Share a Document People Can Ask Questions About

Debriefed · 2026-07-15

Drop a document into Debriefed and you get one link that briefs the reader and lets them ask it questions, with every answer cited back to the source.

To share a document people can ask questions about, upload it to Debriefed, which turns the file into a one-page AI brief plus a question-and-answer interface, then send the single resulting link. Anyone who opens it can read the summary and ask follow-up questions directly, and each answer points back to the exact place in the document it came from. No account or app is required to open it.

This solves a problem that plain file sharing never has: the gap between sending a document and someone actually understanding it. A PDF attachment or a shared drive link puts the burden entirely on the reader. They have to open it, skim it, find the part that matters to them, and if they have a question, they have to email you back and wait. Most people do not bother. They skim the first paragraph, assume they get the gist, and move on, which is how important details in contracts, specs, and reports get missed. A document someone can interrogate removes that friction. The reader gets an instant summary and can ask exactly what they want to know, in their own words, and get a cited answer in seconds.

What actually happens when you share this way

Debriefed works with the file types people already send: PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, images, and plain text. You can also paste a conversation from Claude, ChatGPT, or Codex if what you want to share is an AI chat rather than a document. Once you drop the file in, Debriefed reads it and generates two things: a short AI-written brief that captures the key points, and a question-and-answer layer sitting on top of the same document. You get one link. That link is what you send, by email, chat, text, or anywhere else.

When someone opens the link, they land on the brief first, so they get the gist in under a minute. If they want more, they type a question into the box and get an answer, cited to the specific page or section of the source. They can keep asking follow-up questions until they have what they need. There is nothing to sign up for and nothing to install.

How to send a document people can ask questions about, step by step

1. Drop your document into Debriefed

Go to Debriefed and upload the file, a PDF report, a Word proposal, a spreadsheet, a slide deck, a scanned image, or plain text. If what you actually want to share is an AI conversation instead of a file, paste that in rather than a document.

2. Let it generate the brief and Q&A

Debriefed reads the document and produces a one-page summary along with a question-answering interface built on the full text, not just the summary, so answers can reach into every page.

3. Set how long the link should live

On the Free plan, links expire after one to three days, which works fine for something you want a colleague to look at this week. On a paid plan you can keep a link alive for up to a month, a year, or indefinitely, which matters more for things like an onboarding packet or a reference document people will return to later.

4. Copy and send the one link

Send it the way you would send any link, over email, Slack, a text message, or from your terminal if you are on the Pro plan. There is only one link to keep track of, not a file plus a separate thread of follow-up questions.

5. Check the receipt, and revoke if you need to

You will see a receipt when the link is opened, so you know it was actually read. If you sent it to the wrong person, or the document changes, or you simply want to stop access, you can revoke the link and it stops working right away.

Why cited answers matter more than a summary alone

A generic AI summary tells you what a document says in general. A cited answer tells you where. When a reader asks Debriefed a specific question, such as what the payment terms are or what the timeline for a deliverable looks like, the answer links back to the exact passage in the source. That means the reader is not just trusting an AI's paraphrase, they can open the citation and read the original wording themselves. This is especially important for anything someone might rely on, like a contract clause, a budget figure, or a legal term. Answers are AI-generated, so for anything that matters, the reader should still check the cited section before acting on it, but the citation makes that check fast instead of requiring them to reread the whole document.

Where this is useful beyond a single document

The same one-link approach works for a lot of situations that normally involve sending a file and fielding a string of follow-up emails. A business proposal a client can interrogate, a contract with a clause-cited explainer, a research report a colleague can question section by section, or a product spec engineers can query instead of scheduling a walkthrough meeting. If what you actually have is a PDF specifically, the same idea is covered in more depth in turning a PDF into a Q&A link anyone can ask. And if the thing you want to hand off is not a document at all but a conversation you already had with an AI assistant, see how to share a Claude conversation as a link instead.

Why this beats emailing a file back and forth

Email attachments and shared drive links have a few structural problems. There is no way to know if the recipient actually opened the file. Questions come back as a separate, unstructured thread, often days later, and answering them means you rereading your own document to find the relevant part. And once you have sent a file, you generally cannot take it back. Sharing through Debriefed addresses each of these directly: you get a receipt when the link is opened, questions are answered instantly and against the source text rather than routed back to you, and you can revoke access at any time. Link addresses are also unguessable, so the document is not something that turns up by browsing or searching, only people who have the exact link can reach it.

FAQ