What is the ArcGIS for Teams assistant (beta)?
The Assistant in ArcGIS for Teams will enable conversational search, using an LLM, to find items within ArcGIS Online. The assistant can be used to search in your content, the Organization, in Groups or for public items.
Using natural language in the chat, you can Search and View Content, and adaptive cards will be returned listing relevant ArcGIS content. Any item can be opened and viewed directly in Microsoft Teams. This provides an effortless way to integrate ArcGIS items into your Teams workflows.
ArcGIS for Teams is introducing an AI assistant to enhance your Search functionality to follow along a more modern experience using conversational AI. This release builds on the existing features based around the Search experience, and this is our introduction to AI development in ArcGIS for Teams, where we will continue to expand on features related to conversational AI. Let’s begin by getting you started with fully enabling the latest in the ArcGIS assistant for Teams.
To fully enable the ArcGIS for Teams assistant, please ensure that your assistant feature is enabled in your ArcGIS Online organization.
- Sign-in to your ArcGIS Online Organization > Go to Organization > Select Settings > Click on AI assistants > Enable Allow use of AI assistants by members of your organization
- Sign-in to your ArcGIS Online Organization > Go to Organization > Select Settings > Click on Security > Scroll to Apps / Blocked Esri apps and capabilities > Disable Block Esri apps and capabilities while they are in beta.
- Open Microsoft Teams, Select/Download ArcGIS for Teams > Go to Options > Sign-in to your ArcGIS Online Organization > Enable AI assistant (beta) to use conversational AI to enhance your search experience in ArcGIS for Teams
If these settings are not fully available to you, please reach out to your ArcGIS Online Organization Administrator to adjust these settings accordingly so that you can begin to use the ArcGIS for Teams assistant (beta).
How does it work?
The ArcGIS for Teams assistant (beta) leverages Azure OpenAI Service and utilizes an Esri based Large Language Model (LLM) to analyze chat input. Once the intent is understood, the appropriate ArcGIS REST API is called to retrieve any relevant items from ArcGIS Online. It strictly adheres to ArcGIS Online security protocols, ensuring data privacy and secure access to information.
ArcGIS Items available in Teams
There are a variety of ArcGIS items available, below are the examples of what items can be enabled through the assistant The following are the ArcGIS item types that you can search in ArcGIS for Teams:
- Layers: Such as feature layers, tile layers, map image layers, imagery layers, and scene layers.
2. Apps: Including Web Scenes, ArcGIS StoryMaps, ArcGIS Insights pages, ArcGIS Dashboards, and Survey123s.
3. Files: Such as CVSs, PDFs, images, documents, shapefiles, and tables.
4. Maps: Different types of maps available in ArcGIS.
5. Scenes: 3D scenes available in ArcGIS.
To search for layers, you should provide a keyword related to the topic you’re interested in and specify the type as 'layer' with the subtype as 'featurelayer'. You can also choose a source like 'myContent', 'myGroup', 'myOrg', 'livingAtlas', or 'arcgisOnline'. For example:
- Search Item keyword="parks" type="layer" subtype="featurelayer" source="arcgisOnline"
An example prompt that you can use to search for content: "Search for (item Type) about (keyword) in (location)."
