# What are Assistants?

AI applications don't always need to be complex to get the job done. Sometimes, all you need is a quick way to give an LLM secure access to your data. If you'd like to build a simple chat app that has access to your data sources, create an Assistant.

Assistants are a special type of Griptape chatbot Agent Structure that can be created easily in less than a minute, without writing or deploying any code. They offer much of the same functionality provided by Agent Structures, through a simple configurable interface.

Assistants can be configured to use Griptape Cloud resources such as [Knowledge Bases](../knowledge-bases/what-are-knowledge-bases.md), [Rulesets](../rules/rulesets.md), and [Tools](../tools/create-tool.md). Once your Assistant is created, you can immediately begin chatting with it by sending a message on the following screen.
