AI Chat and Voice Mode

Chat is the primary way you interact with AI on Scholarly. You can ask questions, get explanations, generate study materials, and have full voice conversations with AI Chat.

Chat Basics

Click Chat in the sidebar to start a new conversation. Type your question and the AI responds in real time.

• Conversations auto-save and appear in the sidebar for easy access later.
• You can queue messages while the AI is still responding. They combine into a single prompt and send automatically when the current response finishes.

Model Selection

Multiple AI models are available. Choose from GPT 5.4, GPT 5.4 Mini, Claude Sonnet 4.6 (beta), Claude Haiku 4.5, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Gemini 3 Flash, Grok 4.3, and more depending on your preference. GPT 5.4 is the recommended premium OpenAI model, while free conversations default to GPT 5.4 Mini.

Each model has different strengths -- some are faster, some are more careful, some have a more creative voice. If you are not sure which to pick, see Choosing an AI Model for a short guide. You can also switch models mid-conversation and the AI carries over the full context.

Thinking

Enable the Thinking toggle in the model menu to have the AI reason through problems before replying. This produces better answers for complex questions, math, and multi-step logic.

When thinking is on, you see a live progress summary while the model reasons. Once finished, the summary collapses into a compact "Thought for X seconds" block.

Some models always reason and do not show the toggle -- thinking is built in.

Linking Your Content with @

Type @ in the chat input to link your existing Scholarly content directly into the conversation. The AI reads whatever you link and uses it to give contextual, grounded answers.

You can link:

• PDFs
• Pages
• Flashcard sets
• Podcasts
• Recordings
• Research sessions
• Folders

Chat Knows Your Library

You don't have to remember the exact name of a file to bring it into chat. The assistant can search your library by name, type, or date, and pull up the matching item -- ask things like:

• "What was that PDF I uploaded last week?"
• "Find my biology lecture recording."
• "Open my last research report on neural networks."

You can also tell the chat to read one of your items. It loads the PDF, recording, podcast, or video (and uses the transcript for audio and video so it can answer faster) and uses the content to answer your question -- handy when you want a summary, an explanation of a tough section, or to compare two of your files. Linking with @ still works for pinning exact files into the conversation; library search is the faster path when you're not sure of the name.

File Uploads

Upload files directly into chat by attaching images, PDFs, documents, and other files. Each uploaded file appears as a pill in the conversation. Click any file pill to preview it in the side panel.

File Preview Panel

The preview panel is resizable (drag the left edge) and supports many file types:

• PDFs -- Full document viewer.
• Images -- Inline display.
• CSVs -- Clean spreadsheet table with row numbers and sticky headers.
• Code files -- Syntax-highlighted with line numbers (30+ languages).
• Markdown -- Rendered with full formatting.
• HTML -- Live rendered preview.
• SVG -- Visual rendering with animation support.
• Audio files -- Inline player (MP3, WAV, OGG, etc.).
• Video files -- Inline player (MP4, WebM, MOV, etc.).
• Calendar files -- Event preview grouped by date with time, location, and description.

Navigate between all files in a conversation with prev/next arrows or the file picker dropdown.

Fullscreen Files Sidebar

In fullscreen chat mode, open the Files button in the header to see all files the AI has generated or referenced in the conversation. Browse, preview, and download files without scrolling through the chat history.

AI Tools

The AI has access to several tools it can use during a conversation:

• Web search -- Search the internet for current information and citations.
• Code execution -- Run Python code for calculations, data analysis, and working through problems step by step.
• Image generation -- Generate diagrams, illustrations, and cover art on demand. See the Image Generation guide for details.
• Image editing -- Edit images you upload or that the AI generated. Combine up to 16 reference images in a single editing request to blend or restyle multiple sources.
• Document creation -- Create PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, and PDFs directly from chat. Ask for slides on any topic, generate essays or reports as Word documents, or create formatted PDFs for assignments.
• Flashcard creation -- Generate a flashcard set from the conversation content.
• Podcast creation -- Generate a multi-speaker podcast directly from chat. Say "make a podcast about X" and it handles the rest. Completed podcasts play inline in the conversation.
• Video lecture creation -- Generate a narrated video lecture from chat. The video plays directly in the conversation when ready.
• AI Slides creation -- Generate a slide deck from chat. Completed slides link to their full view.
• Deep Research -- Start a full research session from chat. Say "research X" or "do a deep dive on Y" and the AI asks clarifying questions, then runs research in the background. The completed report appears inline when ready.
• Canvas -- Open a freehand drawing canvas to sketch diagrams, equations, or concept maps. Send the drawing to chat and the AI analyzes what you drew. See the Canvas guide for details.
• PDF page reading -- Read specific pages from any PDF you have linked with @.

When the AI runs multiple tools in sequence, they are grouped into a single collapsible block instead of showing each one individually.

Retrying with a Different Model

If a response misses, hover over the AI message and click Retry. Pick a different model and the new variant streams in below the original. Both versions stay attached to the conversation, and a small switcher (for example, 1 / 2) lets you flip between them. Whichever variant is selected becomes the context for follow-up messages, so you can branch the conversation by switching variants.

For more, see Retrying with a Different Model.

Slash Commands

Type / in the chat input to open a command menu with keyboard navigation. Slash commands let you trigger specific AI actions quickly.

Built-in commands include /new (start a new conversation) and /create-skill (create a custom skill). Predefined study skills like /summary and /study-guide are also available.

You can create your own custom slash skills with personalized prompts. See the Slash Commands and Custom Skills guide for full details.

Text Selection Menu

Select any text in a chat message and a floating menu appears with three actions:

• Ask Chat -- Adds the selected text to your chat input for a follow-up question.
• Copy -- Copies the selected text to your clipboard.
• Speak -- Reads the selected text aloud using text-to-speech.

Pinned Conversations

Pin important conversations to keep them easily accessible:

• Click the pin button next to the chat title.
• Hover over a chat card on the /chat page and click the pin icon.
• Right-click any conversation to pin it.

Pinned chats appear in a collapsible Pinned Chats section in the sidebar, visible from every page. Pin state syncs across sessions.

Sharing Chats

Share any AI conversation with a public link. Click the Share button in the chat header to toggle visibility, invite by email, or copy a direct link. Shared chats display the full conversation read-only.

Background Tasks

When you ask the AI to create flashcards, video lectures, podcasts, or research from chat, these tasks run in the background. Track progress on your Home page where all active and completed tasks are visible. Click any task to jump straight to it -- even tasks that are still processing are clickable so you can watch progress in real time.

Voice Mode

Click the microphone button to start a voice conversation with the AI.

Two AI Chat voices are available:

• Luther -- Warm, storytelling style. Good for conceptual explanations and narrative walkthroughs.
• Flora -- Calm, logical style. Good for structured breakdowns and step-by-step reasoning.

Choose between a Male or Female voice. Switch voices mid-session directly from the voice bar, or set a default in Settings.

Control playback speed from the voice bar — choose 1x, 1.25x, 1.5x, or 2x. The AI voice stays natural at all speeds with pitch preserved.

Voice and text share the same conversation. You can switch between typing and talking at any point without losing context. Typed messages during voice mode are sent through the voice system -- the AI responds with audio instead of a regular text reply.

While in voice mode, the AI can still search your PDFs, notes, and the web to answer your questions.

Free users get 15 minutes of voice chat per day; premium users get 60 minutes.

For a detailed guide, see Voice Mode.

Recent Chats

Every content page shows a strip of your most recent conversations at the top of the chat panel. Click any entry to switch to that conversation instantly. If you have more than 5 previous chats, click Show more to see the full list.

This makes it easy to maintain multiple threads on the same content -- for example, one chat for chapter summaries and another for practice questions.

Chat Breadcrumb

Conversation headers include a Chat breadcrumb that takes you back to the main chat page (a clean starting point with no conversation pre-loaded). Refreshing inside a conversation keeps you on the same chat URL so you do not lose your place.

Context-Specific Chat

Chat is available on every content type in Scholarly, not just from the sidebar. When you open chat from a PDF, flashcard set, recording, podcast, or research session, the AI automatically receives context from whatever you are viewing.

On PDF pages, the AI knows which specific page you are on and can reference surrounding content without you needing to link anything manually.

On a flashcard deck, chat can do more than answer questions — ask it to add, rewrite, or remove cards and it edits the deck for you. The changes appear in your study session immediately and are saved back to the deck. See Flashcards, Quizzes, and Exams for more.