This guide explains AI Skills, the layer that sits on top of Bliro's AI Tools and Permissions. It is intended for CRM administrators, sales operations teams, and IT stakeholders who want to understand how Bliro's AI agents can be taught repeatable workflows, and how to configure those workflows for their organization.
Overview
Bliro's AI agents interact with connected systems through tools, where each tool performs a single action on a single object (for example, Create Contact or Read Account). Tools define what the agent can do. Skills define how the agent should do it.
A skill is a set of reusable workflow instructions that tells the AI agent how to accomplish a specific task from start to finish. Without a skill, the agent must figure out the approach from scratch on every request, deciding which tools to call, in what order, and with what data. With a skill, the agent follows a predefined workflow, producing faster, more consistent, and more reliable results.
What is a Skill
A skill is defined by three fields:
Field | Description |
Title | A short name for the skill, for example |
Description | A natural-language trigger description that tells the AI agent when this skill is relevant. For example: "Use this skill when the user asks to create a visit report for a meeting." |
Instructions | Step-by-step workflow instructions that the agent follows when the skill is activated. This is where the business logic lives: which tools to use, what data to collect, what format to produce, and what rules to follow. |
How Skills Work
When a user makes a request, the AI agent evaluates the available skills and selects the most relevant one based on the skill's description. The agent then loads the skill's instructions and follows them as a workflow.
A typical skill workflow might look like this:
Identify the relevant meeting from the user's context.
Extract structured data from the meeting (date, subject, participants, summary).
Search the CRM for a matching contact or company.
Compose a report or record in the defined format and language.
Call the appropriate tool (for example,
Create Appointment) to write the record to the CRM.Confirm the result to the user.
Skills build on top of tools. A skill cannot bypass tool permissions: if a tool is set to Ask for Permission, the agent will still prompt the user for approval before executing that tool, even when a skill is active. If a tool is set to Deny, the skill cannot use it. Skills guide the agent's workflow; tools and their permissions control what the agent is actually allowed to do.
Without vs. With a Skill
The difference is best illustrated by example.
Without a skill, if a user asks the agent to create a visit report, the agent must:
Figure out which meeting the user means.
Decide which CRM fields to populate and guess at the format.
Decide whether a contact or company association is required.
Ask multiple follow-up questions to fill in the gaps.
This is slower, less consistent, and requires more input from the user.
With a skill, the agent already knows:
Which tool to use (e.g.
Create Appointment).What fields are required and which are optional.
What format and language to write in.
Whether a contact association is mandatory or can be skipped.
What the report should contain (summary, next steps, participants, etc.).
The result is faster execution, consistent output, and less back-and-forth with the user.
What Goes Into Skill Instructions
The instruction field is where organization-specific business logic is defined. Common elements include:
Element | Example |
Tools to use | "Use |
Required and optional fields | "The report must always include the date, subject, and a summary." or "Associate a contact if one is found. If no contact is found, submit without one." |
Output format | "Write the summary as bullet points in German." |
Business rules | "Always include the next steps at the bottom of the report." |
Disambiguation | "If multiple contacts match, ask the user which one to use." |
Because instructions are written in natural language, they can express complex business logic without any coding. Think of it as programming with language: the more precise the instructions, the more reliable the agent's behavior.
Predefined Skills
Bliro ships a small set of predefined skills that cover common use cases such as composing emails or creating CRM reports. These skills work out of the box with sensible defaults.
Organization administrators can deactivate predefined skills and replace them with custom skills tailored to their specific processes.
Creating Custom Skills
Organizations can create custom skills to match their exact workflows and CRM processes. Bliro's team works with each customer to translate their requirements into skill instructions through a guided workshop process:
The customer provides their requirements: what the output should look like, which fields matter, what rules apply.
Bliro's engineering team translates those requirements into skill instructions.
The skill is tested together in a joint session.
The customer can refine and adjust the skill at any time through the admin panel.
Contact your Customer Success Manager or Account Manager to start the skill creation process for your organization.
Where to Configure
Skills are managed by organization administrators:
In Bliro, open Settings and navigate to Organisation > Skills.
To create a new skill, click + (top right) and fill in the title, description, and instructions.
To edit an existing skill, click on it to open the editor.
Use the toggle to activate or deactivate individual skills.
Changes apply to the entire Bliro organization. Only organization administrators can create, edit, or deactivate skills.
Relationship to Tools and Integrations
Skills, tools, and integrations form a three-layer architecture:
Layer | Purpose | Configured under |
Integration | Establishes the authenticated connection to the external system (CRM, calendar, etc.). | Settings > Integrations |
Tools | Defines what the agent is allowed to do: individual read, create, and update actions with permission controls. | Settings > Integrations > [CRM] > Tools & Permissions |
Skills | Defines how the agent should do it: repeatable workflows, business rules, output formats, and multi-step processes. | Settings > Organisation > Skills |
All three layers must be in place for reliable, production-quality automation. A skill cannot function without the underlying tools, and tools cannot function without a connected integration.
For details on the tool model and permission levels, see AI Tools and Permissions.
Contact and Help
Questions about skills, or want to create a custom skill for your organization? Contact [email protected].