Add AI to your app
Give your app AI behaviour on the model you already set for it, and understand who can use it and what it costs.
You can give your app AI behaviour by describing it: summarise a long note, draft a reply, sort entries into categories, or answer a customer's question. You describe the result you want and when it should happen, and the builder adds it to your app.
The model is the one you already chose
Your app runs on the model you set for it under Account → Models — the same one the builder works with. If you connected your own model key, your app's AI requests run on that key. If you use the hosted model, they run on it and are paid from your balance.
There is nothing to paste and no second setup. You do not add an AI key to the app, and you do not need an account with an AI provider unless you want to use your own key. An app cannot choose a different model: you decide, and every app you own follows the choice you made for it.
Describe the behaviour
Say what goes in, what should come out, and when it should run:
Summarise each support message in one sentence at the top of the entry.
Draft a reply to this enquiry using our price list.
Sort every new expense into one of these categories: travel, supplies, software, other.
If you want the app to answer your customers directly, say so — for example "add a chat box that answers questions about our opening hours and prices". The builder writes the instructions the model follows, in one place, so you can ask for a change to the wording later without touching the rest of the app.
Tell the builder what should happen when the result is uncertain. For example, the app can put a suggestion in a field for someone to check rather than saving it directly.
Who can use it
AI requests are made for people who are signed in to your app — your customers who have an account, your editors, and you. A visitor who has not signed in cannot use your app's AI, because you pay for every request.
If your app has a chat box, it should ask people to sign in before they use it. Ask the builder to add sign-in if your app does not have it yet.
What it costs
Two charges are involved, and they appear in different places:
- The AI provider bills you for the text the model processes. On your own key that charge is on your provider account.
- AppHandle includes AI requests on your own key in the monthly allowance, and charges a small amount per request beyond it. On the hosted model there is no per-request charge: the tokens come from your balance (or the included hosted allowance), so a long conversation costs more than a short one.
Costs grow with the length of the text and the number of requests. Ask for AI to run once when something is saved rather than every time a page loads, and send only the text the task needs. When both the monthly allowance and your balance are spent, AI requests are refused until you add credits — the app does not keep answering and run up a bill. Current prices are on the pricing page, and Plans and limits lists the metered units.
What to keep in mind
The AI only sees the text the app sends it. Anything you send leaves AppHandle and goes to your model provider, so send only what the task needs. AI results can also be wrong, so for decisions that matter to someone — an approval, a payment, a rejection — keep a person in the loop.
AI is a request and an answer. It does not browse the web, it does not read your app's data on its own, and it does not remember earlier conversations unless the app sends them again. Reading pictures and documents is not supported yet.
Other services you pay for
If the service you want is not an AI model — your own server, a supplier's API, a spreadsheet service — you give the app a key for it instead. This is the part most people mix up:
- A key in your account under Models is what builds your app. Build with your own model key explains it.
- A key in the app's Settings → Secrets is what your app uses to reach a service that is not an AI model.
Store that service's key under Settings → Secrets. AppHandle encrypts it, the value is never shown again after you save it, and only a handle function — code running on AppHandle's servers — can read it. You choose who may use it, and Who can use a key you store explains the three choices.
The AI AppHandle provides for pictures
Making and editing pictures is built in as well. The Image Studio makes a picture from a description, changes one you already have, and puts it in your app. It is metered per picture, and it is yours to drive — the people who visit your app cannot use it. See Make and edit images.