What is "The Brain"?
The Brain is Runneth's long term memory for your organization. It's a private, durable layer of context about your brand, audience, product, strategy, and voice that Runneth reads before every reply.
Anything you save lives there permanently. It persists across every conversation and across both places Runneth lives, the Motion web app and Slack, so a fact you save in one shows up in the other automatically.
The simplest way to think about it: the Brain isn't a settings page you configure once. It's more like training a teammate over time. The more you put in, the more Runneth sounds like someone who has worked at your company for a year rather than a stranger who showed up this morning.
💡Good to know: The Brain is shared across your workspace. One save, and everyone on your team benefits from it.
Why it matters
Most AI tools answer the same way for everyone. Runneth doesn't, because it reads your Brain first.
Here's the difference in practice:
Imagine you ask Runneth for five hooks for a new electrolyte product.
With an empty Brain, you get generic hydration lines. "Stay hydrated all day." "The cleanest electrolyte drink you'll find." On trend, but it could be any brand.
With a fed Brain, Runneth already has your brand book (you position against big sports drinks), 200 customer reviews (your customers keep saying "afternoon crash"), and your last winning brief (your target is perimenopause women, not gym bros). Same ask, completely different output:
"The 3pm crash is hormonal. Not a willpower problem."
That's copy written in your actual language, against your real competitor, for your real audience.
And it compounds. Every hook, brief, concept, ad teardown, weekly report, and email Runneth produces reads the Brain first. One good brand context save makes a thousand later outputs better. You do the work once and it pays off every day after.
Where to find the Brain
You'll find the Brain in the top right corner of any Runneth chat. Open it to see everything you have stored.
Note: The Brain lives inside a chat, not on the main page, and there's no separate settings menu for it. If you don't see it, open a chat with Runneth first.
You can also ask Runneth where something is saved at any time. Just say "Where does this live in the Brain?" and it will point you straight to it.
How to add to the Brain
You add to the Brain by talking to Runneth in chat. There's no folder to upload into. You save things in plain language, and Runneth files them for you.
To save something, just say:
"Save our brand guidelines to the Brain."
"Remember this for later."
"Save this as a template and use this format going forward."
To upload a document, attach it to your message, tell Runneth what it is, and ask it to save it. For example: "Here are our brand guidelines. Save this to the Brain." You don't need to format anything first. Drop the file in and Runneth handles the rest.
The most important habit: tell Runneth how to use it
Saving context is only half the job. The single most common mistake is saving something and then finding Runneth doesn't use it. That's almost always because Runneth was never told when the context applies, so it fell back to a default.
The fix is simple. When you save something, add a sentence about when to use it:
"Save these competitor names to the Brain and reference them whenever I ask for a competitive teardown."
"Save this as our brand voice and use it for all ad copy for Brand X."
"Add this to the Brain and index it so it comes up when we write briefs."
A clear instruction is what makes saved context resurface later. A vague save tends to sit there unused.
💡Tip: Save things through Runneth rather than dropping files in directly into your Brain. When you ask Runneth to save something, it files and indexes it so it can find it again later.
How Runneth decides where things go
You don't have to manage this yourself, but it helps to know the simple rule Runneth follows: it saves things based on how you'll want to find them again. There are three buckets.
Standing rules that should apply every time. Tone, formatting, "always do this," "never say that." These are loaded into every conversation automatically, so they're always in effect and never need to be searched for.
Reusable knowledge you'll come back to by topic. Brand guidelines, research, competitor info, frameworks, templates, and uploaded docs. Runneth keeps an index of these and pulls the right one when your question calls for it. This is exactly why a clear "use this when..." note matters: it's what helps Runneth surface the right file at the right moment.
Workspace settings. Your brand context, KPI goals, and spend thresholds for a specific workspace.
The practical takeaway is the same as above: when you save something, a quick note about when it applies is what lands it in the right place.
What to save first
You don't need everything on day one. The first three items below cover most of the lift.
If you only do three things in your first week using Runneth:
Upload your brand book or any brand guidelines you have. A PDF, doc, or slide deck all work. Runneth will distill it into durable brand context.
Connect your review platform (Trustpilot, Yotpo, Shopify, Amazon, or your support tool). Runneth pulls reviews straight from the source and mines them for the real language your customers use. No exports needed.
Share your most recent winning brief, the one whose concept actually performed. Runneth pattern matches against it for future asks.
The full list, ranked by impact:
Brand context — brand book, voice and tone guide, positioning. Every hook, concept, script, and teardown reads this first.
Competitor research and swipe files — helps Runneth find the whitespace and avoid sounding like everyone else.
Persona and ICP docs — so every concept is written for a real audience, not everyone at once.
Product catalog — SKUs, pricing, ingredients, claims, and what's allowed in copy. Stops hallucinated claims and keeps legal happy.
Past winning briefs and concepts — two or three is enough. They teach Runneth what "good" looks like in your account specifically.
Customer reviews and voice of customer — the fastest path from a good ad to a great one is using your customers' own words.
Landing page and CRO context — keeps ad copy and landing page in sync and surfaces message mismatches early.
Channel strategy briefs — funnel stages, attribution, and KPI definitions, so "best performing ad" means what you mean by it.
Templates — your brief format, report shape, or hook structure, so output comes back in your team's format.
Call notes and strategy sessions — keeps the Brain aligned with what was actually decided in the room.
Skip what you already have in Motion: Runneth can already see your account data, ad library, and connected landing pages, so there's no need to save those. The Brain is for the context Runneth can't see on its own.
How Runneth's memory works
It helps to know the difference between three kinds of context:
Saved Brain memory persists. Once you save it, Runneth uses it in every future chat, in the web app and in Slack.
In chat context does not carry over on its own. If you mention a "20% off promo" in one chat, a brand new chat next month won't assume that promo still applies unless you saved it to the Brain. Start fresh chats with the context you want, or save the durable stuff so you never repeat it.
Live account data is always available. Runneth already sees your Motion metrics, ad library, and connected tools, so you don't need to save those.
⚠️ Because the Brain is shared at the organization level, a preference or fact one teammate saves applies for everyone. Keep that in mind and avoid saving anything you wouldn't want the whole team to see.
Managing your Brain
Verify a save. Open the Brain from the top right of any chat to see what's stored, or ask "Where does this live in the Brain?"
Update or remove things. Nothing is locked in. Tell Runneth what to change or remove and it updates the saved file. For example: "Update our brand context, we just launched a new product for [audience]" or "Remove the old promo from the Brain."
Adding admins and building the Brain for your team. If you need admin access to build out the Brain or run routines, you can set this up in chat. Tell Runneth: "Add [Full Name] ([email]) as an admin. Set their scope to admin in the workspace map."
⚠️ For agencies: The Brain is scoped to a Motion organization. For true separation between clients, give each client its own Motion organization with its own Brain, rather than splitting one workspace across multiple brands.
Keep the Brain compounding
A few habits keep it getting sharper over time:
Feed it once, benefit forever. Run a brand intake or upload your guidelines early. Runneth reads the Brain before every creative task, so you never re-explain your brand.
Reference it, don't repeat it. Once something is saved, a short pointer is all you need. Instead of re-pasting your brand into every chat, just say "use our brand voice" or "stick to the personas we set up."
Save the formats you love. When Runneth produces something you'll want again, say "save this as a template." It will match it automatically going forward.
Let routines do the upkeep. One off uploads go stale. Routines that pull, synthesize, and save back to the Brain on a schedule keep it fresh without anyone maintaining it by hand.
Correct it in the moment. If an output misses, tell Runneth what's off and, when it's something it should carry forward, say so: "always format reports this way" or "don't use that phrase again." Feedback isn't lost at the end of a chat, it becomes part of how Runneth works with you.
Here's the payoff, side by side:
Cold start: "Here's our brand again: premium pet food, warm but not cutesy voice, audience is millennial dog owners, no health claims... now write me 5 captions."
With a Brain: "Write me 5 captions in our brand voice for the millennial dog owner persona." Runneth already knows the rest, because you taught it once.
FAQs
Do I need to format anything? No. Drop the file in chat and say what it is. Runneth handles the rest.
What if my brand book is out of date? Upload it anyway and mention what's stale. Runneth will weigh the rest accordingly. Something durable beats nothing.
Can I update or remove things later? Yes. Tell Runneth what to change or remove and it updates the saved file. Nothing is permanent.
Is the Brain shared across my team? Yes. Anyone in your workspace reads from the same Brain. One save, everyone benefits.
What's the difference between Runneth and the Brain? Runneth is your creative strategy assistant. The Brain is its long term memory.
What if I'm not sure something is worth saving? Ask. Runneth will tell you whether it would shape future outputs or whether it's better kept as one off context for a single chat.
Go deeper
How to build your Runneth Brain is a ready to use checklist of the exact files to upload first, with a form that routes them straight into your workspace.
How to prompt masterfully covers how to reference your Brain and get sharper answers from every prompt.
Disclaimer: Runneth is powered by large language models. While we've trained Runneth extensively on marketing best practices, AI generated responses may be inaccurate or incomplete. Please verify important information before relying on it.