Ask the assistant to read and compare your branches

When a conversation has branches, you can just ask the assistant about them in the chat. Say something like "read the branches", "compare the branches and recommend one", or "which branch is better" and the assistant will look at the actual branches instead of guessing.

This used to work only inside an agent's own conversations. Now it works in ordinary chats too, so the assistant can take part in Branch, Compare, Merge with you rather than telling you it cannot see your branches.

What it reads

When you ask, the assistant pulls each branch's title, the message it was branched from, and the messages inside it, then answers from that real content. If the conversation has no branches, it says so plainly rather than making something up. Asked from inside one branch, it looks at the sibling branches you are comparing.

It only ever reads branches you already have access to. On a shared conversation, a branch that was not shared with you stays private.

In chat vs. the Compare view

Two different jobs:

• Ask in chat when you want the assistant to read the branches and give you an answer, a comparison in words, or a recommendation you can act on in the same thread.
• Open the Compare view when you want to see two branches next to each other as a highlighted diff, and the Merge Board when you want to combine several branches into one output.

A note on models

Reading and comparing branch content in chat happens on models that support in-chat tools (OpenAI and Anthropic). On other models the assistant still knows your branches exist and can point you to them, but for a full content comparison use a supported model, the Compare view, or the Merge Board.

Branching itself is on every plan, including Free, so this is available wherever you have branches to look at.