Airtable has always been pretty awesome, right? It’s like the best parts of a spreadsheet and a database got together, letting you build custom systems and keep your data organized just the way your team needs it. Well, now things got even more interesting with Airtable AI. It brings generative AI right into your bases, helping you automate tasks, dig into your information, and just generally get more done with your data without ever having to leave Airtable.
This guide is here to walk you through exactly how to get started with Airtable AI. We’ll show you how to add it to your base, put it to work on real tasks, cover what it can do, and share some tips for getting the best results. While Airtable AI is a big step for managing data inside Airtable, remember that using AI more widely across all your tools, maybe with something like eesel.ai, can unlock even deeper automation and insights, especially for things like supporting customers or managing all your internal knowledge.
What you need before you start
Before you jump into using Airtable AI, you just need a few basic things. First off, you’ll need an Airtable account. Access to the AI features might depend on your specific Airtable plan, so just be aware of that. You’ll also need an existing Airtable base you want to work with, or hey, just create a new one to play around! And of course, the AI needs something to chew on, so make sure there’s some data in your base.
What Airtable AI can actually do
Think of Airtable AI as a special kind of field you can add to your base that brings the power of text-based generative AI directly into your records. It’s built to work smoothly with the info you’ve already got organized in your base. As Airtable themselves put it, it’s about putting AI where your team already spends their time.
Its main superpower is helping you handle text-heavy tasks, especially when you have a lot of them. It’s great for sorting and summarizing big chunks of text, like all that customer feedback you’ve collected or notes from your research. You can use it to automatically put information into categories based on rules you set up. It’s also handy for drafting or creating content, whether that’s writing marketing copy, sketching out job descriptions, or even helping draft email replies. Oh, and it can handle text translation too.
Here are some of the things Airtable AI can do:
- Sorting and summarizing text: Great for feedback, notes, or research.
- Categorizing information: Automatically group data based on criteria you define.
- Drafting content: Generate marketing copy, job descriptions, email replies, and more.
- Text translation: Translate text within your records.
The cool part is that it works right there with the data you give it, making it a really useful assistant built into your regular workflow.
How to get started with Airtable AI
Setting up and using Airtable AI involves adding the AI field, configuring its task, seeing it in action with examples, and potentially automating workflows based on its output.
Step 1: Adding the AI field to your base
Getting started with Airtable AI is pretty simple. It all kicks off by adding the AI field to your base, just like you would add any other field type, maybe text, dates, or checkboxes.
Here’s how you do it:
- Open up the specific Airtable base where you want to use AI.
- Click that little ‘+’ button in the table header to add a new field.
- Scroll down the list of field types or just search for “AI assist” and pick that one.
Once you’ve added it, this “AI assist” field will show up as a new column in your table. It’s now ready for you to set it up and can be used across different views and interfaces in your base.
Step 2: Telling your AI field what to do
Adding the AI field is just the start. To get it to actually do something useful, you need to set it up. This means telling the AI what task you want it to perform and giving it the right data from your base to work with. Airtable gives you a couple of ways to do this.
You can begin by using one of the pre-built templates. These are made for common business needs, like sorting feedback or drafting content, and they give you a quick way to get going. You just pick a template and tell it which data fields in your table the AI should look at.
Or, if you want full control, you can write a custom prompt from scratch. This is where you describe exactly what you want the AI field to do. When you write your prompt, you’ll need to point to the data fields from your table that hold the information the AI needs. You do this by putting curly braces {} around the field name. The AI will then use whatever content is in that specific record’s field as context for its answer.
Pro tip: Sometimes the data you need isn’t all in one place. It might be spread across a few fields or even linked from other tables. You can use Airtable formulas, like the concatenate() formula to stitch together text from several fields, or use lookup fields to grab data from linked tables. Then, just point your AI prompt to that combined or looked-up field. This gives the AI more context to work with.
Step 3: Seeing Airtable AI in action with examples
The real cool stuff happens when you start using Airtable AI in your actual day-to-day work. It can take those tasks that used to feel like a chore and automate them right inside your base. Let’s look at a few examples inspired by how folks are already using it.
Here are some ways you can use Airtable AI:
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- Customer feedback: Automatically sort feedback into categories like “Feature Request,” “Bug Report,” or “General Question.” You just give the AI field the feedback text and your list of categories, and it can run automatically whenever new feedback comes in. You could even add another AI field to figure out the sentiment, instantly telling you if the feedback is happy, grumpy, or neutral. This helps you quickly see how customers are feeling without needing any fancy technical skills.
- Marketing content: Use an AI field to generate a first draft of a marketing brief based on key info already in your base, like the campaign goals, who you’re talking to, and the budget. You can even tweak the prompt to make sure the writing sounds like your brand or set up another AI field to translate that marketing copy into other languages if you work globally.
- Recruiting tasks: Use an AI field to automatically create summaries and list responsibilities for job descriptions based on the qualifications you’re looking for. Or, when you’re ready to make an offer, an AI field could draft an offer letter using your company’s standard terms and market data.
These examples really show how Airtable AI can turn manual tasks into smooth, automated processes right inside the platform, giving you more time for the bigger picture stuff.
Step 4: Automating workflows with Airtable AI
Airtable AI fields are pretty powerful on their own, but they get even better when you connect them to bigger automations. Airtable is already known for its automation features, and AI fields fit right into these multi-step processes.
You can set up Airtable Automations that kick off when an AI field’s output changes. For example, if an AI field tags feedback as “Urgent Bug,” an automation could instantly send a notification to the engineering team in Slack or create a high-priority task in your project management tool.
A really neat trick is linking multiple AI fields together. This is where the result from one AI field becomes the starting point for another. Going back to the customer feedback example, you could have one AI field analyze how the customer feels, and then a second AI field uses the original feedback plus that sentiment result to draft a personalized email reply to the customer, making sure the tone matches whether they were happy or unhappy. This chained result could then trigger an automation to send the draft email for someone to review or even send it directly if that’s okay. This lets you build complex, automated workflows that handle several steps without needing a human until it’s really necessary.
Tips for using Airtable AI effectively
Getting the AI field to give you exactly what you want often comes down to how well you write your prompt. Think of it like giving instructions to a really smart intern – the clearer and more specific you are, the better job they’ll do.
Here are a few tips for writing prompts that get results:
- Tell the AI who it is: Start by giving the AI a role or persona. For instance, “Act as a Product Manager with 10 years of experience…” This helps set the right tone and style for the output.
- Be super clear about the job: Say exactly what you want the AI to do. Be specific, and also mention anything you don’t want it to include. For example, “Write a campaign brief for {campaign_name}. Make sure you don’t include any budget details.”
- Include the right data: Use those field references
{}to pull in data from your base. It helps to briefly describe what the data in that field is so the AI understands the context. - Show it what you mean: For tasks like sorting things into categories or formatting text a certain way, giving the AI examples of what you expect can really boost accuracy. Put these examples at the end of your prompt.
Things to keep in mind when using Airtable AI
While Airtable AI is a great addition, it’s good to be aware of a few things as you start using it. Like any AI tool, it’s not perfect and works best when you know what it’s good at and what its limits are.
- Quality of your data matters: The AI’s output is only going to be as good as the information you feed it. If your data is messy, missing pieces, or just all over the place, the AI will probably give you results you can’t rely on. Taking the time to make sure your data is clean and relevant is super important.
- Be ready to experiment: Getting the prompt and settings just right often takes a few tries. It might not get exactly what you want on the first go, so be patient and refine your prompt.
- Check your Airtable plan: Whether you can access and use Airtable AI might depend on your Airtable subscription plan. While the AI field is a powerful feature, think about the overall cost of your Airtable plan as your usage and team grow.
- It’s focused inside your base: While Airtable AI is incredibly useful for tasks inside your base, its abilities are tied to the data right there and what that specific AI field is set up to do. If you need broader AI automation across multiple tools or want to do more complex things outside of just generating text (like updating records in other systems), you might find you need something more.
Making Airtable workflows smarter with integrated AI
Airtable AI is great for automating tasks inside your bases. But most teams work across many tools lik helpdesks, CRMs, project software, internal docs and need an AI that can keep up.
That’s where platforms like eesel.ai come in. Instead of being tied to one app, eesel AI connects with your helpdesk, chat platforms, wikis, and more to automate support, internal questions, and workflows across your whole stack.
Here’s what makes eesel AI powerful beyond Airtable:
- Pulls from many sources: Train it on tickets, docs, wikis, and more, not just Airtable data.
- Goes beyond text: Automate actions like updating records, tagging tickets, or syncing info across tools.
- Fits into your workflow: Use it in Zendesk, Slack, your website, and beyond.
- Transparent pricing: Predictable interaction-based costs with no surprise fees per agent.
- Easy to test and fine-tune: Preview behavior and adjust before going live.
So while Airtable AI helps you work smarter in one place, eesel AI helps you scale that intelligence across everything your team uses.
Make your data work smarter with Airtable AI and beyond
Airtable AI is a simple and powerful way to bring generative AI right into how you manage your data. By adding the AI field, setting up your prompts, and exploring everything it can do, you can automate repetitive tasks, get more out of your records, and make your Airtable bases way more efficient.
But if you want to take things even further and use AI across all the tools your team already relies on, eesel.ai is a great next step. It connects easily with your helpdesk, chat apps, internal docs, and more. You can train AI agents on data from Airtable, Google Docs, Confluence, and over a hundred other sources, so you can automate support, manage internal knowledge, and streamline tasks across your whole stack.
Want to see what that looks like in action?
Start a free trial of eesel AI or book a demo and explore what smarter workflows really feel like.
