The Assistant is an AI agent that lives in your Partners dashboard and can take actions on your behalf. It works with your spreadsheets, creates projects, configures orders, generates invoices, and more. You interact with it by describing what you need in plain language, and it carries out the work inside your Zest account. The Assistant is included with your Zest plan at no additional cost.

Everything the Assistant does is reflected in the Zest portal, just as if you'd done it yourself. For high-stakes actions like submitting orders or creating invoices, it always shows you what it's planning and waits for your approval.

You can also set up Assistant Rules to codify how your team works. Assistant Rules are plain-text instructions the Assistant follows every time, so your SOPs get enforced automatically. For example, you might set up rules that apply volume discounts, auto-add a rush fee calculated as a percentage of product plus shipping, attach a companion product whenever a specific SKU is added, or match a particular tone of voice in drafted emails. See the FAQ below for how to get started with Assistant Rules.

These are the core workflows for managing concierge orders, from spreadsheet to submission.

Work that used to take 45 minutes to an hour can be done in a few minutes. Upload messy files (XLSX, CSV, PDFs, images, whatever you've got) and the Assistant reads them, figures out the columns, groups recipients into orders, and sets up a project you can start configuring right away.

If your XLSX has multiple sheets, each one becomes its own order grouping, named after the sheet tab. Clean column headers help (name, address, city, state, zip), but the Assistant handles renamed columns, odd formatting, and typos too. It runs address validation automatically as part of the process.

Example prompts:

Bad addresses are the number-one reason orders run into problems. The Assistant can pull up the address validation status for any order: how many are valid, how many have errors, and how many are still being checked. From there you can accept the suggested corrections, dismiss warnings when you know the original is right, or dig into the list to see who needs fixing.

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The Assistant can write email drafts (subject line and body) that you copy into Gmail, Outlook, or wherever you send from. It pulls in the right project context, including portal links and tracking URLs, so you don't have to hunt those down. If you've set up tone-of-voice rules, the Assistant matches your style.

Example prompts:

Search your catalog by product name, SKU, or ID and the Assistant helps you pick the right variant. It can soft-match product names even when clients use slightly different wording or typos. If something exists in your Shopify store but hasn't been imported into Zest yet, the Assistant can find it and pull it in on your approval.

From there you can set up the rest of the order through the chat: gift messages, "from" names, send dates, billing addresses, and line items. For shipping, pick a profile or set a flat rate. If a recipient falls outside your shipping zones, the Assistant can waive the restriction and apply a custom charge.

Your Assistant Rules carry over here too. If you've configured automatic discounts (say, 10% off all products when the order total is over $1,000, or a standing 15% discount for a VIP customer), the Assistant applies them when it builds the order. You'll see the discounted pricing in the preview before anything gets submitted.

Example prompts:

Before you submit, ask the Assistant to check whether your drafts are ready. It'll tell you what's still missing: recipients, products, shipping, whatever. You can also pull up an order preview with pricing so there are no surprises.

When everything looks good, the Assistant submits your drafts to Shopify for fulfillment. Submitted orders can't be edited, so it always confirms first.

Example prompts:

Generate an invoice preview, create invoices with custom line items (like a 50% deposit), list a project's invoices, mark one as paid, void it, or process a refund, all from the chat.

A couple things to know: creating an invoice doesn't send it automatically, so you can review first. And some actions depend on your payment setup. For example, manually-paid invoices can't be refunded. The Assistant will tell you when something doesn't apply to your configuration.

Example prompts:

For repeat clients who order the same thing every year, you can duplicate a past project in one prompt. The Assistant clones the original with the same recipients, lets you add new ones, and swaps in updated products. It's the fastest way to handle reorders without rebuilding from scratch.

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The Assistant isn't limited to project workflows. You can also use it for reporting, quick lookups, re-engaging past clients, and answering your questions about how Zest works.

Ask the Assistant business questions directly, without navigating to a separate reporting screen. It can build a report from a plain-language request, show you a preview, and export the full dataset as a CSV that gets emailed to you.

It's also useful for quick lookups when you just need a number and don't want to dig for it.

Example prompts:

One of the most powerful things the Assistant can do is help you reach back out to last year's clients. Ask it to pull up past projects, draft personalized emails reminding each client what they ordered and who was on their list, and export everything for a mail merge. What used to be a multi-day project becomes a 15-minute task.

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Have a question about how something in Zest works? Just ask. The Assistant answers using the articles in this Help Center, so you get the same guidance as our documentation without leaving the chat. When there's more to read on a topic, it can point you to the relevant article.

Example prompts:

Yes. Everything the Assistant does is reflected in the Concierge UI immediately. Orders, recipients, invoices, all of it. It's the same as making the changes yourself. That said, the Assistant is a productivity tool, not a replacement for your judgment. Always review what it produces before approving submissions, invoices, or client communications.

For large recipient lists, the Assistant works in batches and pauses at clean checkpoints. When you come back, just reply continue to pick up where it left off.

Reach out to [email protected] and we'll configure them with you. Rules can cover pricing logic, shipping defaults, product automations, communication tone, and more. Once they're in place, the Assistant applies them automatically. Note that Assistant Rules only apply within the Assistant, not the standard Concierge UI. You can view your Assistant Rules at any time in your Assistant settings page.

Your plan includes usage designed to cover your team's day-to-day work. It scales up during the busy season so you have more room when you need it most. The pricing model for the Assistant may change in the future. We'll always give you clear advance notice before any pricing changes.

There's a usage meter in the Assistant chat window. It resets monthly.

When the Assistant responds, you can vote with a thumbs up or down on the quality of its work. You can also provide more detailed feedback after voting by clicking Provide more details.