat and Ask Athean. Account research agents in an account's Research tab produce on-demand reports. For recurring workflows and their runs, use Agents. For work that starts after a detected change, follow Event-triggered automations.

Every Monday, find up to 10 operations leaders at accounts in [list]. Exclude opted-out contacts and anyone in an active sequence. Explain why each person fits, and stage proposed outreach for my review. Do not enroll contacts or send messages.

For this brief, a useful result identifies the prospects, gives evidence for their fit, respects the exclusions and limit, and leaves the proposed outreach ready to review. Check those points on the first run before expanding the workflow.

For a team workflow, specify whether the limit applies per person or across the team, and which accounts each person should cover. Agents do not add a universal approval gate: instructions, permissions, sequence configuration, and connected tools determine what can happen.

Identify the relevant account list, contacts, or sequence when describing the work. For outreach, review Sequences and connect the channels it needs before expecting it to run.

Keep your organization's product information, positioning, customer examples, and sales guidance in the knowledge corpus. Curated notes and source citations help supported workflows use your team's material. Ask your administrator to review coverage and publication before relying on a new or updated source.

Use Slack for run summaries or team updates. State the destination and when you want an update as part of the workflow. To bring data from your own tools into Athean, see API setup or chat with us.

1. Open Agents and select New agent. If creation is unavailable, ask your administrator about access.
2. Describe the work in the conversation. Name the relevant accounts, lists, or sequence, and explain the output and actions you want.
3. Review the proposed workflow, schedule, and who it runs for. Ask for changes and follow the confirmations shown in the conversation.
4. Open the saved agent and review Specs, when available, to confirm what the workflow does.
5. In Manage my runs → Settings, check Runs for you and My schedule. Use Run for me if you want to participate and the action is available. Change my schedule starts a conversation about the timing of your own runs.

For team participation and the shared schedule, follow Set up an agent for a team. A saved definition, participation, and an enabled schedule are separate parts of setup.

To start a run yourself, select Run now when available. This runs the agent for you; it is a real run, and configured actions can take place. Review the workflow before selecting it. Athean opens the queued run, or confirms that it will appear under Runs shortly. You can also review the next scheduled run.

Use a Group when participation should follow a team. Check the group's current members first. Managing the agent, adding people to its runs, and granting access depend on your permissions; ask your administrator for the missing capability if a control is unavailable.

1. Open the agent, choose Manage all runs when available, and select Settings.
2. Under Runs for → Groups, select the team and choose Save groups. To add individuals, use the People picker and select Add.
3. Check the people shown under Runs for. This is the execution audience: an empty audience means the agent does not run for anyone automatically.
4. Review Schedule. Use Set schedule or Change schedule to work out the default timing with Athean, then check the saved result.
5. Check that Schedule status is Enabled when you want recurring work to run. Pause and Resume control the shared schedule for everyone in Runs for; a person's own schedule can override the default timing.
6. Use Share → Access separately if teammates should be able to open the agent's definition. Choose the intended people or groups and select Save.

Giving someone Access does not add them to Runs for. Adding someone to Runs for does not grant Access to the definition or permission to see other people's run history. Verify the first scheduled output for the intended people in Manage all runs → Runs, where you have access.

Group participation follows resolved membership. Removing a direct person selection can leave them participating through a group. Likewise, Remove me in Manage my runs removes your direct participation; it does not remove a group-based assignment. Change the relevant group assignment or ask an administrator when that participation should end.

1. Open the agent's Runs tab. Use Manage my runs for your results or Manage all runs for the wider history available to you.
2. Check Started and Status. In the team view, check For to confirm whose work you are reviewing.
3. Read Actions and Output, then open the run. Inspect its Output and Actions views to understand what it produced and what it attempted.
4. For the prospecting brief above, verify the contact count, target accounts, exclusions, and evidence for fit. Open the linked records or drafts and confirm that outreach remains proposed as requested.
5. If the run is waiting for approval, use Review & approve when shown, or Continue this run to approve in its details. Read the proposed action before deciding.

A queued run has not finished. A completed run still needs to be judged against the requested outcome; its action count alone does not establish that prospects were enrolled or messages sent. Check the resulting records and drafts before expanding the workflow.

When the result needs improvement, describe the specific change in the agent's conversation, review the saved definition and schedule, and inspect the next run. For outreach workflows, use Sequence performance after the resulting sequences have had time to run.

• No expected run: check Runs for, the person's schedule, and the shared Schedule status. Check run filters and whether you are viewing your runs or all available runs.
• Run history cannot load: use Retry. A loading failure does not establish that the agent has never run.
• Waiting for approval: open the existing run and review the pending action. Starting another run is not the same as continuing that approval.
• Failed run: read Error details and the recorded actions. Check the affected connection, access, and records before trying again; some work may already have completed.
• Unexpected or incomplete output: compare it with the requested audience, evidence, exclusions, and actions. Refine the workflow and review another result before broadening its use.

If the result remains unclear, contact support with the agent, run time, person it ran for, displayed error, and expected result.