What Kairos is and the difference between Process Mode and Agent Mode

Kairos is WorkOS's AI assistant. You can talk or type to it, and there are two different ways to use it — the first question anyone trying it for the first time asks.

Process Mode

The category gets fixed when you record from a specific section (for example, a task from Tasks or a note from the Digital Garden); if you speak freely from the general Kairos button, AI detects it on its own. The categories are task, note, publication, email and calendar. You record or type, and Kairos carries out that single process: it creates the task, drafts the note, prepares the publication, and so on.

Examples: dictating a new task ("remind me to call Laura tomorrow"), creating a note, drafting a publication, dictating a calendar event, or dictating a reply to an email.

Agent Mode

A free-form chat, by voice or by text, where you can ask for anything in natural language: creating, searching, editing or linking records across several sections at once ("find company X's documents and create a task to review the latest one"). Kairos decides which actions to take to fulfill your request.

In Agent Mode you can also cite specific pages as context (typing @ while writing, or using the Cite pages as context button while speaking) so Kairos bases its answer on real information from your account — notes, documents, wiki articles, projects, clients or contacts.

The golden rule: it never acts silently

Any action that writes something (creating or editing a record, linking records, sending an email) first shows you a card, Kairos proposes this, with what it's going to do, and you have to click Confirm (or Cancel). If your request chains several steps that write, you're asked to confirm once for the whole chain, within a limit of steps; emails also always go through their own review screen (Review and send). Reads (searching, listing, reading a record) don't need confirmation, because they don't change anything. Kairos can't delete or archive records.

Conversations with memory

In Agent Mode, conversations are saved: you can close the panel and pick them back up later, or have several at once (New conversation button). They're strictly private — not even the account administrator can see another person's conversations.