AI Suggestions
Preceden has an experimental feature to help you generate content for your timeline using artificial intelligence.
How do I access the tool?
Above your timeline, click the AI Suggestions button:
If you don't see the button, your browser window is too narrow to show it. Switch to a desktop or widen the window. See Offline or Mobile Version of Preceden for what a phone can and cannot do.
How do I use it?
Type in a topic and click Generate Ideas. Preceden will then generate suggestions related to that topic that you can add to your timeline:
Here is the resulting timeline:
A few things to know:
- The topic box starts out filled in with the last topic you searched for on this timeline in the same browser or, before your first search, with your timeline's name if you've given it one.
- While Preceden is working, you can click Cancel Generating to stop it.
- Once the suggestions appear, Generate Again gives you a fresh set of ideas for the same topic.
- Suggestions with the same name as an event already on your timeline are left out, so you won't be offered an event you've already added.
- You can uncheck suggestions to only add certain ones to your timeline.
- You can edit an event's name and dates in this tool, or wait until after you've added it to your timeline.
- Each event you add gets an icon picked by the AI and a color from Preceden's default palette, but no notes. To change an event's icon, color, or notes, edit it after adding it to your timeline.
- Suggestions you don't add aren't lost. Preceden keeps your most recent set, so they're still there when you reopen the tool, even after you leave the timeline and come back. The AI Suggestions button shows how many are waiting.
- You can generate suggestions up to 50 times an hour.
- If your timeline has multiple layers, you can choose which layer the events go to. Choosing New Layer... asks you to name a new layer and then creates it for you. Note that when your timeline has more than one layer, the button to add the events reads Add to Layer rather than Add to Timeline:
Can I use this for project planning timelines?
The tool currently works best for historical timelines, though we plan to support project planning timelines in the future.
How does it come up with suggestions?
It uses a large language model, the same kind of AI technology behind tools like ChatGPT and Gemini.
These models are trained on information found on the internet, so what they produce can be inaccurate. They also sometimes make things up entirely, especially for uncommon topics. For this reason, we highly recommend verifying the accuracy of suggestions before you add them to your timeline.
How many events can I add to my timeline?
Preceden's free plan allows up to 10 events per timeline, and suggestions count toward that limit. If you have already added 6 events yourself, you can add 4 more from this tool. A free timeline made with Timeline Maker AI has a higher limit, every generated event plus 5 of your own, and suggestions use up those 5.
When there are more suggestions than room on a free-plan timeline, only as many as will fit start out checked, and a note above the list tells you how many you can add. If you check more than that and click the add button, Preceden adds none of them and offers to show you the paid plans instead. Uncheck some suggestions and try again, or upgrade.
Upgrading to any paid plan raises the limit to 1,500 events per timeline, so you can build much larger timelines. The same rule applies there: if the suggestions you've checked would take the timeline past 1,500 events, Preceden asks you to select fewer and adds none of them.
How do I remove suggestions I already added?
Click the Bulk Editor button above your timeline, then click Delete All AI Suggestions... at the bottom of the editor. Preceden tells you how many events it will delete and asks you to confirm, then deletes every event on the timeline that came from the AI Suggestions tool. The events you created yourself stay, and so do any events Timeline Maker AI generated when it created the timeline. The button only appears when your timeline has events from the tool to delete.
Why didn't it generate any suggestions?
When Preceden can't come up with suggestions, the dialog shows a message saying why. What you see depends on what stopped it:
- We had trouble generating ideas about this topic. Fewer than three suggestions came back. This usually means the topic is too narrow or too obscure, so add more detail to the topic and click Generate Ideas again, or add the events yourself.
- This topic might be inappropriate. Try something else. Every topic is screened before it reaches the AI. Historical violence sometimes trips the screen, so rewording the topic is worth a try.
- You've hit the limit of 50 suggestion requests/hour. Wait a bit and try again.
- The AI suggestions tool is at capacity right now. More suggestions are being generated across Preceden than it will run in an hour. Nothing is wrong with your topic, so try again later.
- Preceden is handling too many timeline generation requests right now. The AI model itself was busy. A few minutes is usually enough.
- Generating suggestions timed out, We couldn't process this request due to a technical issue on our end, or There was a problem processing your request. Something went wrong on Preceden's side, not with your topic. Try again, and if the same message keeps coming back, let us know.
If instead the dialog says We don't have any suggestions for this topic (or any more suggestions, once you've added some from it), every suggestion it came up with has the same name as an event already on your timeline, so there was nothing new to offer. Try a different or more specific topic.
What if I run into issues?
If you run into any issues, or have suggestions for improving this tool, email us at [email protected].