How to set up Grok Bot so it knows the business

A Grok Bot is not a fresh chat window. It is a named teammate with a job, a conversation that keeps going, and a computer that still has last week’s files on it. The difference between “cute demo” and “this actually owns AP exceptions” is almost never the model. It is whether the Bot can see how your company works without you pasting the wiki into every message.

This guide is the setup path that makes that true. It is written for a first Bot you will still be using in a month.

What you are setting up

In Grok Bot, a Bot is one persistent, named agent. It keeps memory, files, browser sessions, and preferences across turns. All of your Bots share one cloud computer — browser, filesystem, terminal — scoped to your account, not to a single Bot. That is why a login you place on the computer is available to every Bot you run. Treat it that way.

You message a Bot the way you would message a colleague: a task, the context, the tools, and what “done” looks like. It should come back when something needs approval, not for every click.

1. Start with a job, not a personality

Create the Bot from the app: New (or Cmd/Ctrl+N) → Create new agent. Open Bot actions → Edit Profile and fill four fields like you would write a role for a contractor:

• Name — short, one word if you can. Scout, Pulse, Ledger. Names that sound like people are harder to scan in a sidebar of fifty chats.
• Title — the outcome it owns. “Accounts-payable exception owner,” not “helpful finance assistant.”
• Description — operating rules that should stay true next quarter. Put approval boundaries here. Do not put this week’s invoice list here.
• Avatar — anything you will recognize at a glance.

xAI’s own guidance is to split Bots when the work has a distinct goal, tool set, working style, approval boundary, or schedule. “General Helper” gives the Bot less to hang memory on. “Own the weekly account-health review. Never contact a customer without approval” is a job.

A description that holds up:

Own AP exceptions from the shared inbox to a daily watch list. Match invoices to open POs. File the list in Finance/AP. Never pay a vendor, never send vendor mail, never change QuickBooks without approval.

2. Put the business on the computer, not in the prompt

Memory is a convenience. It is not the system of record. If the Bot’s picture of the business lives only in chat, it will drift the first week someone says “we don’t do it that way anymore.”

On the shared computer, make a single folder the Bot is allowed to treat as home. For a company Bot that might be Company/Operating. For a household Bot, Home/Operating. Keep it boring and dated.

Put these files in it before the first real task:

1. Who we are — one page. Product, customer, what you sell, what you refuse to sell.
2. How work moves — the actual path, not the slide. “Lead → Salesforce → Gong → recap email → next step field.” Name the tools.
3. Voice — three examples of writing you would send, and three you would not.
4. Glossary — the words that mean something here. Workspace vs tenant. MRR vs ARR. “Enterprise” as a SKU, not a vibe.
5. Sacred fields and systems — what the Bot may read vs draft vs never touch.
6. Last good artifact — last week’s recap, last month’s exception list, a PRD you still respect. Format is a skill. Give it one.

Then tell the Bot, once, in the description:

Read Company/Operating before you start a weekly job. Prefer those files over memory. If a file and a prior message disagree, ask.

Connectors and the browser are how it does the work. The operating folder is how it knows which work is yours.

3. Give a first task that looks like production

Do not start with “tell me about yourself.” Start with a task that already has a finish line in your tools. A good first handoff names the source, the skip rules, the deliverable, and the deadline:

Pull this week’s open POs from QuickBooks. Skip vendors already on last month’s closed list. Write today’s AP watch list with vendor, invoice, amount, exception type, and a one-sentence why. Leave it in Finance/AP. Do not email a vendor.

That sentence teaches more than a manifesto. After it runs, correct it in the conversation (“we treat freight-only invoices as a separate exception type”) and, when the correction is durable, copy it into the description or the operating folder. Conversation is for this week. Description and files are for every week.

4. Draw the approval line in writing

Bots can sign into apps and use websites on that computer. They can also message each other and share files. The computer is not a security boundary between your Bots. If Scout can see the AP inbox, Pulse can too.

So the approval boundary belongs in the Bot’s description and in how you grant access:

• Read vs draft vs send.
• Staging vs production.
• Internal Slack vs customer email.
• “Leave a watch list” vs “change Salesforce stage.”

If you would not give a new contractor that login on day one, do not drop it on the shared computer for a Bot you have not named yet.

5. Teach the path once, then make it a routine

When a job is messy — four tools, a weekly cadence, a human checkpoint — walk through it once and ask the Bot to follow along. Grok Bot can persist that path as a routine and run it on a schedule. That is how “knows the business” becomes “does the business on Monday without a pep talk.”

Keep the roster small. One Bot per end-to-end outcome. Add a specialist only when the tools or the approval line are truly different. Put Bots in a group chat when the handoff itself needs to be visible (launch coordinator, editor, analytics reviewer). You should not be the router between them.

6. Check that it actually learned the company

After two real cycles, ask for a dry run with no new context:

Without me pasting anything, write this week’s watch list plan: which files you will open, which rules you will apply, and what you will bring back for approval.

If it cannot name the folder, the skip rules, and the boundary, the business is still in your head. Fix the files, then fix the description. Do not keep restating the company in chat.

What “done” looks like

You know the setup worked when:

• The Bot’s profile states a job a stranger could audit.
• Company/Operating (or the household equivalent) is the first place it looks.
• Weekly work lands as an artifact in a folder you already use.
• External actions sit behind an explicit yes.
• You are not re-explaining who the customer is.

That is the whole trick. Grok Bot already has a computer and a memory. The business has to live somewhere the Bot can reopen on a Tuesday when you are not in the thread.