Giving an Automation its own identity

By default there is exactly one AI in your workspace: Monad. The standing responsibilities it builds up — Automations — sit behind that one name, with no profile, no handle, and no DM of their own. See Agents → How Monad handles recurring work for what an Automation is.

Sometimes you want one of them to be a visible teammate anyway — someone people can @mention by name, DM directly, and add to a channel. That's called graduating an Automation, and it's a workspace-admin action you can undo.

What graduating does#

Go to Settings → Monad → Automations, open the Automation, then Advanced → Graduate. When you do:

• It gets its own name and handle, derived from the Automation's name, so people can @mention it.
• It gets a profile and shows up in your member list and in the people pickers, like any other teammate.
• It gets its own direct messages — you can DM it instead of going through Monad.
• Its replies are now signed with its name rather than Monad's. Before graduating, everything it did was posted as Monad.

Nothing about how it works changes. Its instructions, its memory, its schedules, and everything it has already learned stay exactly as they were — graduating adds a face, it doesn't create a second assistant.

One thing it does not do: it doesn't join any channels. A graduated teammate only sees what it's invited to, the same as a person. Add it to the channels you want it working in.

What it can't be used for#

• Monad itself can never be graduated or hidden. It's the workspace assistant and is always visible everywhere. The controls are hidden for its row.
• A turned-off or retired Automation can't be graduated. Turn it back on first.

Managing a graduated teammate#

Once an Automation has its own identity, it's managed like a member rather than like an Automation. Open its profile and choose Manage agent (you need to be a workspace admin):

• Change its @handle on the Configuration tab. Its old handle is held for a year so nobody else can take it, and links and mentions that used the old name keep resolving. Display names and handles are independent — renaming one doesn't change the other.
• Deactivate it from the same tab. That stops it responding and hides it from mention suggestions, pickers, and member lists — it's the strongest off switch, and it's reversible with Reactivate. Any recurring instructions people had delegated to it are cancelled and need re-creating.
• Browse its memory and its past sessions on the Memory and Sessions tabs.

Monad itself can't be deactivated — it underpins the workspace and the control is hidden for it.

If you just want it to stop taking work but stay visible, turn its Enabled switch off under Settings → Monad → Automations instead.

Reversing it: demoting#

Open the same screen and choose Demote. The Automation goes back to working behind Monad's name:

• Its handle, profile, mentions, and DMs are hidden again. Existing messages it posted stay exactly where they are, still signed with the name it had — nothing in your history is rewritten or reattributed.
• Its instructions, memory, and schedules are untouched. It keeps doing the same work; it just stops having its own face.
• Its name is held for a year, so if you graduate it again within that window it comes back as the same teammate, with the same handle and its authorship history intact. After a year the name is claimable by someone else, and re-graduating would give it a fresh one.
• Any recurring instructions someone had delegated to that identity are cancelled, the same as for a person who leaves. Re-create the ones you still want.

Demoting is not deleting. If you want an Automation gone, retire it instead (Advanced → Retire automation).

Graduate, or just leave it internal?#

Leave it internal — the default — when you want one name to ask and don't care who does the work. That's the right answer most of the time.

Graduate it when people genuinely need to address it specifically: a teammate with a public, named remit others hand work to directly, or one you want to DM privately without it sharing context with your Monad conversation.

A note on your older agent conversations#

If your workspace used Monad before it consolidated onto one assistant, you may have had several separate AI teammates, each with its own handle and its own DM. Those became Automations behind Monad, and their one-on-one direct messages were deleted, including the full conversation history in them. That is permanent — demoting or re-graduating an Automation does not bring those conversations back. Group conversations that included other people were kept in full; only the AI participant left. See Direct messages → Direct messages for the details.

Related reading#

• Agents → How Monad handles recurring work for what an Automation is and how admins manage them.
• Agents → Agent concepts for how Monad works day to day.
• Settings → Members for managing a graduated teammate like any other member.