Airtable AI

Airtable AI is a smart assistant inside Airtable that drafts content, builds formulas, and answers questions about your base directly from your tables.

How to use Airtable AI

1. Open your workspace and click the new “Ask AI” button that appears on the right-hand pane.
2. Type a question such as “Summarise the marketing tasks due this week” and press Enter.
3. Review the response; if you like it, choose “Insert” to add the text, formula, or summary to the current field.
4. Refine with follow-up prompts—for example, ask it to adjust tone, shorten copy, or explain a complex formula step by step.
5. Save your favourite prompts as templates so the rest of the team can reuse them with one click.

A quick take on Airtable AI

Advantages

• Instant field formulas: During testing, I asked for a date difference calculation and the assistant produced the correct expression in seconds, avoiding the usual trial-and-error.
• Helpful summaries: It turned a long list of customer feedback into a concise bulleted report that I could share with the support crew without extra editing.
• In-record content creation: While building a content calendar, I generated SEO-friendly titles directly inside the “Blog Title” column, saving a good chunk of time normally spent switching tabs.
• Context-aware answers: When I queried “Which deals need follow-up before month-end?” the assistant filtered the sales pipeline accurately, proving it understands record relationships.
• Smooth learning curve: Team members who had never touched prompt tools picked up the basics after a short demo and were drafting emails within the hour.

Drawbacks

• Paid-plan requirement: The feature sits behind the higher-tier subscription, so smaller teams on the free level can only watch the promo video.
• Occasional bland replies: Creative copy sometimes feels generic; I often tweak tone and add brand voice afterwards.
• Token limits on larger bases: When we pointed it at a table with 20,000 records, the assistant hit its size ceiling and refused to run the request.
• Spotty performance with formulas containing linked fields: In one case, it returned a syntax error that a seasoned user had to correct manually.
• No offline access: During a weak Wi-Fi moment on the train the tool simply would not load, forcing me back to traditional filters and grouped views.

If your team already lives in Airtable and you’re looking for quick wins in content creation, reporting, and formula building, the AI add-on feels like a natural next step, though power users dealing with very large data sets may want to keep an eye on those current limits.