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Introducing Ask Vista

Mike
Plan ✓ Professional   ✓ Advanced   ✓ Scale   ✓ Enterprise

 

Ask Vista is the AI assistant and AI agent platform built into Vista Social. You can ask it a question about your social media accounts, hand it a job like planning a month of content or clearing your inbox, or turn any task into an agent that runs on a schedule. It works across every profile you manage, with your real data, your brand voice and your permissions.

Think of it as a social media team that already knows your business. It has read the posts you published and how they performed, it can see what is on your calendar and in your inbox, and it knows the strategy, targets and guidelines you have shared with it. You don't need to brief it from scratch every time.

Ask Vista title slide: Your social media team, powered by agents. Ask Vista anything, hand it the work, automate with agents.

 

Three ways to use Ask Vista

  • Ask: Get answers from your own data, not generic advice. Example: "Why did our Instagram reach drop last week?"
  • Delegate: Describe the job in plain English. Ask Vista does the work across the calendar, inbox, media library and reports, then asks for your approval. Example: "Plan two weeks of posts for our fall launch and schedule them at our best times."
  • Automate: Save any task as an agent that runs on a schedule and reports back in Vista Social, Slack or Microsoft Teams. Example: "Every Monday at 9 AM, send me a performance summary for all client profiles."

 

Why it matters: more output from the same team

Most of a social media manager's week goes to repeatable work: building reports, drafting posts, answering the same inbox questions and checking what competitors are doing. Ask Vista takes on that work so your team spends its time on decisions, approvals and creative ideas.

Example of a week of social media work done by hand compared with Ask Vista: about 29 hours of reports, content, inbox, monitoring and client updates reduced to about 1.5 hours of review.

The example above shows a typical week for one manager running three profiles. The figures are illustrative, and your results depend on how many profiles you manage and how much of the work you hand over.

  • Reports: a monthly performance report goes from hours of exporting and formatting to a few minutes, with a link you can share.
  • Content: two weeks of posts are planned and drafted for you to review, not written from a blank page.
  • Inbox: routine questions are answered from your knowledge base, and only the messages that need a person are left for your team.
  • Monitoring: competitor, trend and performance checks run every day on their own as agents.
  • Client and team updates: summaries post to Slack or Teams automatically.

 

Run your content strategy, not just your calendar

Give Ask Vista a goal instead of a list of posts. It looks at what has worked on your profiles, proposes a mix of themes and formats, writes every post in your brand voice, puts them on the calendar for approval and keeps adjusting as results come in.

Ask Vista building a quarterly content strategy from a follower growth goal, with a two-week plan pending approval.

Try asking:

  • "Our goal this quarter is to grow Instagram and TikTok followers by 20%. Look at the last 90 days and build a content strategy around our product launch."
  • "Which formats drove the most new followers last quarter? Shift next month's plan toward them."
  • "Turn the launch notes in my Ideas into two weeks of posts for Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, using photos from the launch folder."

Every post Ask Vista creates goes through your normal approval workflow, so nothing is published without the right person signing off.

 

Work your inbox, not just read it

Ask Vista can go through everything waiting in your inbox, across all profiles, and tell you what is there. It answers routine questions from your knowledge base, spots leads and complaints, tags conversations and hands your team only the messages that need a human.

Ask Vista sorting 86 inbox messages: 51 answered from the FAQ, 9 leads sent to HubSpot, 4 complaints assigned, 18 praise messages shared to Slack.

Try asking:

  • "Go through everything unanswered since Friday. Answer simple questions from our FAQ, flag leads and complaints, and give me a short summary."
  • "Reply to the latest message from Jordan using our refund policy."
  • "Apply the Thank you macro to every unread positive review."

If you connect HubSpot or another tool through connectors, Ask Vista can also create contacts or tasks there as it works through your inbox.

 

Build client reports and share them as a link

Describe the report you need and Ask Vista builds it from your real numbers, written in plain language. You can download it as a PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Markdown or CSV file, or share it as a web page link with your client or stakeholders.

Ask Vista building a September performance report for a client, with a section outline, a share link and an option to send it every month.

Try asking:

  • "Build a September performance report for the Acme profile group. Compare it to August, call out the top 3 posts and why they worked, and write a summary the client can follow without jargon."
  • "Turn this into slides for my client meeting."
  • "Share this as a web page."

To learn about formats, previews and sharing, see Ask Vista document generation.

 

Bring your own files and data

Attach a spreadsheet, export from another tool, campaign brief or document, and Ask Vista reads it alongside what it already knows about your accounts. Ask questions about the file, compare it with your Vista Social data, or turn it straight into posts.

Ask Vista reading an event calendar CSV and a folder of product photos, drafting 14 posts and comparing engagement by event type.

Try asking:

  • "Here is our event calendar. Create a post for every event and tell me which event types got the most engagement last year."
  • "Compare these numbers from our old tool with the last 90 days in Vista Social."
  • "Schedule the posts in this spreadsheet for the Acme profile group."

Ask Vista reads CSV, TSV, Excel, JSON, text and Markdown files, and PDF, Word and PowerPoint files from your media library. Totals and averages are calculated exactly, not estimated. Full limits are in Ask Vista document generation.

To teach Ask Vista about your brand permanently, such as your voice, products, policies and FAQs, add them to Brain.

 

Use Ask Vista in Slack and Microsoft Teams

Add Ask Vista to Slack or Microsoft Teams and your team can mention it in a channel to get answers or hand off work without opening Vista Social. Agents can also post their results to a channel, so alerts and summaries show up where your team already talks.

Ask Vista connected to Slack and Microsoft Teams, posting a proactive alert about a post that is taking off, with replies and a boost suggestion.

  • Same assistant, same data. It is the same Ask Vista you use in Vista Social, and it answers with each person's own access, so everyone only sees the profiles they are allowed to see.
  • One channel per client. Point a channel at a client's profile group and knowledge base, and every answer starts from that brand.
  • Conversations carry over. Chats started in Slack or Teams also appear in your Ask Vista chat list.

Slack and Microsoft Teams need the Premium integrations add-on. To set them up, see Ask Vista in Slack and Ask Vista in Microsoft Teams.

 

Hand recurring work to agents

Anything Ask Vista can do in a chat, it can do on a schedule. Describe the job once and an agent runs it daily, weekly or monthly, then reports back in Vista Social, by email, or in Slack or Teams. Agents can monitor your inbox, build reports, plan content and watch for posts that take off.

A team of six Ask Vista agents on duty, each with a schedule and a summary of what it did this week.

Try asking:

  • "Set up an agent that checks every weekday at 8 AM which posts are taking off, replies to the comments on them and posts a short summary to our social media channel."
  • "Every morning at 7, go through the inbox, answer what you can from our FAQ and send me what needs a human."
  • "On the first Monday of every month, rebuild the client report and email it to the client."

You can start from a library of prebuilt agents, such as a morning briefer, a weekly performance reporter or an approval flow watcher, or build your own. Agents are available on the Advanced, Scale and Enterprise plans. Learn more in Ask Vista agents and How to create an agent that runs other agents.

 

How to start using Ask Vista

Start with one ask: example prompts to try first in Ask Vista.

  1. Press X on your keyboard from anywhere in Vista Social to open Ask Vista. You can also use the Ask Vista card on your dashboard or the Vista Social mobile app.
  2. Type your request, or click the microphone to say it.
  3. Review what Ask Vista did, then follow up in the same chat to change anything.

Good first asks:

  • "Why did reach drop last week?"
  • "Turn this blog post into 5 posts for LinkedIn."
  • "Who in the inbox should I reply to first?"
  • "Build a September report for my client and share it."
  • "Run this every Monday and post it to Slack."

For a tour of the Ask Vista screen, skills and quick actions, see Getting Started with Ask Vista.

 

Important notes

  • Ask Vista acts with your permissions. It can only see the profiles you have access to and take the actions your role allows.
  • Posts and replies follow your approval workflows. Review what Ask Vista prepares before you approve it.
  • Ask Vista uses AI credits from your plan. See How to track your AI usage and credits.
  • Admins can turn AI features on or off for each profile group. See How to manage your AI features per profile group.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is Ask Vista?

A: Ask Vista is the AI assistant built into Vista Social. It answers questions about your social media performance, creates and schedules content, works your inbox, builds reports and runs AI agents on a schedule, across every profile you manage.

 

Q: How is Ask Vista different from ChatGPT or Claude?

A: General AI chat tools don't know your accounts. Ask Vista works with your real Vista Social data, such as your published posts, analytics, calendar, inbox, media library and brand guidelines, and it can take action in your account, like scheduling posts or replying to messages, with your approval.

 

Q: What are Ask Vista agents?

A: Agents are tasks that Ask Vista runs on a schedule without you asking each time, such as a morning inbox sweep, a weekly performance report or a monthly client report. They report back in Vista Social, by email, or in Slack or Microsoft Teams.

 

Q: Which plans include Ask Vista?

A: Ask Vista is available on the Professional, Advanced, Scale and Enterprise plans. Agents are available on Advanced, Scale and Enterprise. Ask Vista in Slack and Microsoft Teams needs the Premium integrations add-on.

 

Q: Can Ask Vista publish posts without my approval?

A: Ask Vista follows the approval workflows on your account. If a profile requires approval, posts Ask Vista creates wait for approval like any other post.

 

Q: Can Ask Vista create reports for my clients?

A: Yes. Ask for a report in plain English and Ask Vista builds it from your data. You can download it as a PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Markdown or CSV file, or share it as a web page link.

 

Q: Can I upload my own data to Ask Vista?

A: Yes. Attach a spreadsheet, export or document to a chat and ask questions about it, compare it with your Vista Social data or turn it into posts.

 

Q: Does Ask Vista work in Slack and Microsoft Teams?

A: Yes. Mention Ask Vista in a channel to get answers or hand off work, and have agents post their results to a channel. This needs the Premium integrations add-on.

 

Q: Can Ask Vista connect to other tools like HubSpot or ClickUp?

A: Yes. Add connectors for tools like HubSpot, ClickUp, Notion, Linear and Slack, and Ask Vista and your agents can use them as part of their work.

 

Need help?

Reach out to our support team, and we are happy to help.

 

Related Reading:

Getting started with Ask Vista

Ask Vista agents

Ask Vista document generation

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