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Ask Hive has modes for the jobs people ask of it most. Pick a mode from the composer and Hive tailors how it answers, the placeholder changes to match, and you get four suggested prompts to start from. Each mode’s options narrow what it does. Modes change how Hive works, not what it is allowed to do: every mode respects your permissions, the approval gate and the kill switch.

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The modes

Answers from what Hive already knows about your business and cites each record it used.Search within: Everything Hive knows, Client files, Policies & templates or Ledger & finance.Try: “What changed across our customer base this quarter?” or “Summarise everything we know about our biggest account”. A link takes you to the Business Brain.
Drafts an editable document you can download as Word (.docx).Try: “Draft a renewal letter for our largest account” or “Create a post-mortem report for our last incident”.
Creates an editable PowerPoint presentation, with every number grounded in your data.Try: “Build a quarterly business review for the leadership team” or “Draft a board update on this quarter’s performance”.
Creates an Excel workbook with structured worksheets and supported formulas.Try: “Build a quarterly budget with department-level cost breakdowns” or “Build a vendor comparison matrix with pricing and SLAs”.
Produces an image. Style: Diagram, Illustration or Photo-real.Try: “Sketch a one-page diagram of our month-end close” or “Draw a simple flow of how a lead becomes a customer”.
Builds a chart from your data. Chart types: Bar, Line, Pie, Scatter, Heat map, Bubble, Word cloud, Sankey, Radar, Stacked bar, Sunburst, Funnel, Treemap, Candlestick, Flow, Area, Histogram and Gantt.
Searches the web, with every claim cited. Scope: Whole web, News & press only or Gov & regulatory sources.

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How to use a mode

1

Choose the mode

Select it from the composer’s tools. The chip shows the active mode.
2

Pick an option

Where the mode has options (scope, style, chart type), choose one. Hive sends that choice alongside your question, which is sent exactly as you typed it.
3

Describe what you need

Be specific about audience, length and the data to use — “a two-page renewal letter for Acme using our last three invoices” beats “a letter”.
4

Review and download

Generated files open in the conversation, where you can review and download them.
Combine a mode with @ pins to control the data: “Create spreadsheet” plus @Xero gives you a workbook built from your accounting data rather than from general knowledge.

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Connected tools as sources

Outside the modes, Connect your apps in the composer takes you to connect more tools. Pinning tools with @ (up to 12 per question) restricts the answer to those sources.

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What modes do not do

  • A mode never grants new access. If an account is on Read, Hive still cannot send or change anything through it.
  • A mode never bypasses the approval gate or the kill switch.
  • Deep research is not available as a mode yet.

Ask Hive

Citations, files, limits and actions.

Library

Files and folders you can bring into a chat.