Ask AI about this widget

Per-widget popover that lets you tweak or replace a widget’s spec via natural language without leaving the canvas.

When to use

“Change this from monthly to weekly”
“Add a prior-period comparison”
“Filter to just Aetna”
“Group by provider instead of payer”
“Show the bottom 10 instead of the top 10”

Pollen8 re-plans the SQL with the current widget’s connection + schema + spec context, generates a new SQL + spec, and previews the result before you commit.

The flow

Click the Ask AI button on any widget header.
Type your tweak (“change this from monthly to weekly”).
Pollen8 shows the proposed SQL + a result preview side-by-side with the original.
Accept replaces the widget’s spec in place. Discard keeps the original.

What the AI sees

The popover sends to the planner:

The widget’s current SQL.
The widget’s chart spec.
The connection’s relevant schema (top-K retrieved against the user’s tweak prompt).
The data shape currently rendered.

It does NOT see the workbench’s session history or any other widget’s data. The tweak is local to this widget.

Limits

Won’t switch connections. The widget stays bound to its original connection_id.
Won’t switch widget kind (e.g., chart → table). For a kind change, Duplicate the widget and edit the duplicate.
Won’t escape scope predicates — the planner still has to obey the connection’s RLS-like fragments.

Why this matters

Most dashboards drift — analysts add filters, change groupings, swap metrics. Without Ask AI, every tweak requires opening the SQL editor, hand-editing, re-running, debugging. With it, the iteration loop is type-a-sentence → preview → accept.

The dashboards that get maintained are the ones that are cheap to maintain.