How to Use Amazon Quick: Complete Setup and Workflow Guide
Amazon Quick is AWS's agentic AI assistant for work, launched April 28, 2026. This guide walks you through account creation, workspace setup, Space configuration, agent building, and automation setup. Free-tier users can set up a workspace and explore Spaces. Custom agents require Plus ($20/user/month) or above, and advanced automation requires Professional or Enterprise tiers. The goal: a working workspace, connected integrations, and results within an hour.
What this guide covers: Account setup, Spaces, Agents, Research, Business Intelligence, Automate workflows, browser extensions, MCP (Model Context Protocol) connections, and troubleshooting. Estimated time to complete: 30–45 minutes for core setup, longer if you configure Automate workflows or Business Intelligence.
What You Need Before Starting
Amazon Quick runs inside your browser and as a desktop application. You do not need to install a local server, configure Docker, or write code. But you do need a few things in place before your first session produces results.
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AWS AccountA free registration at aws.amazon.com that takes about five minutes and requires a credit card on file, though the free tier incurs no charges.
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Supported BrowserBrowser extensions are currently available for Chrome, Edge, and Firefox (latest version). The web console works in any modern browser.
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Documents to UploadAt least 2–3 files (PDFs, Word docs, spreadsheets) for your first Space. Quick gets more useful the more organizational context it has.
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Admin Access (for integrations)Connecting Slack, Teams, or Salesforce requires workspace admin approval. Confirm access before you reach the integrations step.
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Know Your TierFour tiers: Free ($0/user/month), Plus ($20/user/month billed annually), Professional ($20/user/month + $250/account/month infrastructure fee, 4 agent hours/month), or Enterprise ($40/user/month + $250/account/month infrastructure fee, 8 agent hours/month). This guide covers all four.
Setting Up Your Account
Amazon Quick lives at aws.amazon.com/quick. If your organization already uses AWS, you can sign in with your existing IAM Identity Center (AWS's single sign-on service) credentials. If you are starting from scratch, you need an AWS account first.
1 Sign In or Sign Up for AWS
Go to aws.amazon.com and click Create an AWS Account (or Sign In if you have one). Registration asks for an email, password, payment method, and phone verification. The payment method is required but the free tier does not charge you. Once signed in, navigate to aws.amazon.com/quick or search "Amazon Quick" in the AWS console.
2 Set Up Your Quick Workspace
Click Get Started and set up your Quick workspace. You will provide a workspace name and a notification email. You can optionally configure your preferred AWS Region and authentication or encryption settings, or accept the secure defaults. Choose your tier — the Free tier is enough to follow this guide's core sections. Every time Quick does something for you — answers a question, summarizes a document, helps with a browser page, or takes one step in an automated workflow — that counts as one action.
3 Invite Your Team and Assign Roles
Add team members by email and assign them roles to control access to Spaces and data. You can skip this step if you are evaluating Quick solo and invite people later.
4 Install the Desktop App (Optional, Plus+ Only)
Amazon Quick offers native desktop applications for Windows and macOS. Download from the Quick dashboard under Settings > Desktop App. The desktop app works with your local files without uploading them. It shares your web session, so Spaces and Agents sync between browser and desktop. The desktop app requires Plus tier or above.
Creating Your First Space
A Space is a shared workspace where Quick indexes your uploaded documents, connected data sources, and conversation history. Think of it as a project folder that Quick can search and reason over. Each Space has its own permissions, so marketing documents stay separate from engineering data.
1 Click "New Space"
From the Quick dashboard, click New Space. Give it a descriptive name (e.g., "Q3 Marketing Plan" or "Engineering Onboarding"). The name is visible to everyone with access, so make it self-explanatory.
2 Upload Documents
Drag and drop files into the Space, or click Add Sources. Quick indexes the content and makes it searchable within conversations. Check the Quick documentation for current supported file types. Larger document sets may take a few moments to index — you will see a progress indicator.
Tip: Start with 5–10 documents that represent your team's most-referenced material. Quick's answers improve with better grounding data. A Space with one vague memo will produce vague answers. A Space with your product spec, competitive analysis, and Q3 roadmap will produce specific, citable responses.
3 Connect Data Sources
Beyond file uploads, Spaces can connect to live data sources: Amazon S3 buckets, Google Drive folders, SharePoint libraries, or Confluence spaces. Go to Space Settings > Data Sources and follow the authorization prompts. You can configure authentication settings or accept the secure defaults. Connected sources re-sync automatically, so your Space stays current without manual re-uploads.
4 Ask Your First Question
Type a question in the Space chat bar. Quick searches your uploaded documents first, then supplements with its general knowledge if needed. Each answer includes inline citations linking back to the source document and page number. Click a citation to verify the original context.
Building Your First Agent
Agents are automated workflows that operate on your behalf inside a Space. Unlike a single chat question (one action), an agent can chain multiple steps: pull data from a connector, analyze it against your documents, format the output, and deliver results to Slack or email. Agents are what distinguish Quick from a standard chatbot. Note: Custom agent creation requires Plus tier ($20/user/month) or above.
1 Open the Agents Panel
Navigate to Agents in the left sidebar of your Quick dashboard. Click Create Agent. Configure your agent's name, instructions, and data sources. The creation form walks you through each setting.
2 Define the Agent's Role
The Role Description tells Quick what the agent does. Be specific. "Weekly Report Generator" is better than "Helper." A good role description includes the output format, the data sources to reference, and any constraints. For example: "Every Monday at 9 AM, summarize the previous week's Jira tickets from the Engineering Space, highlight blockers, and post to #engineering-updates in Slack."
3 Assign a Space and Set the Trigger
Select which Space the agent draws data from. Then choose a trigger: Manual (you click Run), Scheduled (recurring cron-like), or Event-based (fires when a new document lands in the Space or a connector receives new data). Scheduled triggers require a paid tier (Plus, Professional, or Enterprise).
Start manual, graduate to scheduled. Run your agent manually 3–5 times to verify the output quality before setting it on a schedule. This avoids flooding a Slack channel with malformed reports while you refine the role description.
4 Test and Activate
Click Test Run. Quick executes the agent against your Space data and shows a preview of the output. Review it for accuracy and format. If it looks right, click Activate. The agent appears in your Agents list with a status indicator (active, paused, or errored).
Using Research and Business Intelligence
The Research module lets Quick search the web, your connected data sources, and your Spaces simultaneously. Instead of opening five browser tabs and copying data between them, you ask a question and get a synthesized answer with citations from each source.
Research Mode
Click the Research tab in the top navigation. Type a question like "What are our competitors charging for enterprise AI assistants?" Quick searches your Space documents first, then supplements with web results. Each claim is footnoted with a clickable source link.
Research outputs can be saved as notes inside a Space. This turns a one-time query into persistent organizational knowledge that your agents and future conversations can reference.
Business Intelligence
If your organization uses Amazon QuickSight for business intelligence dashboards, Quick can query those dashboards in natural language. Ask "What was our revenue last quarter by region?" and Quick pulls the answer directly from your QuickSight datasets, rendering charts inline in the conversation.
Business Intelligence integration requires that your AWS account has QuickSight configured and that your Quick user has been granted QuickSight reader permissions. Enterprise-tier users get this by default. Plus and Professional tier users need their admin to enable the QuickSight connector in Quick's integration settings.
Setting Up Automate Workflows
The Automate module connects Quick's AI capabilities to business workflows. Where Agents are one-off or scheduled tasks, Automate lets you build multi-step workflows that react to events across your integrated tools — a new lead in Salesforce triggers a background research report, a support ticket in Jira triggers a knowledge base search, a new document in S3 triggers a summary and distribution.
Getting Started with Automate
Amazon Quick's automation capabilities are split into two modules:
- Quick Flows: Simple everyday task automation. Streamline repetitive workflows without complex configuration.
- Quick Automate: Complex multi-step process automation for advanced use cases. Available on Enterprise tier only.
Both modules let you define triggers (events that start a workflow), actions (what Quick does), and destinations (where output goes). You can write natural language instructions rather than code.
Automation requires a paid tier. Quick Flows is available on Plus, Professional, and Enterprise. Quick Automate is Enterprise-only. Free-tier users cannot activate automated workflows. Check the Quick pricing page for current tier details.
Example: Weekly Competitive Intel
Trigger: Every Monday at 8 AM. Action: Research "competitor product updates this week" using the Competitive Intel Space. Destination: Post a formatted summary to #strategy in Slack and save a copy as a note in the Space. This runs without human intervention and costs roughly 5–8 actions per execution.
Connecting Your Tools
Quick's value multiplies with each integration you connect. Without integrations, Quick is a document chatbot. With Slack, Teams, browser extensions, and MCP connected, it becomes an embedded assistant across your entire workflow.
Connecting an Integration
Go to Settings > Integrations in the Quick dashboard. Each integration has a Connect button that walks you through OAuth authorization. For Slack and Teams, you will need workspace admin approval (the OAuth screen will say "This app requests access to your workspace"). For browser extensions, visit the Chrome Web Store, Edge Add-ons, or Firefox Add-ons and search "Amazon Quick."
Troubleshooting Common Issues
Most Quick issues fall into four categories: authentication, indexing, integration connectivity, and action limits. The accordion below covers the most reported problems and their solutions.
Documents need time to index after upload — Quick keeps the index in sync automatically. Check the Space's Sources tab for indexing status. If a document shows "Failed," it may exceed the per-file size limit or use an unsupported format (e.g., password-protected PDFs). Check the Quick documentation for current file size limits.
- Remove the password from the PDF and re-upload.
- Split large files into smaller sections if they exceed the size limit.
- Try converting the file to plain text or DOCX if the format is unusual.
The free tier has usage limits. Agent runs consume multiple actions per execution. Check your usage under Settings > Usage.
- Reduce agent frequency (weekly instead of daily).
- Combine related questions into single queries.
- Upgrade to Plus ($20/user/month) for expanded capabilities, or Professional/Enterprise for dedicated agent hours.
- Usage resets on the first of each calendar month.
Integration tokens can expire or become invalid when workspace admin permissions change. The fix is to disconnect and reconnect.
- Go to Settings > Integrations, find the Slack or Teams entry.
- Click Disconnect, then Connect again.
- Complete the OAuth flow (you need workspace admin approval for the first reconnect).
- If the problem persists, ask your workspace admin to verify the Amazon Quick app is still approved.
Agents inherit the permissions of the user who created them. If the agent tries to access a Space or data source that the creator does not have access to, it fails.
- Verify the agent creator has read access to all Spaces and connectors the agent references.
- For Enterprise accounts, check IAM policies — the user's IAM role must include the Amazon Quick agent invocation and Space read permissions. Refer to the Quick documentation for the current IAM action names, as these may change during the product's early release period.
- Re-create the agent under an account with the correct permissions.
The desktop app uses a local session token that can become stale if you changed your AWS password or if your IAM session expired.
- Sign out of the desktop app and sign back in.
- Ensure your system clock is accurate (IAM token validation is time-sensitive).
- Check that your network allows outbound HTTPS to *.amazonaws.com.
- Update to the latest version of the desktop app from the Quick dashboard.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Amazon Quick the same as Amazon Q Developer?
No. Amazon Quick (aws.amazon.com/quick) is a business productivity assistant for non-technical users. Amazon Q Developer was a coding assistant for software engineers inside IDEs, which AWS is sunsetting in favor of Kiro as of May 15, 2026. The two products serve different audiences and have separate pricing.
Can I use Amazon Quick without an AWS account?
No. Quick requires an AWS account for authentication and data isolation. Creating an AWS account is free and takes about five minutes. The free tier of Quick does not incur charges.
Does Quick store my documents outside my AWS account?
On Enterprise tier, all data stays within your AWS account boundary using VPC isolation and PrivateLink. On Free and Plus tiers, documents are encrypted at rest and in transit within AWS's managed infrastructure, but may be processed in shared compute environments. Check AWS Service Terms for data processing details specific to your region.
How does Quick compare to Microsoft Copilot?
Quick is designed as a cross-platform assistant: it works with Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Salesforce, Slack, and 30+ other tools. Copilot is native to the Microsoft ecosystem. Quick's agentic architecture (Spaces + Agents + Automate) gives it more autonomous workflow capability, while Copilot excels at inline assistance within Office apps. See our detailed comparison for a feature-by-feature breakdown.
What happens when I hit the free tier limit?
The Free tier has usage limits. When you reach the limit, you can upgrade to Plus ($20/user/month) or Professional mid-month to unlock expanded capabilities. Check your current usage under Settings > Usage in the Quick dashboard.