How to Use Ask Maz in Ninety
Ask Maz is a conversational feature inside Ninety that lets you ask plain-language questions about your business, get clear, role-relevant answers drawn from your live data, and create or edit items across your tools — all without leaving the chat.
Ask Maz is available on the Thrive and Legacy plans. Open it from the Ask Maz button in the top-right corner of any page in Ninety.
What is Ask Maz?
Ask Maz is a conversational AI feature that provides on-demand insight into your business data. Type a question in plain language, and Maz returns an answer drawn from your live Ninety data.
Unlike a search function, Ask Maz understands context, surfaces connections across tools, and highlights risks, trends, and gaps you would otherwise discover manually. You can ask follow-up questions, drill deeper into findings, and take action — creating and editing items such as Rocks, Milestones, Org Chart Seats, To-Dos, Issues, and Headlines — directly from the conversation.
What Ask Maz can access
Ask Maz sees the same data you do. The teams and items your role provides access to in Ninety are the same teams and items Maz can see, including:
Current priorities
Rocks and milestones.
To-Dos.
Issues.
Company vision and structure
Vision tool pages.
Org Chart.
Performance metrics
Scorecard KPIs.
Meetings and updates
Past meeting summaries and details.
Headlines and Cascading Messages.
Teams and people
Company directory.
Teams you belong to, with cross-team data available on request.
Knowledge Portal
Your company's internal documentation, training materials, and learning resources.
Who can use Ask Maz
Ask Maz is available to all users on our Thrive and Legacy pricing plans. Maz accesses the same information as the user according to their role's permissions level:
Owners and Admins see company-wide data across all teams.
Managers and Managees/Team Members see data for the team(s) they belong to.
Implementers see data for the companies they work with, scoped to their access.
Observers see data within the limits of their read-only permissions.
How to use Ask Maz
Ask Maz is available from the Maz sidebar after clicking Ask Maz from the top right of any page; you do not need to navigate to a specific page to use it.
Open Ask Maz. Click the Ask Maz button in the top-right corner of any page in Ninety. Select an example prompt or start typing to get started.
Type your question. Ask anything about your business in plain English, no special formatting or syntax needed.
Review Maz's answer. Maz returns a response scoped to your role and permissions. Answers draw from across your Ninety data, automatically surfacing connections between tools.
Continue the conversation. Ask follow-up questions, drill into a specific finding, or pivot to a new topic. Each question builds on the last, so you do not need to re-explain context as the conversation continues.
To start fresh on a different topic, use the New Chat button to begin a new conversation.
Managing your conversation
Once a conversation begins, Maz keeps it open until you actively close or reset it. Three controls in the top-right corner of the sidebar manage this:
New chat icon: starts a fresh conversation and clears the current one
Expand icon: opens the sidebar in a larger view
Close (X): closes the panel and ends the conversation.
To minimize a conversation without ending it, click the minimize icon on the panel. The panel closes, and a blue dot appears on the Ask Maz button in the top-right corner to confirm your conversation has been preserved. This works for any Maz workflow you have open — Ask Maz, drafting a SMART Rock, the Scorecard Optimizer, and others.
To pick a minimized conversation back up, click the Ask Maz button. Maz reopens it exactly where you left off.
If you instead close a conversation with the Close (X) icon and then click Ask Maz, Maz starts a new Ask Maz session — but first gives you one last chance to resume your previous Ask Maz conversation before it clears.
Important: Full conversation history is not yet available. Minimizing a conversation preserves it, but clicking New Chat permanently clears the current conversation. Only start a new chat once you have finished the one you are on.
Copying text from a Maz response
Click the copy icon at the bottom left of any Maz response to add the response to your computer's clipboard. Then, you can paste that response elsewhere as needed (such as in an Issue's description box, a working document, etc.).
Providing feedback
After receiving a response from Maz, you can click the thumbs-up or thumbs-down icon to open a bubble that will send your feedback directly to the product development team.
Write in your message to let the team know anything about Maz's response, then click Submit. You can also click the Skip button to send your feedback (thumbs-up or down) without an additional message.
Creating and editing items with Ask Maz
Ask Maz can take action on your data, not just report on it. When Maz surfaces something worth acting on, ask it in plain language to create a new item or edit an existing one, and Maz makes the change in Ninety after confirming any details it needs, such as an owner or a due date.
Ask Maz can create and edit the following items:
Item | Create | Edit |
Rocks | Add a new Rock. | Change the title, due date, or description. |
Milestones | Add a milestone to a Rock. | Change the due date or owner, edit the description, or remove a milestone. |
Org Chart Seats | Create a new Seat. | Update an existing Seat. |
To-Dos | Create a To-Do. | Edit an existing To-Do. |
Issues | Create a short-term or long-term Issue. | Edit an existing Issue. |
Headlines | Create a Headline. | Edit an existing Headline. |
For example, after asking "Which of our Rocks do not have defined milestones?", you can follow up with "Add a milestone to each of those Rocks due at the end of the month." Maz adds a milestone to each Rock and applies the due date you specified.
Note: Some actions are not yet available from Ask Maz, including deleting items, changing a Rock's team or quarter, and editing Scorecard data. For a guided, best-practice experience creating a Rock, building an Org Chart Seat, or optimizing a Scorecard, use the dedicated Maz buttons in those tools — for example, Help me draft a SMART Rock, Refine with Maz in a Rock's details panel, or Optimize Scorecard. See Creating and Refining Rocks with AI Assistance from Maz.
Suggested prompts
Variations of the prompts below have proven valuable for teams and early testers:
Before a Weekly Team Meeting
What should I be aware of before the leadership team's next Weekly Team Meeting?
Create a To-Do for everyone on my team to update their KPIs before our meeting.
What's our leadership team's average meeting rating, and how can we improve it?
Create an Issue describing the Scorecard trend you just highlighted.
What's the average age of this team's open Issues?
What are each of my team's average meeting ratings?
Summarize the open Headlines and Cascading Messages across my teams.
Which Issues did this team discuss last week?
Rocks and quarterly priorities
Are our Rocks well aligned with our annual goals?
Which of our Rocks do not have defined milestones?
Are we on track to reach our annual revenue goal?
Which Rocks are at risk this quarter across all my teams?
Do my Rocks support my team's and our company's annual goals?
Scorecard and KPIs
For the Leadership team's Scorecard, which KPIs are leading vs. lagging indicators?
How well does our leadership team's Scorecard connect with our current Rocks and annual goals?
Edit the milestones for [your team member's name]'s Rock to reflect the following...
Are there any concerning trends on this team's Scorecard?
Org Chart
Is our Org Chart aligned to our current Rocks, annual goals, vision, and Scorecard?
Create a new Seat under mine to focus on the following roles and responsibilities...
Let's revise my Seat to reflect the workload I'm taking on with this quarter's Rocks and the Rocks I completed last quarter.
Asking follow-up questions
Some of the most useful Ask Maz conversations combine a diagnostic question with a follow-up action. For example:
"Which of our Rocks do not have defined milestones?" Then, "Create a To-Do for each Rock owner to add milestones by [date]."
"Is our Org Chart aligned to our current Rocks, annual goals, vision, and Scorecard?" → "Create a long-term Issue regarding [the gap Maz identified]."
Tips for better answers
These tips will help you get the most value from your conversations with Ask Maz:
Ask in plain language. No special syntax is needed. Ask the way you would ask a colleague.
Be specific. "Which Scorecard KPIs have been below goal for three or more weeks?" will return a more useful answer than "What's going wrong?"
Build on the conversation. Maz remembers context within a session. You do not need to re-explain what you are looking at with each follow-up; just ask your next question.
Wait to start a new chat. Ask Maz does not save conversation history. Only use the New Chat button after you finish the current conversation. Starting a new one permanently clears everything.
Complete data produces better answers. Maz draws from your live Ninety data. Complete Scorecards, current Rocks with milestones, and up-to-date Issues give it more to work with.