Permissions & scoping

Autopilot works within your account’s boundaries by design. Every session is tied to your login, so Autopilot sees the same AI Employees (AIEs), data sources, integrations, and conversations you see — nothing more. This scoping keeps your work private and ensures that actions taken by Autopilot only affect your environment. When Autopilot needs to do something significant, it asks you first through an approval prompt, giving you full control over what actually happens.

In this section you will learn:

• What data and resources Autopilot can access in your account
• When and why Autopilot asks for your approval before acting
• How to respond to approval prompts and follow-up questions
• What happens when you ask Autopilot to do something outside its reach
• How your role affects what you see in the Autopilot interface

What Autopilot can access

Autopilot operates within your tenant — the organization-level account you belong to on the Ema platform. It can read and act on the same resources you can access through the regular interface:

Autopilot also knows which page you are currently viewing. For example, if you are on the configuration tab of a specific AI Employee, Autopilot already has that context — you can say things like “change the greeting message” without specifying which AI Employee you mean.

Example prompts:

Show me all the AI Employees in my account.

What data sources are connected to this AI Employee?

Autopilot cannot access AI Employees, data, or conversations that belong to a different tenant. If you are a member of multiple organizations, each Autopilot session is scoped to the tenant you are currently logged into.

Approval prompts

Some actions have lasting consequences. Before Autopilot carries out anything that cannot easily be undone, it pauses and asks for your explicit approval. This is a safety feature that keeps you in the loop — Autopilot never makes irreversible changes on its own.

When Autopilot asks before acting

Autopilot presents an approval prompt before performing any of the following:

• Deleting an AI Employee — Autopilot displays the name of the AI Employee and asks you to confirm before proceeding.
• Deleting a data source — because this is permanent, Autopilot always asks first.
• Deleting a conversation — conversation history will be lost.
• Deleting an AI Employee group — all grouping information will be removed.
• Deploying a workflow — this pushes changes to your live environment, so Autopilot confirms before proceeding.

For routine actions like listing resources or loading a workflow for editing, Autopilot proceeds without interrupting you.

Responding to approval requests

When Autopilot needs your permission, the chat displays two buttons:

1. “Approve” — click this to let Autopilot carry out the action. Autopilot resumes immediately and completes the task.
2. “Deny” — click this to stop the action. Autopilot acknowledges your decision and does not proceed.

After you respond, the chat shows an “Approved” or “Denied” label so you can see at a glance what you decided.

If you do not respond within five minutes, the approval prompt times out. Autopilot lets you know that it could not proceed and you can start the request again whenever you are ready.

Example: If you type “Delete the Customer Support AI Employee,” Autopilot will show an approval prompt with the AI Employee name before deleting anything.

Answering follow-up questions

Sometimes Autopilot needs more information rather than permission. In those cases, it asks a follow-up question instead of showing approval buttons.

When Autopilot asks a question, you will see:

• A text area with the placeholder “Type your answer...” where you can write a free-form response
• A “Send” button to submit your answer
• In some cases, predefined option buttons that let you pick from a set of choices without typing

After you respond, the chat shows an “Answered” label. Like approval prompts, follow-up questions time out after five minutes if left unanswered.

Example: If you type “Create a new AI Employee for handling refunds,” Autopilot may ask follow-up questions such as “What tone should this AI Employee use when responding to customers?” before proceeding.

What happens when something is out of scope

If you ask Autopilot to do something it cannot do, it tells you directly rather than failing silently. Here are the most common scenarios:

• The resource does not exist. If you reference an AI Employee that cannot be found, Autopilot explains that it could not locate the resource and may suggest checking the name.
• A required step was skipped. Some actions depend on a prior step. For example, editing a workflow requires loading it first. If you skip ahead, Autopilot explains what it needs to do first and either handles the prerequisite automatically or asks you to confirm.
• Too many active sessions. Each account has a limit on the number of concurrent Autopilot sessions. If you reach that limit, a persistent banner appears: “Session limit reached — you have [N] active sessions (max [M]). Wait for one to finish or cancel it.” Check your Recent chats for sessions that are still running and close any you no longer need.
• A session is already in progress. If you try to send a message while Autopilot is still working on a previous request in the same session, it lets you know. Wait for the current task to complete before sending your next message.

You can monitor all your sessions from the Recent chats list. Each session shows a status indicator:

Role-based visibility

Your role within the Ema platform determines which features appear in the interface. For Autopilot, this works as follows:

• If your role includes the permission to create AI Employees, you will see the “Build your own AI Employee” button on the AI Employees page. You can use this button directly or ask Autopilot to create an AI Employee on your behalf.
• If your role does not include that permission, the button is hidden entirely — it does not appear as a grayed-out or disabled option.
• All other Autopilot features are available to every authenticated user within the tenant. You can chat with Autopilot, ask questions, browse resources, and manage anything your account can access.

In practice, most users have full access to Autopilot’s capabilities. The only difference is whether the option to create a brand-new AI Employee is visible. Everything else — editing, testing, listing, deploying, and asking questions — works the same for all users.

Related sections: Core actions · What Autopilot is & how to open it · Tips, limits & examples