👷Getting started with AI Employees

Introduction

Imagine having extra teammates who never sleep, don’t need reminders, and happily take care of repetitive tasks for you. That’s exactly what AI Employees do. They’re Motion’s role-based assistants, designed to help you offload routine work so you can focus on projects that really matter.

AI Employees come with specialized skills (like drafting emails, preparing meeting briefs, or manage sales activities) and can be customized to fit the way you and your team work.

At a Glance

  • AI Employees = role-based digital teammates.

  • They come with pre-built skills to handle repeatable tasks.

  • You can connect them to your tools, share them with teammates, and customize their skills.

  • They live inside your Motion workspace and stay aligned with your team’s workflow.

What You’ll Learn

In this tutorial, you’ll learn:

  1. What an AI Employee is and how it helps.

  2. How to add your first AI Employee to Motion.

  3. How to connect an integration so your AI Employee can work inside your tools (like Gmail or Calendar).

  4. How to edit a skill to make your AI Employee smarter and more tailored to your needs.

  5. Choose Visibility: My Skills vs. All Skills

  6. How credits work: understand how each run consumes credits, why usage may vary depending on the complexity and length of the output, and how to manage your credits effectively.

What is an AI Employee?

AI Employees are Motion’s way of taking repetitive, manual work off your plate. Think of them as digital teammates who specialize in specific roles: like Executive Assistant, Sales Rep, Project Manager, or Researcher.

Instead of you spending time on busywork, your AI Employee automates these actions, so you and your team can focus on high-value, creative, and strategic work.

Here’s what makes AI Employees unique:

  • Role-based: Each AI Employee is designed to perform a specialized function (e.g., Alfred for email, Spec for research).

  • Skill-powered: They come with built-in skills (like taking notes, drafting emails, or preparing briefs) that you can enable or customize.

  • Collaborative: AI Employees work inside your Motion workspace and follow your sharing preferences, so they stay aligned with your team.

  • Customizable: You can edit skills, add new ones, and connect integrations to make them smarter and more useful for your workflows.

See here to learn how to navigate the AI Employee screen.

💡 Pro tip: Treat AI Employees like real teammates. Assign them specific areas of responsibility and they’ll reliably handle those tasks for you.

Meet your AI Employees

AI Employees are pre-built assistants designed to cover common roles and workflows. Each Employee comes with a set of ready-to-use skills (canonical skills) that you can enable right away, plus the option to create your own custom skills.

Alfred – Executive Assistant

Your personal productivity partner. Alfred focuses on executive workflows like email, scheduling, and meeting prep.

  • Pre-built skills: Exec Meeting Coach, Daily Exec Coach, Daily Meetings Brief, Email Assistant.

  • Best for: staying on top of communication, prepping for meetings, and optimizing daily routines.

Chip – Sales Representative

A sales-focused AI Employee to streamline prospecting and CRM updates.

  • Pre-built skills: Update CRM after Sales Call, Sales Meeting Brief (Gmail/Outlook).

  • Best for: keeping pipelines current, analyzing sales calls, and preparing for prospect meetings.

Clide – Customer Support Specialist

Handles customer support tasks to help reduce manual triage.

  • Pre-built skill: Draft Customer Support Responses.

  • Best for: monitoring support inboxes, suggesting replies, and saving time on ticket handling.

Dot – Recruiter

Supports hiring and recruiting workflows.

  • Pre-built skill: Interview Grader.

  • Best for: analyzing candidate interviews, giving structured feedback, and assessing interviewer performance.

Millie – Project Manager

Focused on project organization and reporting.

  • Pre-built skills: Weekly Project Status Report, Key Decisions Tracker, Project Cleaner Upper.

  • Best for: keeping teams aligned, surfacing decisions, and ensuring projects stay on track.

Spec – Researcher

An open research-focused AI Employee.

  • Pre-built skills: Enrich Company, Enrich Sales Lead, Research Company, Score Sales Lead, Send email, Write a personalized cold email, or Research a person.

  • Best for: custom research workflows (you’ll need to create your own skills).

Suki – Marketing Associate

Designed to support marketing and creative workflows.

  • Pre-built skills: Today’s Inspiration, Social Media Listener.

  • Best for: generating campaign ideas, monitoring trends, and drafting content.

💡 Pro Tip: Start with the canonical skills each AI Employee comes with to learn their strengths, then expand by creating custom skills tailored to your workflows.

Note: You cannot add the same AI Employee twice. For example, you can’t have two “Alfreds” in the same workspace. Each Employee is unique, so if you need similar functionality, customize their skills rather than duplicating the Employee.

1. Add your First AI Employee

Add your First AI Employee

Enable a ready-made (canonical) skill for an AI Employee to kickstart automation fast.

  1. In the left sidebar, open AI Employees.

  2. Click on Add AI Employee at the bottom of the AI Employees left side panel to onboard an employee. For this tutorial we will select Alfred.

  3. In the modal, under Select the Skills you'd like Alfred to use (don’t create a new one yet) select Daily Exec Coach (Gmail) to quick start with a canonical skill.

  4. The skill will be added to Alfred and will prompt you to connect Gmail/Outlook before it can run.

In the next step, we’ll walk through how to connect your email so the skill is ready to use.

💡 Pro tip: Start with just one AI Employee to get familiar with how skills work. You can always add more later as your team expands how you use Motion.

See the step below for product slideshow.

2. Connect an Integration

Connect an Integration

Goal: Link your Gmail/Outlook account so your AI Employee can run skills like meeting briefs or email coaching.

  1. After you have selected your skills, scroll down and click + Connect under the required integration.

  2. In the Connect account window, click on Connect Gmail/Outlook account.

  3. When prompted, click Connect in the Link Gmail/Outlook Account pop up.

  4. Enter your credentials or select your Gmail/Outlook.

  5. Enable the permissions by clicking Allow

  6. A successful connection will pop up a You are now connected message

  7. In the Connect account window, use the dropdown to pick an existing connection or choose Connect another account.

  8. Click Connect.

  9. Once login is complete, your email will be linked and the skill will be active.

💡 Pro Tip: Make sure your browser allows pop-ups, otherwise the login window may not appear.

3. Edit a Skill

Edit a Skill

Once your AI Employee is up and running, you may want to fine-tune how a skill behaves. Editing lets you adjust inputs, triggers, and sharing to better match your workflow.

  1. Find the skill you want to edit

    1. Hover over the skill and click Edit on the right or click on it directly

  2. Adjust the settings (learn more with our how to guide)

    1. Change skill details: rename it, update the description, or tweak the instructions.

    2. Edit inputs: e.g., which email account, meeting notes, or data source it pulls from.

    3. Update triggers: decide whether the skill runs automatically or manually.

    4. Manage visibility: keep it private (only you) or share it with your team.

  3. Save your changes

    1. Once updated, Motion will use the new settings on the next run.

💡 Pro tip: Iteration is key. Test your skill, adjust the settings, and re-run until the output feels just right for your workflow.

4. Choose Visibility: My Skills vs. All Skills

Choose Visibility: My Skills (personal) vs. All Skills (shared)

When you create or manage an AI Employee’s skills, you’ll decide whether they’re private to you or visible to everyone on your team.

  1. Open the AI Employees tab

    1. In the left sidebar, click AI Employees.

    2. At the top, you’ll see two views: My Skills and All Skills.

  2. Understand visibility

    1. My Skills (🔒 lock icon beside your profile name): Only you can see and run these skills. They’re private and perfect for personal workflows or experiments.

    2. All Skills (👥 2 silhouette icon beside your profile name): Shared across the entire team. Everyone in your Motion workspace can view and run these skills.

  3. Choose where to add skills

    1. Use My Skills for personal automations.

    2. Use All Skills when you want the whole team to benefit.

💡 Pro tip: If you’re just starting out, create skills under My Skills. Once you’re confident they’re ready for team use, add them directly in All Skills so everyone has access. Simply click on the three dots and share with a workspace.

5. How Credits Work

Every time your AI Employee runs a skill, it uses credits. Credits measure the amount of AI work done behind the scenes; similar to how minutes measure call time. (See here for more about credits and billing)

  • Each run consumes credits. When you launch a skill run, credits are deducted from your monthly/annual balance.

  • Usage depends on inputs and outputs.

    • Inputs: Complex or large inputs (e.g., long text documents, transcripts, or images) require more credits than short prompts.

    • Outputs: Generating longer or more detailed results (e.g., a full draft vs. a quick summary) also consumes more credits.

  • Credits refresh based on your plan:

    • Monthly plans: Your credit balance resets on the 1st of every month.

    • Annual plans: You receive your entire year’s credits up front at the start of your billing cycle. The balance refreshes again at the beginning of the next year.

  • No rollovers. Unused credits don’t carry over to the next month.

  • Runs are per execution. Each skill run counts separately. For example:

    • Running Summarize Meeting Notes = credits used once.

    • Running it again for a different meeting = another set of credits deducted.

  • Where credits are used: Credits apply to all AI-powered actions, including summarizing notes, drafting content, generating tasks, and running multi-step workflows.

💡 Tip: Keep an eye on usage if you’re running frequent, long outputs (like detailed reports). If you need more, you can purchase additional credits or upgrade your plan.

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