A Guide to Attio's AI Insight Templates

Every client conversation is a goldmine of information. But information is useless if it’s not structured, shared, and acted upon. Most companies leave this gold trapped in call recordings and messy notes, where it quickly loses its value.

At Novlini, we turn conversations into action. We don't just record our calls; we use Attio's Insight Templates to build a powerful, automated engine that runs our entire client lifecycle, from the first discovery call to the final proposal email.

This isn't just about getting a quick summary. It's about building a repeatable system for excellence. This is our playbook.

The Philosophy - How to Design a Great AI Prompt

Before building, it's important to understand the principles of a great AI prompt. We follow four simple rules to get consistent, high-quality results from Attio's AI.

1. Treat it like an intern: Give it a role, context, and clear instructions. Don't assume it knows what you want.

2. Structure your prompt: Use sections, headings, and bullet points to make your request easy to understand.

3. Iterate and refine: Your first prompt won't be perfect. Test it on real calls and tweak it until it consistently delivers.

4. Control the output: Be explicit about the format you want (text, list, specific length, etc.).

With this philosophy, you can move from simple questions to building sophisticated operational templates.

How to Create Your First Insight Template

When you're ready to build, Attio gives you two clear paths: you can start with a pre-built template or create your own from scratch.

Path 1: Start with a Pre-Built Template (The Fast Way)

The quickest way to get started is to use one of Attio's expert-designed templates. Attio provides a full library of templates for common use cases across different departments, including Sales, Success, Recruiting, and Fundraising.

For example, a sales team can instantly select the BANT template, which comes pre-loaded with sections to assess a prospect's Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline.

This is a fantastic starting point. You can use a proven framework immediately or select a template and then customize it to fit your team’s specific needs.

Path 2: Build Your Own Template from Scratch (The Custom Way)

For a truly tailored process, you can build your own template from the ground up. This is how we built our custom playbook at Novlini.

1. Create a New Template: Navigate to Calls in your Attio sidebar, click the Insight Templates tab, and select + Add section.

2. Add Your Sections and Prompts: For each piece of information you want to extract, create a new section. Give it a clear Title and a detailed Prompt that instructs the AI on what to look for.

3. Choose Your Format: For each section, you can choose how you want the AI to format its answer. Text is best for summaries, while List is perfect for bullet points.

This path gives you complete control to build a template that perfectly matches your unique business processes.

Our Template Playbook

We’ve designed a suite of custom insight templates that trigger at different stages of our client journey. Each one is designed to automate a specific, high-value task. Let's break down how we build and use them.

1. The Discovery Meeting: The Attio Initial Setup Call Template

The Problem: The first discovery call is the most critical meeting. You need to capture every goal, challenge, and technical detail perfectly. If you miss something, it can lead to scope creep and misunderstandings later. Relying on memory or manual notes is too risky.

The How-To: We built this template to act as a meticulous, AI-powered business analyst. It’s a comprehensive questionnaire that follows a logical discovery flow, ensuring we capture a complete picture of our client's needs. We built it by adding a separate, detailed section for each key area of qualification.

The Template in Action: Here are a few key sections from our template that the AI fills out during the call, turning a conversation into a structured project brief.

1. Section Title: Core Objectives & Ideal State

   Prompt: What are the primary business goals the prospect hopes to achieve with a new system? Listen for specific, measurable outcomes like "increase conversion rate by 15%," "reduce time spent on data entry," or "get a clear view of the entire sales pipeline." What does success look like for them in 6 months?

   Format: List

   
   

2. Section Title: Current Challenges & Pain Points

   Prompt: Identify the top 3-4 challenges or pain points hindering the prospect from reaching their goals. What specific problems are they facing with their current tools or processes? Capture direct quotes about their frustrations if possible, for example, "our data is a mess" or "we have no visibility into our pipeline."

   Format: List

   
   

3. Section Title: Existing Solutions & Identified Gaps

   Prompt: What solutions, tools, or strategies has the prospect already implemented to address their challenges? List the tools they are currently using (e.g., other CRMs, spreadsheets, Notion). Crucially, identify any gaps they mention between what their current tools do and what they actually need.

   Format: List

   
   

4. Section Title: Decision Criteria (Budget & Timeline)

   Prompt: Ascertain the prospect’s budget range for a solution and the key timelines they are considering for implementation. Also, listen for other important decision criteria, such as "must integrate with Clay," "needs to be easy for non-technical users".

   Format: Text

Why it Works: By breaking down our discovery process into a logical flow from goals to challenges to budget we get highly accurate, structured data instead of a vague summary. The AI knows exactly what to listen for at each stage of the conversation. The result is a perfect "source of truth" document that not only scopes the project but also qualifies the lead effectively from the very first call.

Insight templates are incredibly flexible. While our first example showed how to build a multi-section brief to capture information, you can also create a template with just one powerful section to perform a single, high-value task.

A perfect example of this is how we automate our proposal emails.

2. The Follow-Up: The Email Follow-Up First Meeting Template

The Problem: Writing a detailed, personalized proposal email after a call is a major bottleneck. It can take up to one hour, and delays can kill a deal's momentum.

The How-To: We solved this by building a template that drafts the entire proposal email for us. The key to making this work is giving the AI extremely specific instructions on style, tone, and structure.

The Template in Action: Here is the professional prompt we use to generate a ready-to-send email:

1. Section Title: Proposal Email Following First Meeting

   Prompt: Write a complete commercial proposal email in English to send immediately after a discovery call.
   Style & tone: – Friendly and professional: use short sentences, easy-to-read language, and no corporate jargon. – Direct and personal (use “Hi {First Name}”).
   Structure:

   a. Greeting + one-line thank-you and quick recap. 

   b. Client's main goals – 3–4 concise bullet points from the call. 

   c. Proposal – present the commercial offer exactly as discussed.

   d. How we work – include our core deliverables. 

   e. Next step – finish with a clear call-to-action.

   Instructions: Generate the complete proposal within this email. Do not reference a separate document or attachment. Base all details (scope, pricing, etc.) strictly on information mentioned in the call. Keep the total email length between 150 and 220 words.

   Format: Text

Why it Works: This prompt is a masterclass in controlling the output. By defining the tone, structure, and constraints so precisely, we guide the AI to produce an email that is 95% ready to send. This dramatically speeds up our sales cycle and ensures every proposal meets our quality standard.

Conclusion: Build Your Business, Not Just Your Notes

Attio's Insight Templates are more than a productivity feature; they're a tool for building systems. We don't just use them to summarize calls; we use them to generate proposals, create project plans, and qualify sales leads using complex methodologies like MEDDPICC.

What is MEDDPICC? watch this.

We’ve built our internal operations on this system because it allows us to be fast, consistent, and focused on high-value work.

At Novlini, we help businesses build these kinds of smart, automated systems. If you're ready to turn your conversations into contracts and your data into action, book a free 30-minute call with our team today here.