Asking Questions

Learn how to ask questions, upload documents for context, and get citation-backed answers from the AI Assistant.

The AI Assistant is designed to understand natural language — ask questions the same way you would ask a colleague. No special syntax or keywords are required.

Typing a Question

Enter your question directly in the input bar and press Enter or click the send button. Examples of effective questions:

• "Summarize the key obligations of the buyer under this purchase agreement."

• "Does this contract contain a non-compete clause? If so, what are its terms?"

• "Compare the liability caps in the two uploaded vendor agreements."

The AI responds with a detailed answer and, where applicable, cites the specific page numbers and paragraphs from your documents so you can verify every claim.

Uploading Documents for Context

You can upload documents directly into the conversation for immediate analysis:

1

Attach Files

Click the paperclip icon in the input bar or drag and drop files into the chat window. Supported formats include PDF, DOCX, TXT, and images.

2

Ask Your Question

Once the files finish processing, type your question. The AI will use the uploaded documents as context for its answer.

3

Review Citations

The AI's response will reference specific pages and paragraphs from your uploaded documents, allowing you to trace every statement back to its source.

Matter-Aware Queries

When you are working inside a Matter, the AI Assistant already has access to every document in that matter's library. There is no need to re-upload files you have already added to the matter.

Ask broad questions across your entire document set:

• "What termination rights does the landlord have across all lease agreements?"

• "Identify any clauses that reference arbitration in the uploaded contracts."

The AI will search all matter documents and return answers with document-level and page-level citations.

Dual Search: Keyword + AI

When you submit a question, Irys One runs two searches simultaneously:

1. Keyword search — A traditional text-matching search across your documents for exact terms and phrases.

2. AI search — A semantic search that understands the meaning of your question, even when the exact words do not appear in the document.

Results from both searches are combined and ranked so you get the most comprehensive answer possible, whether the relevant passage uses the exact term you searched for or a synonym.

Show Thinking

For complex questions, you can expand the Show Thinking panel to see the AI's step-by-step reasoning process. This feature reveals:

• Which documents the AI searched.

• What search queries it constructed.

• How it evaluated and ranked the results.

• The logical chain from evidence to conclusion.

Show Thinking is especially useful when you want to verify the AI's reasoning or understand why a particular source was or was not included in the answer.