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Hey, before we dive in on today's podcast episode, I just want to share with you that AI business world just wrapped up and the results are in. And marketers walked away with lots of AI strategies they're already implementing. But here's what you need to know right now. You can still get access to everything with a virtual ticket. You get recordings to every AI Business World session, plus all the content from Social media Marketing world. We're talking dozens of sessions covering AI workflows, content strategy, Instagram, Facebook ads, and a whole lot more, all from the world's top experts. And what's really cool is you can take your time watching it. You have 18 months to watch it, replay it, and implement it at your own pace. Right now, these Virtual tickets are $200 off, but only until May 15th. Head to a businessworld.live to grab yours before the savings disappear.
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Welcome to the Air Explored podcast, helping you put a to work. And now here's your host, Michael Stelzner.
A
Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the AI Explored podcast brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner. This is the podcast for marketers, creators and business owners who want to know how to put AI to work. You don't need to be a coder to benefit from technical sounding tools like Claude code. You just need to know how to use these tools. My special guest is an AI educator who helps marketers, creators and entrepreneurs simplify their lives with AI agents. His community is called the AI Agent. He's also an AI consultant. Tyler Reid, welcome to the show. How you doing today?
B
Good, how are you doing? Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
A
It's super awesome to have you here. I'd love to hear before we get into Claude code, I would love to hear a little bit of your journey. How in the world did you get into AI?
B
Yeah, yeah. So about in 2020, you know, whenever Covid happened, I need something to do. So I decided let's start a YouTube CH channel and have a CS Computer Science degree. So I decided let me just teach a bunch of topics about computer science to help others that are learning right now or trying to get an engineering job. So I got into that, did that for about a couple years and took about a year break after that. And when I came back, I late 2023, I saw a video from another YouTuber that was doing something about AI and it was using something called Chat dev, which is kind of like a 2D world with all these characters and you Kind of talk with them and they would respond and AI would respond with a. With an answer. And so from that I kind of got hooked. I wanted to learn. So I learned that as much as I could within a week and started making everything that I kind of had pitfalls with trying to learn that I decided, let me go back to YouTube, make a video about how people can use this and how great and amazing this is. And so basically from that one video you. That I had watched from another YouTuber that just kind of. I switched everything and kind of went all in on AI and realized that this is definitely going to be part of the future. And it has been. So it kind of, that's kind of where everything started.
A
Love it. So take us up to kind of today, like, where are you at now with everything?
B
Yeah, yeah. So the progression was kind of in 20. You know, whenever I got into it, people got into it earlier than that. But when I got into it, it was really like coding and developing with frameworks. So you kind of had to have some knowledge about developing and then coding these AI agents. But then you got to get into the no code platforms where you had like these drag and drop, like Nadan make and Zapier. You know, these are very popular for automations and then also using AI agents. And then now, today, for some time now, I have been using Claude code, which use something called a terminal, but they also. Claude has an app that you can use and generally that is my main source of creating and automating everything.
A
So you have a background. I don't know, I would say as a developer or a software engineer or something along those lines. Right. And along the way you decided to start to create YouTube videos on how to use other tools. And it took off and then you started creating even more videos. Specifically, is it for the developer community or who are you making most of these. These videos for?
B
Yeah, so when I got, when I got into, in 2023, I said I was kind of learning. I was still as a developer, like you kind of had some knowledge of coding. It was a little bit hard if you didn't have much to kind of get into that. But now the models have gotten much, much better. And so now you don't need to know how to code, you don't need a CS degree, you just kind of really need to have a desire to get into it. And it's amazing what you can do and you don't need to have the background that I have to get into it. Which is what I think is why AI is so amazing today.
A
Love it. Well, let me ask you this. You obviously make lots of videos about AI coding and you probably hear from lots of people, including friends and people that you meet at events and such. What are some of the biggest kind of misconceptions people have when it comes to AI coding?
B
Yeah, well, now you don't need to actually know how to code anymore. When it comes to AI coding, you don't need to have any background. I mean, there are some big YouTubers that have never coded before and they're teaching how to develop using AI automations, using these tools that create the code for you. And now people are making applications through like Bolt lovable, don't know how to code, but just using natural language, just speaking into existence, sort of what you want and kind of iterating through that. You can create these applications now and you don't necessarily have to look at a single line of code to do that, which is great.
A
So the big misconception is that you have to be a coder to use AI coding tools. That is not true. Is that correct?
B
That is not true. No, no, no. You do not need that anymore.
A
What about the fact that it's difficult, like most people think coding is difficult? Does AI coding, is it easy or
B
is it hard using AI to develop for you if you have a background in developing? I feel like it's a little bit more difficult because you look at it from a different point of view whenever it is creating code that you're asking it to. Whereas if you're not a developer and you just kind of go through the process of having it create something for you, like I said, just using natural language, talking with the models, then I feel like you don't necessarily get stuck on things that you have maybe have ran into before as an engineer or somebody has worked with these applications, just had let it build, just let it go. So yeah, the biggest misconception is that you don't need to know how to code. And they're so good at doing it for you now.
A
Love it. Okay, so we're here to talk about Claude code and I'd love for you to tell everybody kind of what is the benefit of using a tool like cloud code? Said another way, if people pay attention to what we're going to be talking about today, what is the upside or advantages they will achieve if they were to utilize a tool like cloud code?
B
Yeah. So I think in my opinion the biggest thing is you can go from idea to even a prototype pretty quickly, depending on what your Idea is you can have cloud code build that for you and have a running prototype that you can physically see and test and test out in no time at all.
A
So like, just for those of us that aren't developers, like give us some context of what is it, what would it have taken before and what does it take now just to help people understand kind of the big advantage here.
B
Yeah. So without AI models, I mean you would have to have coding knowledge and you had to some developing experience and this would mean going through documentation, doing some research, testing things out little by little and eventually, you know, in a much take more time, depending what it was. But even something simple can still, would still take some time. And you would need maybe some popular websites back in the day, like Stack Overflow to help you figure out what the problems are with your code. But now with the, with the tools that we have available, such as Claude Code does all the research, it has knowledge, general knowledge already and it can do some research if it needs to and create that for you in no time, in like a fraction of the time that it would have taken before.
A
So give me an example, like maybe something you've created that just so hope people can understand like how long it took you and how long it would have taken you without the tool. Just so people can really wrap their head around something like this.
B
Uh, yeah, yeah. So for instance, I have a thumbnail creator that can take images from other niches in the YouTube community. It can make videos. I've done well, I can take that thumbnail, can take a snapshot of it. And before I would have had to look at documentation, use some other libraries. If you don't know what that means, that's fine. It's just I would have had to really understand what I could have done with that. It would taken more knowledge. Whereas now the AI models, especially the visual models, can take a look at that, understand it and recreate something else. And now there are these, you know, there's these other companies that I use, one called Kai AI Kie AI and I basically have cloud code, understand what needs to connect to that, it connects to it, I give it a thumbnail and it can use some of the better Google models now to create a version of that for that I want. So if I wanted to create this whole process of understanding these thumbnails, doing research on them, and then have it produce a different1 with AI, it can do all of that for me very well and much, much faster than I would have been able to before.
A
So we're talking about like hours versus days or what are we talking about as far as a time comparison?
B
It could have taken hours and hours, like tens of hours. Yes. Whereas now I ask it to connect to that. It understands the API, the code that is needed to connect. And then it takes minutes now. I mean, it took me minutes to create this.
A
Interesting. I love this. So I really want to unlock what you've done here because I feel like this is really important. So what I'm hearing you say is utilizing Claude code you created, for lack of better words, a custom application just for you. It sounds like that will go out on the web, do some research, or you give it a screenshot and it will connect in with another tool, KIE AI and that other tool will do the work and then send it back and it's all done effectively kind of on the fly. Is that what I'm hearing you say?
B
Yeah, yeah, basically that's, that's, that's, that's pretty much it. Yeah. It's the only thing you maybe had to do is like know that the tool exists. That's not the only way. There are other ways that you can do this also. But that's just the way that I choose and I, that I like. But yeah, even if we took a simpler example, let's say I wanted to connect to my Google Calendar or my Gmail. Well, before you have to look at the API documentation that Google has to get your credentials, you have to have these keys, these secret keys and all that. And then you have to look at the documentation, how to connect, get your previous emails and all that. Right. That would take a little bit of time. I mean, this is a simpler example. So maybe it wouldn't take too much time, but it would definitely take some time to take care of all of that. But now with AI, you can just do a simple connection and like an OAuth sign in through cloud code or some other. Even with N8N. Right. No code automation, you can just connect, takes a minute and then it'll take care of all that for you to retrieve emails, send emails, draft emails. I mean, it's just so much simpler nowadays.
A
I want to ask some clarifying questions because we have had a number of people on the show to talk about N8N automation, to talk about zapier and make and all these kind of middle tools, for lack of better words. Does Claude code actually sit in between those tools? Does it replace those tools? Just help me understand kind of what its role is.
B
Yeah, so that's a good question because you Guys, questions like this. And the thing that we have to remember is these are all tools, right? Just with like any tool, some can make your life easier, while you can use other tools, many tools to do the same thing. Some will be easier to make that happen than like for instance, if you're trying to, you have a nail and you want to hammer it in. Well, I just said it. You would typically just use a hammer. Of course there's other tools you could use to bash the nail in, but the hammer would be specifically designed for that. Whereas if you are just doing an automation, and especially if you don't know how to develop, which is perfectly fine, you don't need to. You can have N8N just drag and drop the nodes that you need to maybe read emails, you can filter them out and then based on those, you can send notifications to Slack. You can even send yourself an email summarizing the last bit of emails that you got from the previous day. That would be a very simple use case that I would use that for. But you also can do with Claude code, right? You can connect to your Gmail with Claude code, connect to your calendar, you know, any of those, any applications you can connect to and do as well. So it just kind of depends on what you're doing, what you like. And these are all just tools to use.
A
Got it. So so far everything we've talked about is using Claude code as a kind of middleman, for lack of better words, between other applications. Right. And in the case of Kai and in the case of N8N automation, it is, you know, like N8N is typically, you know, my understanding of it at least is you've got all these other systems that you're tapping into it, right? Like you got your Gmail or whatever like you talked about and it kind of is the plumbing, but it sounds like Claude code could also do that. Is that what I'm hearing you say? Or is Claude code kind of able to do even more sophisticated things?
B
Okay, so it's a two parter question. So to answer the first question, it can do that. Yes. It can also do many more sophisticated things. So N8N is used for automation and you can also have agent AI agents in there. But I wouldn't necessarily use N8N to develop an application for me. Right. That's not necessarily the tool that's used for as Claude code is very suited for creating really anything you want. And even now there was a update not long ago where you can create the full any, you can connect your, anydent instance to Claude code using natural language, your voice talk to cloud code, and it will actually create and upload the full workflow into your N8 instance for you. So you don't even have to do the drag and drop anymore. It can develop that and put it up there for you, make it even easier.
A
What are some of the more sophisticated things you could do with cloud code? Just so people understand it, it could do almost anything, it sounds like. But what's some of the stuff you've seen or you've seen other people do are legitimately people developing applications for sale using like something like cloud code?
B
Yeah, I mean, I would say maybe the biggest thing that people have seen so far is Open Claw was developed using cloud code.
A
Ah, okay, there you go.
B
So that's like, that's a huge thing.
A
Yeah.
B
Not taking. Not going to talk about OpenCloud much more. But it was developed so that's like, you know, you can develop anything you want with it. And then once you have, even if you have like your own website, you develop your own consulting website, once it's done that, then you just need to have it hosted somewhere and you're basically good to go. So Claude has, basically can do all of that for you. Claude can do more. That has something like called skills. So it's something that, like these reusable components.
A
That's cool.
B
You know, it's kind of really up to you what you want to, what you need. Right. And what makes sense for what you would like to build.
A
For those that have been listening to the podcast for a little while, we did have someone on to talk about Claude Cowork. We also had someone on to talk about OpenClaw. So if they've been listening, are familiar with these tools and maybe you could just distinguish a little bit before we get into how to do this, the difference between cowork and code, what's the big difference?
B
Yeah, so cloud code does make. It makes it very easy to connect to anything you have locally on your machine. So you open up cloud code on your machine and it can have access to the files that you have. Right. It makes it very. It makes it pretty easy to do that. You just basically give permissions, make sure it's doing what it needs to, and not do anything extra. I would say the thing about Claude code is you do use it with terminal.
A
Yeah. Explain what that is. For people that don't know what that is.
B
So you might hear or see the acronym cli, which just stands for Command line interface. If you don't Know what it is, doesn't matter. It's basically just a screen that'll pop up on if you open up. What's called the application is called Terminal on the Mac. So if you open that up, it's basically just extra screen or you can just text. You can just type text on it, right? But you can type a lot of commands. So you would type Claude. It would open up once you had installed, right. The separate process to install it. But once you had installed you would type Claude and basically just using natural language, you would has voice mode. So you can either talk to it with your voice, which is much quicker than typing, just have these conversations with it to do whatever it is that you're trying to do.
A
And Claude Cowork, I think is more of a agentic tool that kind of takes over. But it sounds like from. I don't know if you mess with Cowork at all, but the person I interviewed on the show said it's kind of like a light version of cloud code. It's more designed to work with the existing applications and browser on your computer where cloud code is more working kind of behind the scenes via the API. Would that be a fair assessment?
B
Yeah, and I would say Cowork, you know, it makes it, it can make it very easy to connect to outside things. So for instance, you want to connect to any of your Google like Gmail Calendar if you wanted to connect to. I don't know if it has it, but let's say for instance has like some like type form where people fill out a form or. Or Google forms. They fill out a form. Well, I get connected that then you can do something with it after that form has been filled out, right. Then you can kind of set up these processes and you can talk to that data. So if you talk to Gmail, say hey, give me the last X number of emails. Okay, summarize this for me. You know, things like that. It does make it very user friendly. Cowork is much more user friendly as well than I would say to Claude code.
A
Okay, so so far here's what we know. Cloud code uses the terminal, which I would imagine there's a terminal on Windows and a terminal on Mac. I would imagine it's not just a Mac thing. Right. Even though we're both on Macs, they also have an application called Claude which has has this built into it. Have you messed around with the Mac app or are you mostly just using Terminal?
B
So for me as an engineer and developer, I essentially I really just go through the Terminal Myself, but I have used the. I use Claude on the web. I use Claude, I download the app, the app for my Mac and use that there as well. A lot of it is preference. I will say that I've tried to use Cowork to have it do things like work with local files on my computer. And it's much easier to do that with Claude code than it is with Cowork.
A
Got it. Okay, what about the paid. How much does it cost to use cloud code and talk about that a little bit?
B
Yeah. So I guess before you really can use this, they do have a free tier that is not very generous. You can use it up in minutes before you have to wait some number of hours, or maybe it's the next day on the free tier. But they have a $20 paid version, which is the Pro subscription. And if you were just getting started, that's what I would recommend, just to kind of familiar, familiarize yourself with it. And then they do have the next tier up, which goes up to $100. So it's a little bit of a price increase from 20 to 100, but then they have another one after that at 200. But I really would only recommend that if you're like user of that daily for hours, you know, then singularly to actually get your money worth.
A
Well, and for people that have Claude already a regular cloud account, it's the same exact account. Right. So if you already have a Claude paid account, like Pro account or whatever they call it, for 20 bucks a month, you could start using Claude code and it's going to use the same account. Is that correct?
B
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's. You would use it on your subscription? Yes. If your subscription is $20, you would just, once you load up Claude for the first time cloud code for the first time, you would just kind of use a login command and then it would direct you to the browser to log in with your subscription account, whatever email account that is tied to the subscription.
A
I talked to a lot of people on the ground at AI Business World last month and what I heard over and over again is people are having a hard time keeping up with the change and figuring out exactly where they should focus. And it's true that that is hard to keep up with, but my keynote, I think could help. It was called the Future of Marketing. How to Thrive when AI Changes Everything. And in it I share research, real AI applications, and a clear framework for yielding AI as your most powerful ally, making you irreplaceable. And here's the thing. You can still watch it. And not just that keynote, but every keynote and session and workshop from both AI Business World and Social Media Marketing World is available to you right now. With your virtual ticket. We're talking dozens of quality sessions focusing on AI workflows, content, Instagram, Facebook ads, and a whole lot more. And you have 18 months to consume it all. Right now, tickets are on sale for $200 off, but only until May 15th. Head over to AI BusinessWorld Live, that's AI BusinessWorld Live. To get your tickets today, let's talk about kind of the basic beginnings of utilizing Claude code. So so far we know that we have a paid account with Claude, and we know that we want to use the terminal. And there's an app called Terminal. At least on a Mac there is. And you just see a flashing cursor, which kind of harkens back to the old days of computers. How do we actually install this darn thing and get it up and running? Like, what are some of the things we need to be kind of just aware of?
B
Yeah, so they have, I will say they have pretty good documentation. If you were to type, like cloud code installation on Google Search, you know, the AI would probably give you the commands, but they, I would imagine one of the first links on the search would be to their, their website. They're one of the documentation websites. And you just kind of copy paste the commands that they give you depending on the machine you have. So if you're on Windows or if you're on Mac or Linux, they would tell you what to copy and paste. And then once you kind of have done that, then it would tell you, show you how to. You just type in Claude, it'll start running, and then for the first time, you'll log in, which it would also tell you. And you just kind of go from there. And then once you log in, you have access to CLAUDE code and start asking away whatever it is that you want to talk about.
A
Okay, so this terminal, I'm going to kind of describe it to people that haven't seen it. You're kind of in a little window, almost like you're logging into another computer. Right. So you put in the special code and everything is text. You know, you don't use your mouse or anything. Like it's just text. And once you've logged in and successfully set it up, talk to me about things like, you know, permissions and models and web search and all that kind of stuff. Like, because there's stuff we have to enable to make it all work.
B
Yes, so, okay, that's a fair point to talk about. When you do it for the first time, you do have to enable web search. So there would be a command that we want to search for to enable web search. And then I think after we enable web search, I think we are pretty good at that because you'll be using that a lot. It will also ask you for permission for anything that you do for web searching or if it's going to manipulate anything on your computer. What's going to, you know, you want to write files, you want to create documents, PDFs, anything like that, it will ask you permission. So that's by default, although you can have it skip that. I wouldn't recommend doing that unless you kind of know more what you're doing and more comfortable with it. But yes, so there are permissions, there's a command to edit that, but I wouldn't worry about that. But generally just going to ask you, before it does anything, it will say, hey, do you want to allow this? And you either allow it or deny it, or you can say, no, do something else.
A
Do you have to give it access to a certain folder or something like that on your computer? Or how does that work?
B
Doesn't necessarily matter where you load up Claude code. Like, if you are more familiar with it and you have a project that you're working on, right. And you're inside of that folder before it really does. Like I said before, it does a lot of things with it. Adding, removing, editing files within, somewhere on your computer within some other folder location. It will generally ask you to make sure that that's what you want to do first. It will never really do anything that could potentially hurt your computer from its point of view without you allowing it to do that.
A
Okay, so for Claude users like you and me, there's lots of different versions of Claude. You got Opus, you got Haiku, you got Sonnet. Does it just default to the most expensive model? Like, talk to me a little bit about models and tokens and stuff like that, because I'd imagine if you're not aware of what you're doing, you're going to blow through your account limits pretty quickly, right?
B
Yeah. Okay. So, yes. So Claude Anthropic. Anthropic is the company that owns the Claude family of models. There are generally 3.3models. It goes Opus, Sonnet and Haiku. Opus kind of being the best one as far as, like thinking and planning things out. Sonnet being kind of the best, like the middle, like the best of both worlds. And then Haiku being the fastest, but. But necessarily maybe not the best for planning or thinking. Planning or thinking something that you would like to really have done. So if you really want to come up with a plan of an app that you want to make or, you know, come up with some document that you're trying to plan out, Haiku can do it fast, but it may not come up with the results that you would like. So generally. So we'll get to tokens here in a second. Yeah. So generally, Sonnet is a general use, one that you can use all the time and it won't consume all the tokens that you have. Okay. So segueing into tokens, there's something called a context window with the, with the subscription that you have, let's say you have the 20 paid version. You basically every. You have weekly, I believe it's weekly now, and every five hours you have so many that you can use. And if you use like Haiku, like let's say if we rank them by the usage, so it'd be opus used the most, then Sonnet, then Haiku used the least, then you can use Haiku, you can do more with it. Right? Because you could use it more often because it would consume less or use less tokens, but also wouldn't give you the best results, depending on what you're doing. Right. If you're just summarizing something for code,
A
for coding, does it really matter? I mean, like, it sounds like coding isn't really that complicated because it's kind of a. No. I mean, maybe it is. I don't know. Do you really. What do you normally recommend and how do you even choose between the models when you're in the terminal?
B
Yeah. So there is a. So something that you have to get familiar with is they're called slash commands. Okay. So if you have never used that before, basically, if you type on the keyboard where Jen thinks were the same key, where the question mark is, there's a slash there, you would type that and then you can have a list of commands. One of them you would type model and you can switch your model that you want to use. Generally, I believe for new users this could be different. Now they're constantly updating Claude code, but I believe it uses Sonnet. It wouldn't give you the best one to use by default, but you can switch it there if you would like. But as far as the coding goes, one thing that I would like to do, one thing I like to do is when I want to plan out what I'm doing, I Use opus. So I would switch the Opus model because it has the biggest context window. And by the way, reference context window just means that it has so much it can store in memory based off the conversation you're having with it before it could forget. And what it does now is it summarize, if you reach that point to where it's like, okay, we've talked about so much, I cannot remember any. Anything else, then it'll summarize what it's done before is. It'll summarize what you've already talked about so that you would then have room to talk more.
A
Yeah, and this is important because for active users of Claude like me, at a certain point I run out of kind of like context window and I have to start a new thread, you know, is how I do it when I'm using regular CLAUDE and it's in a project. So it kind of has this overall memory for the project, you know, and every new thread it can reference the old threads and stuff. Is. Do you need to do that when it comes to coding too, or is that not necessarily how it works?
B
Yes. So whenever I come to coding, I would use OPUS to kind of plan out what you're trying to build, and then I would switch to Sonnet to do the actual coding. Of course you're going to get preferences from everybody kind of has. Everybody has differing opinions about this, but in my opinion, just my personal opinion, and what I've used, Sonnet has been the best. Now, when I say this, there's also versions of these models, so you can see Sonnet 4.5. 4.6. There's older versions like 4.1, for these as well. You can generally just use the latest versions, like higher numbered versions of these models, and you'll be okay. But generally for coding, anything, just use Sonnet, the latest Sonnet model.
A
Yeah, the question was specifically on the context window, if you're developing something and you hit like the. The limit of your context window or, you know, I don't know. I mean, like, I know it compresses it in regular cloud, maybe it does it in cloud code too. But I would imagine at a certain point, like in Claude, if you ever hit the limit, you just open up a new thread inside of a project. But I don't even think there are projects inside of cloud code, but maybe there is. Are there projects inside of cloud code?
B
If you were to create a project using CLAUDE code, and let's say you reach this, you're in the middle of developing your app and you, all of A sudden you reach this. It says at the bottom right, it'll give you a percentage until you've reached this context window we're talking about. So say you have like 5% usage left. Well, now what you can do is you can have it compact your conversation so it kind of stores a memory, a summary of everything we talked about so far, and then you can continue within the same context to keep coding. Or if you want to get a little bit more advanced, you could actually spawn different sessions. So you can open up more than one terminal, you can have more than one agent that has their own context that is developing either simultaneously or together in some way. Your application.
A
Oh, that's really important. So let me ask this.
B
Yes.
A
Let's say you started a. I'm just going to call it a conversation. I don't know what else to call it in the development world or a thread. And you're working on this over a matter of weeks. Can you give it a name and save it so you can come back to it, or do you just have to keep that window open at all times? Like, how does that work exactly?
B
Yeah, so there's a. I don't say basic, but something that you should know. When you're developing with or using cloud code, especially if you're developing an app or you're developing anything, you can create something called a CLAUDE markdown file. So this is a claude md that's just the extension. Like it's basically a text file. Just imagine you're just creating a text file and what you can do with it is you can ask it to create this and there's a command called/ init if you're in that folder. But anyways, it will. It can give a brief summary of what you're working on and then it'll reference that. My computer completely shut down. Next day I come back, I want to work on the same thing. It can look at that to have a reference.
A
Is that like a skill or is that more like a project? I'm just curious, like using the cloud vernacular.
B
So it's more like project based. So you can have multiple. So depending if you have different projects you're working on, I'd recommend creating a cloud markdown file for each project so that whenever you're kind of going through them. And I think actually what you said brings up another point is you. When you are working with cloud code and you have, they. They call it a session. So you have a terminal open, you're working on something. Just work on that thing with cloud Code. If you want to work on a different project, open up another terminal as a different session to work on that project. I would not recommend working on multiple projects within the same session.
A
That's kind of like the equivalent of a thread inside of regular. Any kind of AI model. Right? It's kind of like that.
B
Kind of, yeah.
A
And if you tell it to create a markdown file out of it, presumably you can name it and save it on your computer and then reference it in the future. Is that kind of what we're talking about here?
B
Yeah, that's correct, yes. So it'll always have some reference point to understand what this thing you're working on is.
A
All right, I love it. This has been really helpful and I know I've been asking a lot of pointed questions, but I'm sure they're the kind of questions everybody wants to know.
B
Yeah, no, I love it.
A
Anything else we need to understand before we get into an example? Because you and I talked about an example that we were going to share about connecting Telegram and your Google Calendar together, but is there any other kind of fundamentals we need to understand? Like, do we need to talk about skills at all before we get into that, or do you want to just go right to the example?
B
Maybe just a quick review. So, as you understand the cloud code is in a terminal and you open up a session with it, when you start creating something, you are slowly filling up, or maybe quickly filling up a context window. This context window is the amount that it can store in memory and understand the conversation. Once it reaches the. That capacity of what it can understand, it'll compact it so you can continue. Or you. And I would recommend, like I said, creating that cloud markdown file. So it kind of always has some frame of reference of what you're working on for that specific project. So with that, I think that skills coming in is a little bit more advanced. I don't say more advanced topic because I think I use them every day. I literally use them every day, especially if I'm doing YouTube research. But skills are basically, you can you still tell Claude like I told Claude, hey, I want to. I want to research what other channels are doing their top videos, what they've done the last two weeks. I want to know what descriptions are. I want to grab their. The MP4 of their file, then maybe transcribe that later to see this, to analyze the structure of their video to see why it did so well. So I talked to Claude, said, hey, I want to research YouTube skill. I want to research YouTube competitors. See why they're doing so well, so that we can maybe replicate that and be part of what I'm doing. So what I did is when this process, it created something for me. It created what's called, I just asked it create this skill. It created what's called a skill, which is essentially just a. Another text file that you can reference for later, and it becomes a slash command. So I have one called/YouTube research. When I create the skill, that's what it named it. So when I open up Claude code, I, in any point in time I can say I type slash YouTube research, and then I can do like somebody in the AI field.
A
Yeah.
B
Research their last two weeks of videos and it'll go out and do that for me.
A
So this is a creative question. You can do everything you just said inside of the cloud proper. Is there any reason why you couldn't use regular Claude and then have it create the skill and then move it into code just because it might be a more easy interface? Because Claude CLAUDE itself can do everything you talked about as far as doing the research, it might not be able to do everything, but would it make sense to potentially create some of these skills inside the cloud interface and then move them over to code, or do you generally not advise that? Because I know I have skills. I, I have skills inside of my regular cloud that I've created, you know what I mean? And I think.
B
Gotcha.
A
They're probably the same kind of thing. It's a markdown file, you know what I mean?
B
You can. Yes, Mark, that's kind of like basic skills. Yeah, Basic structure of a skill is just a markdown file or text file essentially for people. But if you want to do some things that are more advanced, like the thumbnail creator skill that I use for whenever I'm doing my videos or social media, it does need to create code. And you need to store keys right there. You need to store some secret, you know, secret keys or something like that to connect the outside world. So if I want to connect to what I mentioned, Kai AI, which has all of the image models there, I have a key that has to give it access to. And so I store that on my computer, locally on my computer. And in my, my opinion, it's easier to do that whenever using cloud code, although you can do many things with code. So I don't want to say it's not possible. Yeah, well.
A
And if you're doing very basic things, you could start with Claude code. If you're already using Claude, if you're already using it and then you could bring it over probably into code and you could make it more advanced, I would imagine. Right, if you wanted to.
B
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
A
So let's talk about this cool example that I already alluded to. A little bit of something maybe everyone could use, which is this Google Calendar Telegram thing. Kind of talk about the use case a little bit and explain like explain what it does and then we'll talk about how to do it.
B
Yeah. So I think that a use case for many people, especially if you have a small business, you're an entrepreneur or even a content creator. Right. In anything like that, then something that you would do is you have like an end of day prep for tomorrow. So let's say you, you know, store everything on your calendar, what you're doing. Then what you could do is you could use Telegram discord and even now you can use, if you have Apple Phone, you can use imessage that you just came out with. So you can have it message you, it can grab what you're doing for the next day, it can summarize that concisely and then send you a message in some format such as what I just mentioned. And then now you'll know the next day without actually had to visiting that it's just hey, here's a summary of everything you're doing and then you can have it maybe. Oh what? Even though you have times for it, it may be optimize the times for you as well. Like hey, you said you had this at 4, but maybe we can get this done earlier based on what you're doing already.
A
You know, that's oh, very interesting.
B
It's a basic example people can really. That can use.
A
Let's talk about that. Let's talk about fundamentally how that would actually work. Like help people understand because hopefully some of you are listening are going to do exactly what this will be the first thing you do inside of cloud code. So let's walk people through like how something like this might work.
B
Yeah. So you load up cloud code and what you would want to do first is you need to be able to connect to your Google Cloud. You need to be able to connect your Google Calendar. Okay. I mean what you could do also is you say, hey, cloud code, I want to have access to my Google Calendar. Tell me how to do this.
A
Oh, it'll tell you okay, I like that.
B
And it'll give you the steps on what you need to do. And even if you're using, depending on how you're using N8N it would basically be the same steps and.
A
But you don't need, you don't need N8N in this case. Right. At all, do you?
B
You don't. No, no, no, no. I just mean that no matter what you're doing, when you're doing something with Google, that generally the same steps, no matter what platform you're doing.
A
Okay, so you say, tell me how to connect to my Google Calendar. And then typically what, it'll probably tell you how to log in and get your API key or something like that.
B
Yeah, basically it'll give you the steps. If something that you can do is they say Eli 5. So explain like I'm 5. So it gives you the exact steps and I do it right. I do that all the time because of something I don't know. And like explain like I'm five because I really don't know I'm doing. I need this to be written out explicitly what to do and do that and you just follow the steps and then you will have that you have the information that you need for it to connect. It'll create the code to do the connection. And then once you have that, you know, you can just, you basically just talk to it like, hey, what do I have tomorrow? I want you to add.
A
Wait, wait, hold on a second. Let's make the connection to the Telegram side of things too. Like just.
B
Oh, yeah, yes. Yeah. Jumping ahead.
A
Yeah.
B
So now what you would do is you could type slash telegram and you go through this configuration process if you want to use Telegram and kind of
A
explain the advantages of Telegram. Because everybody in the development world seems to be using Telegram for some reason.
B
I don't know if I have the answer for everybody, but I think that it's the ease of setup. And if you don't have Telegram, like I didn't have Telegram before, like a year and a half ago, I never used it. But also not everybody was using it like we, like we had just mentioned. And it was easy to set up and you basically just creating a bot inside of Telegram that you're connecting to like that you're messaging back and forth with. Yeah.
A
And for folks that don't know, Telegram is a lot like messenger, you know, probably is the best example. It allows you to text, it allows you to have groups of people in there, all sorts of cool stuff. And my understanding is you can create lots of sub little accounts underneath your free account so you can have like a telegram for this and for that and they can have their own identity. Is that kind of true?
B
Yeah. Yeah. So if you want specifically to talk to just for your calendar every day, you can schedule it then. Yeah, that's by all means you can do that.
A
And it's a two way communication path, right? It goes back into cloud code or is it just a one way path?
B
Yeah, so it's a two way communication. With that said, you know your cloud code session on your computer has to be open.
A
Okay.
B
So. And as long as you have your cloud social session open on your computer, it's a two way connection. Talk to it. So you don't have to be at your computer. Right. So you can be driving to hey, go fetch me what I need for tomorrow. Or on your bed, fetch me what I need for tomorrow. Like it doesn't matter. Like it it's. You can just talk to it and it'll respond back to you.
A
This is really cool because now all of a sudden not only is this a special application, for lack of better words, you just created that has access to your calendar and has a communication layer built into Telegram and it can go back and forth. Now all of a sudden, my guess is you could develop this thing to do a little research for you too. Like, hey, I've got a sales meeting tomorrow with Tyler, do a little web research and give me a summary. I would imagine you could easily do that kind of thing with a tool like this, right?
B
Yeah, yeah. So if you need. Even with like let's say you have leads, for example. And I believe the term is they enrich data. So basically enriching just means they're just going out searching more information about this person or thing and then coming back with and like summarizing it for you. And if we have a minute, I can give you recently have a real world example of somebody that's used cloud code that I've taught, that never used it before.
A
Let's hear it.
B
And how it's helped them. So there was a mother of two, she's also in the YouTube world. But the problem was she also has a day job. So she tries to publish her. She does reels. So she tries to publish her reels on all these different platforms. That takes time. And then also coming up with the captions for each of those reels after she makes them for each different, you know, TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, all those, you know, different rules and all that. Well, I had introduced her to Claude Co. I just kind of taught her a little bit on a, on a call how to do it. And what I set up was where she just basically gives her reel she puts her reel on a Google Drive. So we connected her Google Drive to cloud code and she would say, okay, I need this for seven different platforms. And once you put it out for seven different platforms, I want scheduled two days, two times a day. Or like, I want to. I'm sorry, I want to schedule for this time each day. She had multiple. She could schedule all of these at the same time for the whole week and it would create a caption specifically for each platform. And instead of her spending all this time trying to upload it at that specific time each day, she could be busy, she could miss something. Right. It's kind of a headache. Instead, she spends two minutes, she has all the reels in her Google Drive and she says, do schedule this for these times. And it creates all the captions, schedules it, and she doesn't think about for the rest of the week.
A
Wow. I mean, that's, that's crazy because there are people that pay a lot of money for tools that do the exact same thing. And effectively what you're saying is she developed, with your guidance, a ability to just. She already batches the videos to just get them in to a folder and then have Claude code take, take over the scheduling of it. That's effectively what I'm hearing you say. Is that correct?
B
Yep. So once she, she just creates the short form videos, puts them on a drive, and then once they're there, she just logs into cloud code and says, and her specific case, she will do 14,2 per day of the week. So on Saturday night, they're all there in her drive and she says, hey, I want them for these times each day it goes out, each video, creates the caption for each platform and goes through all of them. And the process might take 10, 15 minutes in total to schedule all those videos out for the rest of the week. But she leaves the computer, she says that, and it does it for her. She leaves the computer and then by the time it's done and she doesn't worry about it at all for the rest of the week, it's just done.
A
Tyler Reid, first of all, thank you for answering all of my questions. This has been a really interesting and eye opening discussion. It seems achievable. It seems really achievable. And I have had so many people on the show where we've talked about cloud code and it just kind of flew right over my head. I mean, even my team uses cloud code to develop our software. But I know that, I know that this is so now achievable. And I Know that you have a bunch of YouTube videos and. And stuff. So what I want to ask you is if people are interested in discovering more about you, what's the best platform for them to maybe connect with you or watch your content? And then if they're interested in working with you, where do you want to send them?
B
Yeah, so YouTube is my primary social media platform, but I have a free school community that anybody can join. It's actually the AI agent C. Oh, Agency.
A
Okay, got it.
B
My face will be on there. And so let's say join that. Classrooms are there of how to do many different things actually, and using different platforms as well. But specifically for Claude Code, I keep. You know, every week I'm putting more and more stuff up there, so you just reach out to me there.
A
So what's your YouTube channel? How do they. How do they find your YouTube channel?
B
You can search for Tyler AI or Tyler Reed AI. I think both will work. You'll see my. You'll see my face on there everywhere. But. But yeah, Tyler Read AI or Tyler AI.
A
And then the school is called AI Agency cy. Like. Like an agency? Is that what you're saying?
B
Like cy. Yeah. Dai. Dai Agency cy.
A
Well, Tyler, listen, thank you so much again for sharing your insights with us.
B
Yes, no, thank you so much for having me, Michael. I really. I really appreciate it.
A
Hey, if you missed the anything, we took the notes for you over@social mediaexaminer.com a104. Be sure to follow this show on your favorite podcasting app and do check out my other show, the Social Media Marketing Podcast. This brings us to the end of the AI Explored Podcast. I am your host, Michael Stelzner. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day, and may AI help you become more successful.
B
The AI Explored Podcast is a production of Social Media Examiner.
A
Do you want to go deeper in your understanding of AI? You've been listening to this podcast for a while, but did you know that we have a membership with lots and lots of marketers, entrepreneurs and creators who learn every single month? Every single month, we do live meetups. We have professionals coming on who teach, training, and this is exclusive content only available in our AI Business Society. If you're ready to begin committing to ongoing development, join the AI Business Society right now by visiting socialmediaexaminer.com AI.
Podcast: AI Explored
Host: Michael Stelzner
Guest: Tyler Reid, AI Educator & Consultant (AI Agency Community)
Date: May 5, 2026
This episode focuses on demystifying Claude Code and practical AI automation for marketers, creators, and business owners—especially those without coding experience. Host Michael Stelzner welcomes AI consultant and educator Tyler Reid to discuss how anyone can leverage Claude Code to save time, automate workflows, and even build custom tools or simple applications. The conversation spans misconceptions about AI coding, concrete use cases, step-by-step onboarding tips, and real-life success stories—all designed to make AI development accessible to everyone.
"I switched everything and kind of went all in on AI and realized that this is definitely going to be part of the future." — Tyler, [02:27]
"There are some big YouTubers that have never coded before and they're teaching how to develop using AI automations..." — Tyler, [05:03]
"You can go from idea to even a prototype pretty quickly... have a running prototype that you can physically see and test and test out in no time at all." — Tyler, [06:56]
"It will generally ask you to make sure that that's what you want to do first. It will never really do anything that could potentially hurt your computer..." — Tyler, [24:04]
"If your subscription is $20... you would just, once you load up Claude... use a login command and then it would direct you to the browser to log in..." — Tyler, [19:54]
"For coding, anything, just use Sonnet, the latest Sonnet model." — Tyler, [28:57]
"I'd recommend creating a cloud markdown file for each project so that whenever you're kind of going through them... it always has some frame of reference..." — Tyler, [31:25]
"In my opinion, it's easier to do that whenever using cloud code, although you can do many things with Claude (the web app)." — Tyler, [35:22]
"You can just talk to it and it'll respond back to you... you can be driving... or on your bed... and it'll respond back to you." — Tyler, [40:46]
Example: Time-saving for a YouTuber/Mother of Two
"Instead, she spends two minutes... and then by the time it's done and she doesn't worry about it at all for the rest of the week, it's just done." — Tyler, [44:18]
On AI’s Accessibility:
"You don't need to know how to code, you don't need a CS degree... you just kind of really need to have a desire to get into it." — Tyler, [04:14]
On Time Savings:
"Whereas now the AI models... can take a look at that, understand it and recreate something else [in] minutes..." — Tyler, [09:26]
On Using the Terminal:
"For me as an engineer and developer, I essentially I really just go through the Terminal myself..." — Tyler, [18:23]
On Starting Out:
"You just talk to it: 'Hey, I want to have access to my Google Calendar. Tell me how to do this.' And it'll give you the steps..." — Tyler, [38:11]
On Project Continuity:
"Whenever you're developing with... cloud code, especially if you're developing an app... create something called a CLAUDE markdown file." — Tyler, [30:35]
Original Tone:
Conversational, encouraging, geared toward non-technical listeners. Both Michael and Tyler use simple analogies and real-world examples to lower the intimidation factor of AI development.
For more information and detailed show notes:
Visit socialmediaexaminer.com/aipod