Assist now provides additional transparency into how answers are generated by displaying thinking steps for each question you ask. These steps give you insight into what Assist is doing behind the scenes before the final answer is returned.
The thinking steps appear automatically whenever you submit a question in Assist and are shown in a dedicated box above the final response.
What are thinking steps?
Thinking steps describe the internal reasoning process Assist follows to answer your question. They are intended to help you understand:
- What Assist is planning to do to answer your question
- Whether any tools are being used
- Which resources are being consulted
- When the final answer is being generated
Thinking steps are informational only and cannot be edited or interacted with.
Why thinking steps are shown
Thinking steps are designed to improve transparency and help you validate that Assist has correctly understood your request before the final answer is produced.
In particular, they allow you to:
- Verify intent and meaning – If your question is phrased loosely or ambiguously, the initial explanation helps you confirm that Assist has interpreted your intent correctly.
- Validate resource usage – You can see which tools or resources are being called and confirm that the relevant sources are used for your question.
- Understand why resources are not used – In some cases, Assist may indicate that no tools or resources were called because the question can be answered using the LLM’s general knowledge alone.
- Build trust in the output – By making intermediate steps visible, thinking steps help you better assess the reliability and scope of the final answer.
What you will see
When you ask a question in Assist, the thinking steps box may include the following elements:
Initial explanation
A short explanation describing the overall approach Assist will take to answer your question (for example, whether it will search specific resources or rely on provided context).
Tool and resource steps
One or more steps explaining:
- Which tools are being called (if any)
- Which resources or data sources are being used
Depending on the question, this section may contain a single step or multiple steps.
Final answer generation
An informational message indicating that Assist is generating the final answer based on the completed steps.
Important notes
- Thinking steps are shown automatically for every Assist question.
- The content of the thinking steps may vary depending on the complexity of the question.
- Thinking steps are designed to improve transparency and understanding but do not affect the quality or outcome of the final answer.