many eukaryotic cells chemotax, sensing and following chemical gradients. however, experiments find that even under conditions when single cells do not chemotax, small clusters may still follow a gradient. how can cell clusters sense a gradient that individual cells ignore? i will discuss possible ``collective guidance'' mechanisms underlying this motion, where individual cells measure the mean value of the attractant, but need not measure its gradient to give rise to directional motility for a cell cluster. i show that the collective guidance hypothesis can be directly tested by looking for strong orientational effects in pairs of cells chemotaxing. collective gradient sensing also has a new wrinkle in comparison to single-cell chemotaxis: to accurately determine a gradient direction, a cluster must integrate information from cells with highly variable properties. when is cell-to-cell variation a limiting factor in sensing accuracy? i provide some initial answers, and discuss how cell clusters can sense gradients in a way that is robust to this variation. interestingly, these strategies may depend on the cluster's mechanics: there is a fundamental bound that links the cluster's chemotactic accuracy and its rheology. this suggests that in some circumstances, mechanical changes like fluidization can influence a cluster's sensing ability. because of this effect, increasing the noise in a single cell's motion can actually increase the accuracy of cluster chemotaxis!