Note: Ask is a Benchling AI feature. See the AI at Benchling page for information on how to enable AI-based features.
This feature is in Preview, so keep in mind that it is a work in progress. Usage limits may apply as we prepare for general availability.
Overview
Ask is a fast, conversational way to explore your data. Ask natural-language questions across your experiments, results, and shared content.
Ask is the default mode for Benchling AI. It can extract information from unstructured text (whether in Notebook Entries or Attachments) and combine it with structured data (Entities, Results, and more) to produce comprehensive answers quickly.
Ask is built to be fast and give you short answers with just the most relevant details. If you need more comprehensive answers or have harder tasks (like generating reports), please try out Deep Research.
Getting started
Access Ask using the AI section of our sidebar.
- Navigate to the AI icon on the sidebar
- Enter your prompt into the input box or click a suggested action
- Click Send ⬆️
Ask vs Deep Research
| Ask | Deep Research | |
| Speed | Faster responses 20 seconds - 1 minute |
~8 minutes to half an hour Will email when complete |
| Depth |
Will direct you to use Deep Research if needed |
"Summarize my experiments from the last month into a report" |
| References & Citations | May show chip links to the Benchling Entries, Sequences, or entities relevant to the answer | Shows chip links and citations to the Benchling Entries, Sequences, Search results, and data warehouse queries used to generate the first response |
| Chat | Prior questions and answers are included as context for subsequent questions in the same thread. Modify or add to your response by asking follow-up questions. | |
| Attachments | Allows file attachments in chat |
|
| Can Search the Benchling Help Center | Yes |
With Public Data feature |
| Can Generate Charts/Graphs | No |
Yes |
Many best practices for Ask are similar to best practices for Deep Research mode. For additional details, example prompts, and guidance around prompt engineering see the Deep Research page.
Data Protection & Security
Ask operates on behalf of the user who made the query. That means it has access to the same data as the user who made the query, not all of the data within Benchling.
For more information about privacy and security for AI-powered features, see Data protection and security for AI at Benchling.