Starting your first chat
Written By Paolo Rufrano
Last updated 1 day ago
Every conversation in Percy Chat starts the same way: type into the box at the bottom of the screen and press Enter.
Sending a message
Enter sends your message.
Shift + Enter adds a new line without sending.
While a reply is streaming, the send button turns into a stop button (a filled square) so you can cut a response short. The stop button only appears for models that support being interrupted. On models that don't, the reply runs to completion.
Once the first reply finishes, Percy Chat names the chat for you and it appears in Recent Chats in the sidebar. You can rename it at any time. See Organising your chats: pin, rename, branch, search and delete.
Switching models mid-conversation
The button at the bottom-right of the chat box shows the model currently answering. Click it to open the model picker and choose a different one. The change takes effect from your next message, so you can ask one model a question and hand the follow-up to another.
See Choosing a model for how to search, filter and pin models.
What you can do with a reply
Hover over any AI reply to reveal three buttons underneath it:
Copy message copies the full reply as text.
Regenerate response asks again using whichever model is currently selected. This is how you retry an answer with a different model.
Branch from here starts a new chat containing everything up to that point, leaving the original untouched. See Organising your chats: pin, rename, branch, search and delete.
Regenerating replaces everything after that point. The reply you regenerated and any messages that followed it are removed from the conversation. If you want to keep them, branch first.
Code blocks have their own copy button in the top-right corner, so you don't have to select the code by hand.
What you can do with your own messages
Hover over a message you sent and you'll see a Copy button.
Percy Chat does not currently support editing a message after you've sent it. To rephrase a question, send it again as a new message, or use Branch from here on the reply above it to keep the two versions in separate chats.
Attaching files
The paperclip button (Add files & photos) attaches PDFs and images to your message. There are limits on how many and how large, and image support depends on the model you've selected. See Attaching files to a chat.
Thinking and web search
The sliders icon next to the paperclip opens More options, where you can turn on:
Web search lets the model look things up and cite its sources
Advanced thinking gives the model time to reason before answering, and only appears on models that support it
See Advanced thinking and web search.
Two things worth knowing
Scrolling. Auto-scroll pauses as soon as you scroll up to re-read something. A Scroll to the bottom button appears so you can jump back to the live reply.
Accuracy. Every chat carries the reminder that AI responses may be inaccurate. Verify anything that matters before you act on it. Models can state wrong things confidently, including about dates, numbers and quotes.