Asking Pixel
What Pixel is
Pixel is Picstar's artificial intelligence assistant. Ask it how something works — creating a league, entering photos, finalising a theme — and it answers from the manual, linking the article the answer came from.
What it can do
- Explain how to do something in Picstar, step by step, using the exact names of the buttons and fields you will see on screen.
- Tell you why you cannot do something yet: a deadline that has not passed, a state the contest has not reached, a role you do not hold.
- Tell contests and leagues apart, which is where most confusion starts: a contest is divided into categories and a league into themes, and they do not work the same way.
- Know where you are asking from. It knows which screen you are on and your role there, so you can ask "why can't I see the button?" without explaining where you are.
- Answer in your language, even though the manual it reads is in Spanish.
- Hand you over to a person. If it cannot resolve your question — or if you ask it to — it drafts the message to the support team, with the conversation already summarised. You read it over, change it if you want, and it is sent when you press the button.
What it does not do
- It does not look at your data. It does not know how many photos you have entered, what votes your contest has, or when your particular deadline falls. It answers about how the application works, not about your situation.
- It does nothing for you inside the application. It does not create contests, change states or enter photos on your behalf. It tells you where to do it. The only thing it drafts is the message to support, and even that one you send yourself.
- It does not make things up. If something is not in the manual it says so and points you to the closest section. When it answers without linking any article, it found no support in the documentation: treat that answer as one to confirm.
Opening the assistant
Once signed in, the top bar shows an AI button with Pixel's face, to the left of the language selector. Clicking it opens a side panel; on mobile it fills the screen.
Asking a question
Type in Write your question… and press Send, or the Enter key. The first time, the panel suggests three common questions so you can start with a single click.
The answer appears as it is written, so you can start reading before it finishes.
Where each answer comes from
Below the answer, under Sources, you will find the manual articles it relies on, each with the section it belongs to. Every one is a link that opens the full article in a new tab, so you can check what you have been told without losing the conversation.
Saying whether it helped
At the end of each answer you will see two thumbs. Pressing one tells us whether Pixel got it right, and that is what we use to improve both its answers and the manual itself. The question and the answer are stored, never who asked them.
Talking to a person
Pixel does not know everything, and it says so when it falls short. Ask it to put you through to someone on the team — or press This didn't help — and it drafts the message to support with your question, what it answered and the articles it consulted.
The message does not go out on its own: it appears in a card below the answer, you can change the reason, the subject and the text, and it is sent when you press Send. It goes out with your account name and email address, so the team can reply without you having to type them.
Starting over
Pixel remembers what you have discussed, so you can follow up without repeating the context. To change subject, press New query and the conversation is cleared.
The conversation is not saved: it disappears when you close the tab.
Questions per day
Each account has a maximum number of questions per day. If you reach it, Pixel tells you, and the counter resets the next day.