How to use Relay

Relay is an AI news agent that writes you a personalized news briefing. You describe, in your own words, what you want kept an eye on. Every day, or on the days you choose, Relay searches, reads, and writes you the few things worth knowing — a deck of cards on the page, a note in your inbox, or a message in Slack or Telegram.

When one briefing becomes several, or you want others reading along, create a desk — a shared news feed for a team: many briefings, many people, or both.

PERSPECTIVE FILTERS

How do you want to read this?

View the walkthrough as it’s written, or filtered for your kind of work — highlights on the parts that matter, and notes on how people like you set Relay up.

SECTIONS

What you’re setting up

Pick which of these you are setting up. Each is a short walk through the screens, in order.

Sending this to someone? The link works without an account.

FOR MYSELF

A briefing of my own

  1. Sign in

    Go to joinrelay.me and continue with Google. There is nothing to fill in first: an account with no briefings opens straight on the form for its first one.

    Later, the + makes another — in the rail down the left on a computer, in the bar along the bottom on a phone.

    Mark
    Back to what you were reading.
    +
    New agent.
    Disc
    Your account: Plan, Desks, Preferences, Sign out.
    The rail on a computer. The mark goes home, + starts a briefing, and the disc at the bottom is your account menu. On a phone the same three sit along the bottom.

  2. Choose where the subject comes from

    The form is a name, a description and a Create button. Above the description is a row of tiles: six ways to say what the briefing is about.

    Describe itWrite what to watch for
    Upload filesRead it off your documents
    Browsing historyFrom what you already read
    DriveDocs and decks you already have
    WebsiteRead pages you paste
    CommunityBetaBriefings from our beta testers
    The tiles above the description. Describe it is chosen when the form opens.
    • Describe it — write what to watch for. One description makes one briefing.
    • Upload files — drop in documents (a paper, a brief, a report) and Relay reads what they are about.
    • Browsing history — with the Relay extension for Chrome, read off what you have been reading. It runs in your own browser, only when you press the button.
    • Drive — docs and decks from Google Drive, picked one by one through Google’s own chooser.
    • Website — paste the pages that cover your subject. The briefing watches the subject, across the whole web, not just those pages.
    • Community — start from a description someone else wrote, and change it before you create.

    Every tile but the first produces suggestions: a short list of briefings the material implies, each with a tick, a name and an editable description. Tick the ones you want. The button says how many it will create.

  3. Write the description well

    This is the one field that decides whether the briefing is any good. It is turned into the searches Relay runs and the lens every story is judged through, so it has two jobs to do.

    • Name specific things — organisations, programmes, systems, places, products. These become the searches.
    • Say why you care, in a sentence — what you work on, and what you would do differently knowing something.
    • Say what counts as a development — a new capability, a rule change, a decision — as opposed to commentary.
    • Say what to leave out. Whole subjects you never want to see are worth naming.
    • One briefing, one subject. Two briefings beat one that covers everything.

    Two helpers sit with the field. Rephrase proposes a version Relay reads better, and changes nothing until you press Use this. Check this description shows what Relay would search for, in a second or two, before you spend a morning on it.

  4. Open Preferences, if the defaults aren't yours

    Under the description is a link that folds the rest away. Everything in it already has a sensible answer, so you can skip it entirely.

    Press Preferences to unfold the settings below. They apply whether or not you open it.

    Inside, in the order they appear:

    • Sources — outlets, official gazettes and journals, or any page you paste, read in full every day on top of the ordinary search. Nothing here narrows the briefing.
    • Terms — words you never want missed, one per line. A story naming one reaches you by rule rather than by judgement.
    • Where it looks — Standard searches the English-language press, wherever it reports from. Global also searches in the languages your subject is reported in.
    • Written in — the language the briefing arrives in. Separate from the languages it searches.
    • Colour — the briefing’s own, so its cards are recognisable among your others.
    • Automatic refresh — the time of day it gathers, in your own timezone. Six in the morning unless you say otherwise.
    • Email me this agent’s briefings — off unless you tick it. See below.
    Where it looks

    Languages — up to 5, or leave blank to choose by topic

    Where it looks. Switch to Global and name up to a few languages, or leave the rows blank to let the subject decide.

    The language your briefing is written in. What it reads is a separate choice — sources are read in whatever language they were published in.

    Terms you never want missed. One per line.

    Written in and Terms. The language the briefing is written in is a separate choice from the languages it searches.
    Automatic refresh

    Relay runs this agent at that time on those days, so the briefing’s ready before you open it. One that gathers less often covers everything since its last briefing. You can still run it yourself whenever you like.

    Automatic refresh: Monday, Wednesday and Friday to begin with, or every day, or Mondays only. The time is local to the zone beside it, so 6:00 stays 6:00 when the clocks change.
    Tick this to have each morning's briefing sent to the address you signed in with. It arrives from Relay as the run lands.

  5. Create, and wait for the first morning

    Press Create agent. The briefing gathers for the first time at the hour you chose, and its page says how long that is. It does not run the moment it is made.

    After that it gathers on the days you chose — Monday, Wednesday and Friday unless you picked others, and a briefing that gathers on Mondays covers the whole week. What you see when you open it is every run since your last visit, merged and ranked, so a week away gives you the best of the week rather than last night’s batch.

  6. Read it

    The briefing is a deck of cards: a headline written for you, and why it matters to you. Tap a card for what happened and the sources. Under each story are three decisions and a link:

    • Save — keeps it in the Saved list, which is one list across all your briefings, and asks for more like it.
    • More like this — asks for more like it without keeping it.
    • Not interested — asks for less like it, and clears it from the feed.
    • Copy link — a link to that story anyone can open.

    The three decisions add up to a description amendment: a short addition to your description, written by Relay from what the stories you kept and passed on had in common, and applied on every morning’s run. It adds searches for more of what you keep and steers the judging of what is found. It never removes a search your description makes, and your own words are never edited. It fades over about a month if you stop deciding.

    You can read it on Agent info, and start over at any time. Only your own decisions count, not those of anyone reading the briefing through a desk.

    The name at the top of the page is a picker: press it to switch between your briefings and desks, and to reach Saved and Not interested.

  7. Change it later

    The ⓘ beside an open agent’s name opens Info: a Copy link pill that hands someone the current stories for 48 hours, when it gathers, its brief, who follows it, its privacy, and Edit agent.

    Telecom regulation (UK)

    Copy link

    Schedule

    Every day at 6:00 am

    Europe/London

    Members4
    PrivacyDesk
    Edit agent
    Info, opened with the ⓘ beside the agent's name. Edit agent is where every setting above lives once the agent exists.

    Edit agent is the same form with your answers in it. Under the description sits the description amendment, read-only, with a Start over control to forget it, and a fold called Under the hood with writing tips, what the last run searched for, and how the briefing describes itself to people you share it with. Editing the description and saving gathers again straight away, which takes a minute or three. At the bottom: Pause stops it refreshing without losing anything, and Delete removes it with all its runs.

    To hand the recipe to someone rather than the stories, use Share this agent on Agent info. It copies a link, good for 48 hours, that opens the New agent form with your name and description filled in. They get their own briefing; yours is untouched.

    How many agents you can have depends on your plan. Open the menu at the foot of the rail, choose Settings, then Plan to see what is in use.

Setting one up for a desk instead?Back to the top

FOR MORE

A desk of briefings

A desk is a room over some briefings. It has its own address to hand around, its own people, and one feed made of every briefing it reads. The briefings keep running exactly as they were; the desk is a way of reading them together. Each person in it can have the whole feed emailed to them.

  1. Have the briefings first, or don't

    A desk reads briefings that already exist, so if you have one in mind, make it first by the steps above. A desk can also be founded empty and filled later, once colleagues bring theirs.

  2. Open Switch desks and press New desk

    Open the menu — the three lines at the foot of the rail, or on your profile on a phone — and choose Switch desks. It lists every desk you are in, and New desk is at the bottom.

    Switch desks

    All desksEvery brief you can read
    Telecom practice group3 agents · 6 people
    Data protection2 agents · 4 people
    New desk
    Switch desks. The tick marks the desk you are on; New desk, at the bottom, is where a desk is founded.

  3. Name it and choose its address

    The name is what the picker and the invitation email call it. The address is a region and a short name, and the whole URL is shown under the fields as you type. Leave the name blank and it is taken from the desk’s name.

    The region changes nothing about what the desk reads or how it searches. It is only the first part of the address, so that two firms can each have their own /telecom without treading on one another.

    https://joinrelay.me/t/gb/telecom

    Custom URL. The full address updates as you type; this is what you paste into an intranet or a chat.

  4. Tick the briefings it reads

    Every briefing you can see is listed with a checkbox: your own, and any a colleague made on a desk you run. Tick the ones this desk should read.

    Telecom regulation (UK)
    UK competition decisions
    Data protection enforcementa colleaguePaused
    The Briefings list on the desk form. A paused briefing is marked; the rest are simply there to tick.

  5. Preferences: how the page reads, who may see it, who pays

    Folded under Preferences, as on a briefing. Three groups:

    • Appearance and Layout — Classic (paper cards) or Poster (colour cards), and Feed (one deck) or Editorial (a front page of columns, which needs at least three briefings to fill).
    • Sharing — Private, only the desk can view. Unlisted, anyone with the link can view. Public, anyone can view and it is listed.
    • Billing — Account billing means the founder’s own plan pays for briefings made for the desk. Desk billing gives the desk its own invoice, a briefing limit, and the details an invoice needs.
    Sharing
    PrivateOnly the desk can view
    UnlistedAnyone with the link can view
    PublicAnyone can view, and it is listed
    Sharing. Private is the default; nothing is visible outside the desk until you say so.
    BillingManage in Stripe

    The most agents that can be billed to this desk.

    Billing, switched to Desk billing. The limit is the most briefings that can be billed to the desk; a colleague's briefing on their own plan never counts.

  6. Invite people

    Under Sharing is the People field. One email address per line. Beside it, what an invitation lets its holder do:

    • View — reads the desk.
    • View and create — also lets them bill a briefing of their own to the desk, up to its limit.
    They can

    Invite by email, one address per line. Each gets a link that works only when they sign in with that address. You can add more later.

    The People field on the new-desk form. Each address gets an email from Relay with a link that works only for that address.

    Press Create desk. The invitations go out as it is made. You can add more people at any time from Desk info.

  7. What the people you invited do

    They open the link in the email and sign in with Google, using the address the invitation was sent to. That is the whole of it: the desk appears in their picker beside their own briefings, and its feed is theirs to read.

    If the email hasn’t arrived, an admin can copy the same link from the pending invitation on Desk info and send it another way. It still admits only the invited address, so forwarding it around is safe.

    To get the desk’s briefings by email, each person ticks their own switch on the desk’s Info page, then saves. It is a personal choice, not a desk setting.

    Email
    On Desk info, under People. Tick it and press Save; every briefing the desk reads then arrives in your inbox as its morning run lands.

  8. Who can do what

    Every row on the People list says where that person stands, and the controls on it are what you may do to them.

    • Owner — founded the desk. Edits everything, makes and unmakes admins, and is the only one who can delete it.
    • Admin — edits the desk, invites and removes people, sets what members may do.
    • Member — reads the desk, and may create briefings on its plan if allowed. Can leave at any time.
    People
    • Anna Kovácsyouanna@example.comOwner
    • Bence Tóthbence@example.comAdmin
    • Dóra Nagydora@example.comView only · joined 2026-09-10Allow createMake adminRemove from desk
    • gabor@example.comInvited 2026-09-13 · can create · not yet joined
    The People list as an owner sees it. The three dots on a row open what you can do to that person: Allow create and Make view only switch a member's permission; Make admin promotes them.

  9. Adding briefings later

    Three ways a briefing comes to be read by the desk:

    • An owner or admin ticks it on Desk info and saves.
    • An owner or admin makes a new briefing with Billing set to the desk. It joins the desk on creation.
    • A member who was invited with View and create makes a briefing with Billing set to the desk. It is billed to the desk and appears on Desk info for an admin to tick in.

    Whose plan this agent is on. A desk billed here also reads it.

    Billing, at the bottom of a briefing's Preferences. It only appears for someone who has a desk with its own billing to put the briefing on.

  10. Running the desk

    The desk’s feed sits in the picker with your briefings. Its ··· menu has the same two rows a briefing’s has: a link to hand someone the feed for 48 hours, and Desk info.

    Desk info also holds a short description of the desk for the outside world, written by Relay from the briefings it reads and shown wherever the address is pasted. At the bottom, Pause stops every briefing in it refreshing, and the owner alone can Delete the desk. Deleting the desk never deletes the briefings; they go back to being their owners’.

Setting one up for yourself instead?Back to the top

Questions

Anything this page didn’t answer, ask whoever sent it to you, or write to Relay. The privacy policy says what is stored and where the searching happens, and the blog has longer pieces on writing a good description and reading as a team.