## Asking Instead of Clicking
Most questions a network team asks Apptifi are short. Which circuits have changes left today? What's on the schedule for Friday? Which audit exceptions are still open?
AI Access lets the people you choose ask those questions in the AI app they already use. It connects that app to your Apptifi instance using the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard for connecting AI apps to other software. It's built to connect to Claude on the web, desktop and mobile, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code and other MCP-compatible apps.
What You Can Ask
- • "Which circuits have changes left today?" The AI reads today's Lumen change count. Lumen allows 24 per connection per day, resetting at 00:00 GMT.
- • "Schedule 500 Mbps for Friday's quarter close." The AI adds the event to your bandwidth schedule. Adding an event doesn't show a preview, so check the details it reports back.
- • "Change this circuit to 500 Mbps now." The AI shows a preview first, and goes ahead only after you agree.
- • "Show me this month's open audit exceptions." The AI pulls Expense Management audit exceptions for the billing accounts and cost centers you're allowed to see.
How Connecting Works
An admin switches on AI access for the instance, then grants it to each person who should have it. After that there are two ways in.
Hosted AI apps sign in. The person adds the connector address, signs in to Apptifi, and approves the connection on an Apptifi consent page.
Apps set up with a file or command use an API key. An admin creates the key, which is shown once, can be read-only, and can be revoked at any time.
What a Preview Shows
Orders, immediate bandwidth changes, deletions, messages sent outside Apptifi and access changes return a preview first. It shows the record as it is now, Lumen changes used and left today, the Lumen list price, and warnings such as "deleting a live order sends a disconnect to Lumen."
Confirmation happens in your AI app, and Apptifi can't tell whether a person or the AI sent it. Keep your AI app's own approval prompts on, and give anyone who should only look a read-only key.
The Controls Admins Keep
The AI acts as the person, with that person's role, so it can't do more than they could in the Apptifi screens. Passwords and API secrets can be replaced through AI but are never shown to it. Every AI call appears in an activity log admins can review, and one switch stops all AI access immediately.
AI Access is included in the Core + M365 Sync plan. See the AI Access page for the details.