How to Start a Chat and Send Your First Message on SoulrisAI
Starting a conversation
From the main screen, choose "New chat" (or the equivalent on mobile) and type your message. There's no setup required — you can ask a question, request help with a task, or just say hello. SoulrisAI responds immediately, and the free tier covers this without any deposit.
What happens after you hit send
Your message is sent to the AI, and by default SoulrisAI's Auto routing decides which model actually answers — based on how complex or specialized your question looks. You don't need to think about this for a normal chat; it happens automatically. If you want control over it instead, see how to manually choose a specific model.
How billing works for chat
Chat responses are billed based on usage — roughly, how much is read and generated for your message — against your wallet balance once you've deposited. On the free tier, a quota applies instead of wallet billing (see how the free trial works). If your balance runs low mid-conversation, SoulrisAI tells you in the chat itself rather than cutting you off silently — see understanding insufficient balance mid-chat.
Starting fresh vs. continuing
Each new chat is its own conversation thread with its own context — the AI only sees what's been said within that thread, not your other conversations. If you want the AI to keep track of an ongoing topic, keep replying in the same thread rather than starting a new one each time. See new vs. continuing a conversation for when each approach actually makes sense.
Getting responses that actually fit what you need
Two settings shape every response without you having to repeat yourself each time: your response style (concise, detailed, casual, or formal) and your display name, if you've set one. Both live in Settings and apply automatically to every chat going forward — see setting your response style.
Sending more than just text
Once your wallet is funded, you can also send an image for the AI to look at, or a document for it to read and discuss — not just plain text. That's covered in how to analyze images in chat and how to upload documents in chat.
A few practical tips for your first messages
- Be specific. "Help me write a follow-up email to a client who hasn't replied in two weeks" gets a far more useful answer than "write me an email."
- If the first response isn't quite right, say so directly — "make this shorter" or "assume I already know the basics" — rather than starting over in a new chat.
- Don't worry about "wasting" a message by asking something simple first; there's no penalty for a short exchange before you ask the real question.
For a deeper dive into getting genuinely better answers out of the AI, see our prompting tips guide next.