What the AI Flow Assistant Does
The AI Flow Assistant is a natural language interface built directly into OptionFlow. Instead of scrolling the tape row by row, you type a question and the assistant searches across real-time and historical options flow data to give you an answer in plain English. It can filter by premium, size, ticker, expiration, and execution side; compute call/put ratios and sentiment; identify unusual activity; and summarize flow by time period or symbol.
Think of it as a research analyst sitting next to you who has read every row on the tape since the open. You ask the question, the assistant surfaces the relevant data, and you decide whether to act. The assistant handles the scanning; you handle the judgment.
When to Use It
Reach for the AI Flow Assistant when you want an answer that requires aggregating many rows of data, not just reading a single print. It is the right tool when you want to know the character of flow across a session rather than the detail of one trade.
- You have a thesis on a name and want to know whether flow over the past two hours supports it or contradicts it.
- You want a fast pre-market briefing on what happened overnight without scrolling through the full historical tape.
- You are screening for the day's highest-value activity across all tickers and do not want to apply manual filters one at a time.
- You spotted a print in the tape that looks interesting and want to understand whether it is part of a larger pattern or an isolated event.
The assistant is not the right tool when you want to read a specific print's Contract Drilldown - the net call premium chart, the Net Sentiment bar, and the bought/sold breakdown live in the Drilldown, not in the assistant's output. Use the assistant to find what matters, then open the Drilldown to confirm it.
How to Ask Better Questions
The quality of the assistant's answer is directly tied to the specificity of your question. Three elements make a question actionable: a ticker or scope, a timeframe, and a threshold or filter condition.
Scope: Name the ticker or specify that you want market-wide data. "NVDA" is better than nothing. "The semiconductor sector" is a useful scope when you are doing sector analysis.
Timeframe: "Today," "the last two hours," "this week," and "since earnings" all produce meaningfully different results. The more specific your timeframe, the more relevant the answer.
Threshold or filter: "With premium over $500K" or "at or above the ask" tells the assistant what you care about within the data. Without a threshold, you may get a summary that includes small retail prints alongside institutional-size activity.
Vague questions like "What is the market doing?" produce vague answers. Specific questions like "Show me all TSLA call flow from the last 90 minutes with premium over $200K, bought at the ask" produce structured, actionable answers.
Example Queries and What to Expect
High-value flow across the market: "Show me today's $1M-plus options flow" gives you the top premium trades for the session, ranked by dollar value. Use this at the start of the session to identify which names are attracting the most institutional attention before you drill into any single ticker.
Recent large trades: "What are the largest options trades in the last hour?" surfaces the highest-premium prints from a rolling 60-minute window. Useful mid-session when you want to see if institutional activity has shifted from your morning scan.
Call/put ratio: "What is the call/put ratio for NVDA today?" gives you a directional read on whether call buying or put buying is dominating in a specific name. A ratio well above 1.0 (for example, 3:1 or 4:1) indicates the options market is skewed bullish on that ticker.
Unusual activity screen: "Top unusual options activity right now?" identifies names where flow is significantly above their normal volume or premium levels - the kind of early-detection screen that can surface a setup before the chart makes it obvious.
Ticker-specific with a filter: "What options flow is there for AAPL with premium over $500K from the last two hours, bought at the ask?" combines scope, timeframe, and threshold into a precise question that returns only the data worth analyzing in depth.
For example, suppose you are watching MSFT because you saw a DealerEdge setup near the flip level. You type: "Show me MSFT call flow from the last 90 minutes with premium over $300K." The assistant returns three prints: a 900-contract sweep at the ask at 10:12 AM ($380K premium, 7 DTE calls), a 700-contract block at the ask at 10:35 AM ($290K premium, same strike), and a 1,100-contract sweep at 11:02 AM ($460K premium). You now know this is not a single isolated print - it is a cluster across 50 minutes of sustained buying at the same strike. You open the Contract Drilldown on the strike and see NCP climbing steadily above the baseline with a green Net Sentiment bar. The assistant surfaced the pattern in seconds; the Drilldown confirmed the conviction.
How to Read the Output
The assistant's responses follow a consistent structure. You will typically see a summary line describing the scope of what it found, followed by individual trades or aggregated metrics depending on what you asked.
For list-style queries (largest trades, recent activity), each item includes the ticker, expiration, strike, contract type, premium value, size, and execution side. Pay attention to the execution side column. A massive call print classified as sold is not a bullish signal - the seller was the aggressive party. Always check whether the assistant is reporting bought or sold flow before drawing a directional conclusion.
For ratio and sentiment queries, the output is a single number or a short comparative summary. A 3.8:1 call/put ratio on NVDA means roughly $3.80 in call premium for every $1.00 in put premium traded that session. That number by itself is useful context, but it does not tell you whether the call activity was bought or sold. Follow up with a more specific question if you need that breakdown.
For unusual activity queries, the assistant ranks by deviation from normal - names where today's flow is well above their recent baseline. These are early-detection signals worth cross-referencing with the tape to understand the specific prints driving the anomaly.
Combining the Assistant with Manual Analysis
The AI Flow Assistant is a screening and aggregation tool. It is fast and comprehensive across large data sets. Manual analysis of the Contract Drilldown is precise - it shows you the specific NCP trajectory, Net Sentiment bar, and bought/sold breakdown for a single contract. The two tools are designed to work together, not to replace each other.
The workflow is: ask the assistant to find what matters, identify the specific print or cluster worth examining, then open the Contract Drilldown to confirm whether the print has the conviction characteristics of a real directional bet. The assistant handles scale; the Drilldown handles precision. Skipping either step leaves you with half the picture.
Combine the assistant with your filter presets as well. If you are running the conservative preset (size over 1,000, premium over $500K), the tape is already filtered. Use the assistant to summarize what has built up on that filtered tape over the past hour, rather than asking market-wide questions. The narrower your scope going in, the more targeted and useful the answer coming back.
Common Mistakes
- Asking broad questions and acting on the first answer. "What is the market doing?" returns a general sentiment picture. That is a starting point, not a trade signal. Drill down with a follow-up question before making any decision.
- Ignoring execution side in the output. The assistant reports flow data as it exists on the tape. A large put print can be bearish (bought puts, aggressive buyer) or irrelevant to direction (sold puts, the seller was collecting premium). If the assistant does not specify execution side, ask explicitly: "Was that TSLA put flow mostly bought or sold?"
- Using the assistant instead of the Contract Drilldown. The assistant summarizes flow at scale. It does not show you the NCP chart, the Net Sentiment bar, or the bought/sold breakdown at the contract level. Those are in the Drilldown. Always verify a promising assistant output in the Drilldown before acting.
- Not specifying a timeframe. Without a timeframe, the assistant may default to the full session, which can dilute an intraday signal by averaging it across morning and afternoon activity that has different characters. Always specify "last hour," "last 30 minutes," or "since 10 AM" to get a time-relevant answer.
Related
To understand the filter settings that shape what flows into the tape the assistant reads, see OptionFlow Filter Settings. For a full walkthrough of reading the tape manually and using the Contract Drilldown, visit OptionFlow Quick Start. For the full feature overview including all OptionFlow capabilities, visit the OptionFlow feature page.