The Assistant

Connect your own AI account and ask it to write, organise and find your mail. It is off until you turn it on, shows every change before it makes it, and never sends on its own.

Updated 27 October 2026 · 6 min read

Turn it on

The assistant has two switches, and both start off. While it is off for you, DMU Mail shows no sign of it: no button, no menu items and no shortcut.

  1. An administrator opens Settings, then Organisation, then Assistant, and turns on Allow the assistant. They also choose which AI providers people may connect, and what the assistant may read and do.

  2. Each person then opens Settings, then Assistant, and turns on Use the assistant.

If an administrator turns it off again, it disappears for everyone at once and routines stop.

Connect your AI

The assistant works with your own account at an AI provider, and the costs go to that account. In Settings, then Assistant, choose Connect another provider.

  • Anthropic (Claude), OpenAI (ChatGPT), Google (Gemini) and Mistral need an API key from your account with them.

  • Azure OpenAI also needs your Azure resource’s endpoint and the names of its deployments. Each deployment becomes a model you can pick.

  • Another provider is any service with an OpenAI-compatible address: give its address and its model names.

  • Test and connect checks the key before it is saved. Your organisation decides which of these providers you can choose.

You can connect several providers. For each one, tick the models you want in the chat box, and choose the model new chats start with.

Each provider can have a monthly limit in US dollars, worked out from the provider’s list prices. Leave it empty for no limit. At the limit, that provider’s models pause until the 1st of the month, and routines that use them wait. Raising the limit takes effect at once.

On the Business plan, an administrator can also add one key for the whole organisation, so people don’t need their own. Other plans don’t have this option.

Ask it

  • Open it with the assistant button beside your notifications, or press Ctrl J (⌘ J on a Mac).

  • Ask in your own words. In the chat box, choose what it looks at, such as a mailbox or a period, and which model answers.

  • In a message you are writing, the assistant button in the toolbar opens a side panel that writes or rewrites it with you.

  • On a phone, the assistant button sits beside the bell in the menu.

Preview, then apply

Whatever it suggests comes first as cards, with a tick on each line. Check the ticks, change them if you want, then press Apply. Nothing changes before that. Some cards start with nothing ticked, such as blocking a sender for everyone, so they only apply what you choose.

  • Everything it applies can be undone, with Undo on the card or in the message that confirms it. The one exception is unsubscribing from a newsletter, which the sender carries out.

  • Replies are written as drafts. It never sends, forwards or deletes forever, never invites anyone, and never changes settings or permissions on its own.

  • Anything it wrote or filled in carries a small note saying so, until you take it over.

  • Every change it makes is recorded in Activity, as made by you with the assistant.

What it can do

Write and reply
Drafts a reply, or rewrites yours, in the composer’s side panel. Did I answer everything? checks your reply against what they asked, and points out a missing answer or attachment. It never stops you sending.
Organise and tidy up
Ask what needs you today, or to tidy up. It proposes what to flag as important, close, label, move to Trash or Spam, or block.
Catch me up
After a few days away, ask what you missed. It shows what needs you, and what your colleagues handled while you were away, from DMU Mail’s own records.
Is this email safe?
In a message’s ⋯ menu. It puts DMU Mail’s own checks into plain words: whether the mail passed its sender’s checks (DKIM and DMARC), an address one letter off from one you write to, a first message from that address, a Reply-To that points elsewhere, links that go somewhere other than they say, a bank account that changed, and the virus scan.
Search in plain words
Type a sentence in search and choose Ask the assistant to find this. It fills in the search filters for you to check, and nothing is searched until you apply them.
Summarise and translate
In a message’s ⋯ menu: a short summary of the conversation, or a translation between English and Greek. The summary is not saved or shown to anyone else, and the original is a click away.
From plain words
Describe an automation and it fills in the form, switched off, for you to test and save. Make a template from a reply you sent. Fill in a contact’s details from the signatures in their emails, without changing anything already there.
Unsubscribe
Ask which newsletters you never read. It finds them and asks each sender to stop, only through the sender’s own one-click unsubscribe. This can’t be undone from DMU Mail, but you can subscribe again on their site.
Problems explained
Ask why a mailbox can’t connect. It reads the mailbox’s connection log, explains the server’s answer, and points you to Fix connection.

Routines

A routine is a request on a schedule, such as a tidy-up every Monday at 08:00. In Settings, then Assistant, choose New routine: give it a name, say what it should do, and choose when, what it looks at and which model runs it. Try it now runs it once.

A routine only prepares. When it is ready, a small dot appears on the assistant button, and its list waits there until you apply it. There is no notification or email.

For administrators

  • In Settings, then Organisation, then Assistant, choose which providers people may connect, which of their models, and what the assistant may read and do. Anything you untick disappears from everyone’s assistant.

  • What it may read: only people’s private mailboxes, which is the default, or also the shared mailboxes each person can already open.

  • Set up with the assistant, in Settings, then Teams, asks a few questions and proposes teams, shared mailboxes, permissions, labels and automations. Each proposal is a card of its own, with nothing ticked to begin with: tick what you want, then apply that card. It sees people, mailboxes and teams, never the mail in them.

  • Ask why someone can’t see a mailbox, and it explains, with the changes that would fix it. Nothing changes until you save it on the page it opens.

  • In Settings, then Spam & senders, it can suggest senders to block for everyone, from shared mailboxes and spam reports only.

  • See assistant activity opens Activity, showing only what was done with the assistant.

What it sends

Nothing is sent to an AI provider until you ask, or a routine of yours runs, and never in the background.

  • Your mail is decrypted to go to the provider you chose for that request. Only what the request needs is sent.

  • Organising and tidying up send only the headers, such as the sender, subject and date. The text of a message goes only to write, summarise or translate it, or to answer a question about it.

  • It reads private mailboxes only, unless an administrator allows shared mailboxes too.

  • Your keys are stored encrypted and used only for your requests.

Was this page helpful?