Frequently asked questions

General

Why did Posit add AI functionality to RStudio?

Through our work on AI functionality in Positron, we’ve seen firsthand how AI tools can accelerate and improve data science workflows. Posit Assistant brings these AI capabilities into RStudio.

Posit is committed to building tools that produce correct, transparent, and reproducible results. AI assistants are no different. We wanted to build AI functionality within RStudio that is aligned with this stance, bringing RStudio users up to the state-of-the-art while continuing to produce reliable insights, code, and results.

How can these new tools support my work?

Posit Assistant can help with a variety of tasks, including:

• Writing and editing code: Have Posit Assistant write code for a specific purpose, or refactor existing code. This includes tasks like writing R packages, creating Shiny apps, and editing code in a Quarto document.
• Debugging: Get help identifying and fixing issues in your code.
• Exploratory data analysis: Explore your data directly within the chat. Posit Assistant can summarize datasets, check for quality issues, visualize relationships, etc., and will offer suggested next steps at each turn.
• Understanding a codebase or set of files: Get explanations of how code works or answers about unfamiliar files.
• Creating reports: Generate Quarto documents from your analysis using the /report command.
• Collaborating on approaches: Discuss your strategy for your tasks with Posit Assistant, get suggestions for alternatives, or talk through unexpected results.

Next Edit Suggestions (NES) speeds up your coding process by predicting your next edits as you type. Because NES can see your live R or Python session, suggestions are specific to what you’re working on.

How is Posit Assistant different from other coding agents like Claude Code?

While both can be used as coding agents, Posit Assistant is specialized for the data science workflow within RStudio:

• Direct session access: Unlike Claude Code, Posit Assistant has direct access to your live R session out-of-the-box. It can run code directly within RStudio, see your loaded packages and variables, access console output, and more.
• Adaptive interaction style: Working with data involves a variety of tasks, from exploratory data analysis to package creation. Posit Assistant adjusts its behavior depending on the task; for example, asking for more input during exploratory analysis and predictive modeling, but working more autonomously on software engineering tasks with clear goals.
• Data-science specific guidance: We designed Posit Assistant to specifically be useful for data analysis tasks, and so it has built-in skills and capabilities for data science tasks, including building Quarto reports and doing predictive modeling.

How is Posit Assistant different from chat interfaces like ChatGPT?

Coding agents that can run code on your machine and see your environment and files are substantially better for coding and data analysis than browser-based chat interfaces.

ChatGPT and similar chat interfaces can answer questions about code, but they operate in isolation. To use them for code, you need to copy-paste code into a browser, get a response, and paste it back. Posit Assistant is embedded directly in your RStudio IDE and has access to your live R session, so it can run code, see your variables and data, and iterate with you in real time. This means more specific guidance, much quicker feedback loops, and fewer errors.

How can I get the most out of Posit Assistant?

While Posit Assistant is designed to be intuitive, you can unlock its full potential by exploring the official documentation.

Why aren’t Posit Assistant and NES open source?

Posit’s mission is to create free and open-source software for data science, scientific research, and technical communication. Revenue from Posit’s commercial products is what funds this open-source work and makes our business sustainable, and Posit AI is one of those commercial products. As a managed service, it also allows us to tune the experience for high-quality models and maintain reliability for users.

Usage

Is there a usage cap?

Yes. All users can access a free trial of Posit AI, which includes a cap on the number of interactions with Posit Assistant. After the trial, continued use requires a paid subscription. A subscription includes a higher cap on interactions, and users can purchase additional usage credits if needed.

How is Posit AI usage measured?

Posit AI tracks Posit Assistant usage via credits and displays your remaining credit balance as a percentage on your home page. This percentage reflects either your one-time Free Trial allotment (if you are a trial user) or your recurring monthly Pro allowance (if you are a paying customer). For additional usage, see Automatic Recharge below.

NES usage is unlimited and does not appear in the account management portal.

What factors influence credit consumption?

Because Posit Assistant supports various tasks and models, credits are not consumed at a fixed “per-question” rate. Credit usage depends on:

• Complexity of the task: Large data summaries or complex refactoring require more underlying token usage.
• Model selection: Premium, high-reasoning models (e.g., Claude Opus) consume credits faster than lightweight, faster models (e.g., Claude Haiku).
• Response length: The variable nature of LLM outputs means two similar prompts may result in different credit usage.

Due to these factors, it’s difficult to predict exact credit usage and expected monthly costs. However, based on behavior during beta testing, we can extrapolate some general usage patterns:

• You only use Next Edit Suggestions: Always covered by the $20 Pro plan subscription
• You use Posit Assistant occasionally for lightweight data tasks: Often stays within $20 Pro plan subscription
• You use Posit Assistant every day for typical data work: Between $20 and $100 total per month with additional credit purchases
• You use Posit Assistant every day with large code bases or datasets: Often $100+/mo total per month with additional credit purchases

How are usage credits managed on the Pro plan?

The Pro plan includes a monthly allotment of $15 worth of credits. Included monthly credits are “use it or lose it” and do not roll over to the next billing cycle.

How are usage credits managed during the free trial?

Usage credits for the free trial are provided as a one-time allotment at the start of the trial period, currently capped at $5. These credits allow users to explore and evaluate Posit AI’s capabilities.

What happens if I run out of credits?

To ensure your workflow isn’t interrupted, paid users can opt in to Automatic Recharge. Once your monthly allowance is exhausted, this feature automatically adds a pre-defined dollar amount to your account based on a threshold you set.

Your account displays these additional funds as your “Auto Recharge” balance (in USD). This balance is separate from your monthly credits and the system only consumes it after your included credits run out.

What happens to my remaining free trial credits if I upgrade to a paid plan?

Any remaining free trial credits expire immediately upon upgrading to a paid plan. Your new monthly credit allowance will take effect as soon as the upgrade is processed. To get the most value out of your trial, we recommend using your remaining free credits before upgrading, as they do not roll over to paid tiers.

What does the token usage indicator in Posit Assistant represent?

The token usage indicator displays the total number of tokens consumed within your current active session. To ensure optimal performance, Posit Assistant will automatically compact your session history before it reaches the 200,000 token limit.

It is important to note that this indicator tracks session-specific context and does not reflect your overall monthly usage credits.

Where can I check my remaining monthly Posit AI usage credits?

Your monthly subscription balance is managed separately from individual sessions. You can view your remaining monthly usage credits by visiting the homepage of your posit.ai account.

We will proactively send you a notification directly within Posit Assistant if your monthly credit balance is running low.

Pricing & subscription

For heavy use, why is Posit AI costing more than I expected?

We hear this often, and it’s usually due to more advanced workflows - such as agentic coding tasks or working with large files - consuming tokens much faster than simple chat. Even a short session with a large codebase loaded as context can consume a meaningful portion of your monthly allotment. You can always check your actual remaining balance at posit.ai. We recommend reviewing your model selection and context practices to get the most from your plan. Also, see “What can I do to keep my costs under control?” below.

What can I do to keep my costs under control?

To manage your usage effectively:

• Select the right model: Use smaller, faster models for simple tasks and reserve high-intensity models (like Claude Sonnet) for complex architectural or coding problems.
• Monitor context: Be mindful of the size of the files or documentation you are providing as context, as larger contexts increase token usage.
• Manage Auto-Recharge: You can turn on or off your auto-recharge settings. We will soon also allow you to set a limit to stay within a specific monthly budget.

Can I use my existing Claude Pro or Claude Max subscription with Posit AI?

No, this isn’t currently possible. While flat-rate subscriptions like Claude Pro or Max work on Anthropic’s own products (claude.ai, Claude Code), Anthropic does not currently allow third-party services like Posit AI to draw on those consumer plans. Posit AI is powered by direct API access - a separate pay-as-you-go tier that carries a cost per token processed. We’re actively engaging with AI providers as their partnership models evolve and will update this if that changes.

Why can’t Posit offer an “unlimited” usage plan for a flat monthly fee?

We understand the appeal of flat rates with predictable spend that are common with tools like Claude Code or ChatGPT Plus. The difference is that those plans are currently subsidized at a loss by companies investing heavily to grow their user bases. Posit is an independent company, and we’re powering Posit AI via direct API consumption from Anthropic, and every token has a real cost. We’re actively exploring higher-volume tiers that could offer better value for power users. Your feedback on this directly shapes that work.

Do you offer discounted pricing for students or educators?

We know cost is a real barrier in academic settings, and we take this seriously. While we don’t have an education discount at this time, we are actively exploring how to provide more value to the academic community. Please stay tuned for updates and share your specific use case on the community forum.

Privacy & data storage

Which LLM providers does Posit AI rely on?

We currently use Anthropic large language models (LLMs) to power Posit Assistant. Posit hosts a number of specialized LLMs that power NES.

Do you have a Zero Data Retention policy with the language providers?

We have a Zero Data Retention (ZDR) agreement in place with Anthropic. According to Anthropic:

Zero Data Retention (ZDR) is Anthropic’s commitment to ensuring that customer data submitted through certain API endpoints is not stored after the API response is returned except where needed to comply with law or combat misuse, as outlined in a customer’s arrangements with Anthropic. Subject to these exceptions, when using ZDR-enabled endpoints, your data is processed in real-time and immediately discarded, with no logging or storage of prompts or outputs.

Will Posit use user data collected from Posit AI to train models or improve the service?

At the time of account creation, users can choose to opt in or out of data collection for improving the service.

• Opt-in: Posit may use your trace data for up to 5 years to train models and improve the service.
• Opt-out: Posit retains basic operational data (not including your prompts or AI responses) for 30 days for service maintenance and support purposes only. This data will not be used to train models or improve the service.

If you wish to change your data collection preference after account creation, you can toggle this setting in the My Settings menu.

Can I use Posit AI behind a corporate firewall?

Yes, but you will need to ask your IT department to add the following IP addresses to your corporate firewall, proxy, or egress allowlist. Once these are permitted, Posit AI should work as expected through Posit Assistant in the RStudio IDE.

• 3.128.42.122
• 18.224.84.135
• 13.58.113.11

To verify that the IP addresses are reachable, go to Tools > Global Options > Code Suggestions in the RStudio IDE and click Diagnostic. If successful, all services in the Reachability section should return HTTP 200.

Compatibility

Is Posit AI available on Posit Workbench for RStudio Pro or Positron Pro?

Not currently. We currently prioritize the desktop experience, but we plan to bring equivalent Posit AI functionality to Workbench that specifically meets the needs of enterprise teams and shared environments.

How is Posit Assistant different from the AI agents in Positron: Positron Assistant and Databot?

Posit Assistant is the evolution of everything we learned from building Positron Assistant and Databot. Databot was deliberately constrained, designed specifically for exploratory data analysis with short, interactive turns. Posit Assistant builds on that foundation but is far more general, capable of assisting with the full range of data science tasks.

Can I use Posit Assistant with my own API key, local models, or a custom cloud provider?

Currently, Posit Assistant in RStudio relies on Posit AI, our managed service. We’ve tested Posit Assistant extensively with the models we offer and tuned the experience around them. As this is the first time we have had AI Chat/Agent experiences in RStudio, we want to ensure a reliably high-quality experience rather than one that varies depending on the model behind it.

Managing Posit AI as a service also allows us to build server-side features. For enterprise teams that require custom providers or stricter data boundaries, we are prioritizing bring-your-own-key (BYOK) support for Posit Workbench in 2026.

Is Databot also coming to RStudio?

Databot as it currently exists in Positron is not coming to RStudio. However, Posit Assistant builds on what we’ve learned with Positron Assistant and Databot and combines the conversational convenience of a chat assistant with the power of a data analysis agent.

This means — similar to Databot — Posit Assistant can directly help with exploratory data analysis, such as summarizing datasets, teasing out relationships, and visualizing findings.

When is Posit AI coming to Positron?

Our initial priority is to make the experience as valuable as possible in the RStudio IDE, which lacks the native AI support and extension opportunities available in Positron. Eventually, however, we expect the Posit AI service to support AI tools in both development environments.