# Notifications and the assistant

> What the notification bell tells you, and how the built-in assistant answers questions about your usage, spend and reports.

Product: AI Cost Optimizer Gateway (ACOG). Web version: https://tessarac.com/docs/acog/administer/notifications-and-assistant. Last updated: 2026-10-16.

## Notifications

The bell at the top of the console shows notifications for your organization, newest first, each marked as information, a recommendation or a warning. They come from:

- **Cost recommendations:** a configuration change that would save money;
- **The daily model check:** models a provider added or retired, or a connection whose settings no longer validate;
- **Auto mode:** a re-evaluation starting and finishing;
- **Prompt caching:** settings that keep your provider's prompt cache from paying off;
- **AWS Bedrock:** an external ID switch date approaching, or a suspended connection.

Notifications can carry a link to the page where you act on them. **Mark all read** clears the unread count; **Clear all** removes them. ACOG only notifies you when a change would help: an empty bell means there is nothing to do.

## The assistant

The assistant (bottom right of every page) answers questions about your organization's data, for example:

- "How much have I spent this month?"
- "Cost by model, last 30 days"
- "Which users saved the most?"
- "Has anyone triggered DLP this week?"

It can only read data you are already allowed to see, using read-only tools, and every data-backed answer links to the page that proves it. It is not a general-purpose chat.

The assistant runs on your organization's own connected providers, choosing the cheapest capable model, so it is billed to your provider account like any other request. It needs at least one provider connection. Conversations are kept in your browser and cleared when you switch organization or sign out.