# Platform overview

How the Instasent dashboard is organised — projects, audience, segments, campaigns, automations and the AI assistant.

**Language:** en
**Audience:** platform
**Translation key:** platform.overview
**Search keywords:** platform, dashboard, panel, overview, getting started, project, projects, audience, contacts, segment, segments, campaign, campaigns, automation, automations, ai assistant, connected apps, how instasent works
**Related pages:** /platform/es/overview, /platform/en/ai-agents, /developers/product-api/connected-apps-and-oauth, /developers/getting-started/introduction, /developers/product-api/guide

Instasent is a customer-communication platform. You collect contacts and the
things they do, group them into audiences, and reach them over SMS — one
message at a time or as a campaign. Everything in the dashboard hangs off a few
core concepts. This page explains them and where each one lives.

If you would rather drive Instasent from code, the same concepts are exposed by
the [Product API](/developers/product-api/guide). The dashboard and the API act on the same
data.

## Projects

A **project** is the top-level container for your work. It holds an audience,
the segments and campaigns built on top of it, your automations, and the
settings that apply to all of them. Most organisations run one project per
brand or product line.

Everything below — audience, segments, campaigns — belongs to a single project.
Switch projects from the selector at the top of the dashboard.

## Audience

Your **audience** is every contact in a project, together with what you know
about them: attributes (name, phone, locale, custom fields) and events (what
they did and when). Each message you send also lands as an event on the
contact's timeline, so the audience is both who you can reach and a record of
how you have reached them.

Contacts arrive in two ways:

#### 1. From the dashboard

Import a list or add contacts by hand for a quick start.

#### 2. From your systems

Stream contacts and events in continuously through the
[Product API](/developers/product-api/guide) or the
[Ingest API](/developers/ingest-api/guide). This keeps the audience in sync with your
own database.

## Segments

A **segment** is a saved, dynamic slice of the audience — "contacts in Spain
who opened a campaign in the last 30 days", for example. Segments are defined by
a filter over attributes and events, and they re-evaluate themselves: as
contacts match or stop matching, the segment updates on its own. You target
campaigns and automations at segments rather than at static lists.

## Campaigns

A **campaign** is a one-off send to a segment: write the message, pick the
audience, review, and send (or schedule it). Once it goes out you get delivery
and engagement stats, and every send shows up on each contact's timeline.

> **Tip**: Build the segment first, then the campaign. A campaign always points at a
> segment, so a well-defined segment is half the work.

## Automations

An **automation** sends messages in response to what contacts do, without you
pressing send each time. A contact entering a segment, or a specific event
arriving, can trigger a message or a sequence. Use automations for welcomes,
reminders, and follow-ups that should run continuously rather than as a single
campaign.

## AI assistant

The dashboard includes an **AI assistant** that answers questions about your
audience and helps you act on it — "how many contacts in Madrid?", "draft a
reminder for cart abandoners". It reads your project data and these help guides,
so its answers stay grounded in how Instasent actually works.

External AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, MCP clients) and OAuth-connected apps are
described on [AI agents & MCP](/platform/en/ai-agents) — most connectors are
**coming soon**.

## Connected apps

**Connected apps** let external tools work with your Instasent data through a
secure **OAuth** authorisation. You approve each app and can revoke it at any
time. See [AI agents & MCP](/platform/en/ai-agents) for the product roadmap and
[Connected apps & OAuth](/developers/product-api/connected-apps-and-oauth)
for the developer guide (in progress).

## Where to go next

- [Create an account](/developers/getting-started/create-an-account) - Set up your organisation and first project.
- [Product API guide](/developers/product-api/guide) - Drive the same projects, audiences and campaigns from code.
- [AI agents & MCP](/platform/en/ai-agents) - Embedded assistant, MCP, marketplaces, and OAuth apps.
- [Use with AI](/developers/further-reading/use-with-ai) - Point an assistant at Instasent's docs and data.