AI Wow

Back from hiatus! This is a long “catch up” edition, with stale posts omitted.

One thing everyone should know

• Browser use is very good now ⭐

Team adoption

• To raise the floor, push 1-2 key messages per month
• Electricity brought only modest gains for many incumbents
• The 5/2 Cadence: 5 weeks building, 2 weeks investing in AI uplift ⭐
• “Use of AI” should be on weekly 1-1 agendas and performance reviews

Ambitious delegation

• Flight search with Claude Code really works now
• Claude Code does my bookkeeping
• Onboarding a new client for TYPE III AUDIO

Skills

• Skills library for a research team ⭐
• My call summarization prompts
• Turn a messy repo into clean commits ⭐
• Make image
• Make spaced repetition cards (and do chat review)
• Digest of LessWrong comments by Daniel Kokotajlo

Security

• It is totally fine to connect Google Workspace to Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini (and to enable browser use)

General advice

• Karpathy: remove yourself as the bottleneck
• It is often worth asking: is there a faster approach?
• While you wait, think for yourself
• Tell your AI to flag ambiguous data, not silently guess what it means

Personal apps

• The podcatcher app I’ve always wanted
• Keyboard shortcut to summarise blog posts, PDFs, YouTube videos and Google Docs ⭐
• My break reminder app

Terminal workflow

• CLI utility to prompt both Claude Code and Codex ⭐
• Project switcher for Claude Code & Codex ⭐
• Question mode (answer, but don’t do anything!) ⭐
• Remove unwanted new lines when copy-pasting from a narrow Terminal pane
• How to share skills between Claude Code, Codex and Gemini
• Use “Try” for quick experiments
• Screen blackout shortcuts to support focus
• How to edit pasted text blocks in Claude Code and Codex

Claude Code & Codex

• How to write Figma-style comments on HTML mockups
• How to write Google Docs-style comments on agent plans
• Enable Claude to test its work in Chrome ⭐
• Codex with GPT-5.5 is still better than Claude Code with Opus 4.8, especially at the planning stage
• Does your skill call a bunch of scripts? Consider writing a CLI.
• How to plan agent coding projects
• Keep your Claude Code conversation history
• Hermes is a big upgrade on OpenClaw
• How to read markdown files on your phone
• Use gdoc to edit Google Docs

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Model updates

1. Opus 4.5 & Gemini 3 Pro: Claude and Gemini are now better than ChatGPT for most tasks. Opus 4.5 is the best default model.

2. Coding: this month, it’s Claude Code for everything. Opus 4.5 is a big step up.

How to pull data into the Claude web app

3. Notion: Claude can search, create, and edit. Install the connector and configure your system prompt to make it faster. ⭐

4. Call transcripts: Claude can read transcripts directly from Granola, Fireflies and Google Meet. ⭐

5. Read any URL: Claude’s security sandbox limits web access. Use Zapier to work around this, if you understand the risks.

Good to know

6. Google Docs: The sidebar assistant is now powered by Gemini 3 Pro. It is finally not useless.

7. Research: Dwarkesh likes the Google Scholar PDF Reader. Andy Masley thinks that Google Scholar Labs may be a “game changer”.

8. Calendar events: Gemini can create Google Calendar events, and so can Claude Code. ChatGPT and Claude can only read them.

9. Gemini memory: Gemini doesn’t have memory. To get better responses, add “who am I” context to saved info. ⭐

10. Airtable field agents: Send bulk prompts to LLMs and get results in a spreadsheet. Good for bulk classification, extraction, and data enrichment.

11. Evaluation: How to systematically improve your prompts.

12. AI Twitter roundup: If you feel like some wow-scrolling, see this roundup. If you want just one thing, make it Gavin Leech’s review of 2025. ⭐

Coding

13. Notifications: Get notified when Claude Code or Codex finish work. ⭐⭐

14. Front-end design: Claude’s new design skill can one-shot excellent, characterful web design. ⭐

Support AI adoption on your team

15. Playbook: I’ve updated my notes on how to support AI adoption.

16. Internal guidelines: Coefficient Giving shared their internal guidelines on using AI.

17. Robust automations: How to make Zaps that don’t break.

Try this

18. Claude Skills: As above...

19. Reduce friction: Make a browser extension to add keyboard shortcuts to a web app.

20. Fun: Vibe code the Spotify homepage you actually want.

Tell your friends

Please tell your friends about this newsletter. You can tweet this, if you like.

Closing vibe

Gemini 3 Pro is step up for hard questions. But Opus 4.5 is the bigger story for this newsletter: it’s a breakthrough for daily tasks, and for coding.

The “wow” has been strong for me, these past days.

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Please email me! Show me something cool. Ask for advice. Stop me being wrong on the internet.

Claude updates

1. Skills: “Skills” are better than Projects for teaching Claude to do things. ⭐

2. Memory: Claude now gets to know you, much like ChatGPT does. You can review and correct Claude’s memories. And you might want to have ChatGPT tell Claude who you are, or vice versa.

3. Keep using Opus: Opus 4.1 (extended thinking) is sometimes more insightful than Sonnet 4.5. For non-trivial tasks, ask both models.

Good to know

4. Google Docs: How to get Google Doc comments into your LLMs.

5. Transcription: MacWhisper is the best way to transcribe audio and video files. It takes less than 10 seconds for 30 minutes of audio.

6. Wispr Flow: It’s still the best dictation app for most people. But you should enable “Privacy mode” in the settings. Without that, they may use your “anonymised” data “for any business purpose”.

Help your team make better use of AI

7. Guide: It’s time to take AI adoption about as seriously as hiring. I’m drafting a playbook. ⭐

8. Workshops: Run weekly LLM sessions using this workshop template.

9. For beginners: 30 days of ChatGPT.

10. Automation: Try the 5x rule—if you do something five times a month, consider automating it.

Coding

11. Coding agents: In October, it was Claude Code for frontend, Codex for everything else.

12. November outlook: Droid CLI, which uses Codex and Claude models, is getting strong reviews. Cursor just shipped a major redesign, and can now test its own work using a web browser.

13. Web apps: Start with the Vercel Supabase Starter for authentication, database, and UI. Pair with AI SDK.

Try this

14. Lapel microphone: Lapel mics let you dictate quietly in a shared office or café. They may improve your posture in a private office, and audio quality on your calls. ⭐

15. Context: Grant access to your calendar, email and to-do lists to get help with daily plans. Ask: “What’s new in my email? What must I do today? What’s most important this week?” ⭐

16. Make graphs: Take a screenshot, get a graph. They’re really nice. ⭐

17. Build: Got a few minutes? Ask Claude to make a simple software tool or prototype a web app. No coding required.

18. Multi-agent workflows: OpenAI Agent Builder now competes with Lindy, Make and Zapier. It has a much smaller feature set, but it’s easier to play with.

19. ChatGPT: make a FigJam flowchart to design a system, or make a tricky decision.

A very good frame...

20. Azeem Azhar: Use LLMs to define tasks, not just do them.

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Good to know

1. Claude: If you’re chatting with Opus, you should usually enable extended thinking. Many people haven’t noticed this option, which warrants a 🤦 emoji.

2. Claude privacy: For personal accounts, “train on my data” is default on when you accept their new terms & conditions. Turn it off in Settings > Privacy.

3. Google Docs: You can now listen to Google Docs.

How memory works

4. ChatGPT: ChatGPT gets to know you, a bit like a human would. My note explains how it works, and how to control it.

5. Claude: Claude does not have memory, but it can reference past chats. You’ll always see when it does this, and normally you must explicitly request it.

Apps I like

6. Claude Code: It has improved a lot since May. Here are some impressive examples.

7. Codex CLI: With the release of GPT-5, some Twitter vibes suggest that it’s a better coding agent than Claude Code. My early impressions are consistent with this—faster, smarter, cheaper. For now, the Claude Code UI remains better, and that matters.

Apps I still like

Mentioned before, but worth highlighting again, now that I’ve learnt more.

8. Airtable: Got a list of names and email addresses? Airtable AI fields can get job titles and LinkedIn URLs from the web. Their sidebar assistant is good, especially if you’re new to Airtable.

9. Granola: I’ve written a detailed review of Granola for call transcription.

Inspiration

10. Good framing: “AI is great when I’m a noob, but not when I’m a world expert”.

11. Roundup: Collection of “How I use AI” posts and podcasts.

Try this

12. Shortcuts: Make keyboard shortcuts for common prompts. ⭐

13. Prompting: Ask your LLM to help you write prompts. ⭐

14. Computer use: ChatGPT Agent can book you a hotel, find the best flights and record invoice payments in Xero. I will actually use this, which feels like a milestone.

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Apps I like

1. Terminal: Warp is a terminal you can talk to. Developers should try it.

2. Narration: ElevenReader may be the least bad way to listen to articles and Google Docs. Here’s a quick way to make complex texts more listenable.

3. Shortcuts: BetterChat now works with Claude.

Want me to find you the best app for X? Know something I might like? Email me.

Good to know

4. Airtable: “field agents” can analyse documents and get information from the web. So if you have a spreadsheet of CVs or website URLs, you can use LLMs to assess them right within the sheet.

5. Claude & Asana: You can create Asana tasks from text or screenshots. With a bit of config, this works well on desktop and mobile.

6. Todoist: The desktop app can create tasks with voice.

7. Raycast: Raycast AI enables fast text manipulation, which is great for proofreading.

Try this

8. Planning: Plan your week with Claude. ⭐

9. Workflow: Collect context in Google Docs. ⭐

10. Google Docs: Enable markdown to preserve links and formatting when copy-pasting into LLMs.

Get a free AI uplift consultation

For the next two weeks, I’m offering free AI uplift consultations.

I’ll ask you about your role, and your current use of LLMs and other AI tools. Then, I’ll offer pointers and suggestions to help you get more useful work out of AI.

Book a slot here.

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Apps I like

1. Voice input: Wispr Flow. I use voice input dozens of times per day. To see how, watch this two-minute screencast.

2. Shortcuts: I’ve released BetterChat, which adds keyboard shortcuts to ChatGPT.

3. Call transcription: Granola for video calls, and the Google Pixel ”Recorder″ app for in-person meetings. Granola summaries are fine, but o3 does it better, so I often copy-paste.

4. ChatGPT o3: Currently the best model for most of my purposes. I routinely send identical prompts to o3, Claude 4 Opus, Gemini 2.5 Pro and Grok 4 Heavy. At least two-thirds of the time, o3 wins. But it’s still worth sending important stuff to several models.

Good to know

5. Web search: ChatGPT o3 has much better web search than Claude 4 Opus and Gemini 2.5 Pro.

6. Google Sheets: There’s an =AI() function. E.g. =AI("categorise sentiment as positive or negative", A2). Docs here.

7. Data analysis: clean CSVs first and use o3 or Gemini. Do not use Claude.

Try this

8. Context: Make an “about me” doc, to tell the AI who you are. This enables much better chats about planning, personal challenges, life dreams, and much else. ⭐

9. Nutrition: Low-effort diet tracking: take a photo, get the numbers (and some great advice).

10. Vibe-coding: Make websites better with a personal browser extension.

11. Voice input: Mentioned above. But seriously: if you haven’t tried it recently, do it now. ⭐

Fun

12. Suno AI: Glue yourself to the Autobahn.

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