I Built 2 AI Assistants That Made Me 10x More Productive | Step-by-Step Guide - Marketing Against The Grain

Summary

Marketing Against The Grain: Episode Summary Title: I Built 2 AI Assistants That Made Me 10x More Productive | Step-by-Step Guide
Host: Kieran Flanagan, Co-Host
Release Date: February 6, 2025

Introduction to Building AI Assistants

In this episode of Marketing Against The Grain, co-host Kieran Flanagan delves into the creation and implementation of two AI assistants designed to drastically enhance productivity within a company. Kieran outlines a comprehensive approach to building an Executive Assistant and a Project Assistant using leading AI platforms: Google's Gemini Gems, OpenAI's ChatGPT, and Anthropic's Claude. He emphasizes the importance of choosing the right platform based on specific workplace needs.

Kieran Flanagan [00:00]: "I'm going to show you how to create two AI assistants to make you the most productive person in your company."

The Critical Role of Folder Structure

A foundational tip Kieran shares is the establishment of a robust folder structure. This organizational method serves as the backbone for the AI assistants, facilitating seamless access and management of data.

Kieran Flanagan [03:15]: "I always start to think about how your folder structure allows you to build these kind of AI assistants."

He recommends segregating data into Meeting Transcripts and Strategic Documents, enabling the Executive Assistant to handle meeting-related tasks and the Project Assistant to manage strategic initiatives effectively.

Automating Data Management with Zaps

To streamline the process, Kieran employs automation tools like Zaps. These tools automatically transfer meeting transcripts from platforms like Zoom into designated folders, reducing manual effort and ensuring data consistency.

Kieran Flanagan [04:10]: "Every time the meeting ends and the transcript is available, it just zaps it into the right folder."

Building AI Assistants in Gemini Gems

Kieran explores the functionalities of Gemini Gems, Google's custom AI solution akin to ChatGPT. He details the process of creating an Executive Assistant by configuring prompts that enable the AI to analyze meeting transcripts, identify key decisions, track action items, and prioritize tasks.

Kieran Flanagan [06:00]: "You basically tell it to do meeting analysis. So anytime you give it a meeting transcript, it analyzes the meeting transcript."

The Project Assistant is similarly developed to handle strategic documents, offering summaries, risk assessments, and strategic recommendations. Kieran highlights the significant advantage of Gemini Gems' large context window, which allows the AI to process extensive documentation effectively.

Kieran Flanagan [09:30]: "What I really like about Gemini is the context window is really large."

Creating Custom GPTs in ChatGPT and Claude

Kieran compares Gemini Gems with other AI platforms, particularly ChatGPT and Claude. He demonstrates how to create custom GPTs in ChatGPT, replicating the functionalities of the Executive and Project Assistants. ChatGPT excels in strategic analysis and provides comprehensive project assessments, often outperforming Gemini in this aspect.

Kieran Flanagan [11:10]: "In OpenAI ChatGPT... the output does a slightly better job of like strategic analysis, strategic recommendations."

When discussing Claude, Kieran points out its limitations, such as a smaller context window and challenges in integrating non-text formats like PowerPoints. Despite these drawbacks, Claude remains useful for specific tasks, such as rewriting documents for better clarity and presentation.

Kieran Flanagan [10:30]: "Claude's core drawback here is... the context window is just too small."

Comparative Analysis: Gemini Gems vs. ChatGPT vs. Claude

Kieran provides a comparative analysis of the three platforms:

Gemini Gems: Best integrated with Google Suite, boasts a large context window, and handles diverse documentation seamlessly. However, it requires manual addition of documents into the context window.
ChatGPT: Superior in strategic thinking and recommendations, making it ideal for in-depth project analysis. Like Gemini, it also necessitates manual document uploads but offers more nuanced output.
Claude: While useful for specific tasks like document rewriting, it struggles with larger projects due to its limited context window and less intuitive document integration.

Kieran Flanagan [10:45]: "ChatGPT really good. The output does a slightly better job of like strategic analysis, strategic recommendations and then Claude really struggling..."

Practical Implementation and Daily Use

Kieran shares practical insights into integrating these AI assistants into daily workflows. By maintaining a well-organized folder structure and leveraging automation tools, users can ensure their AI assistants remain up-to-date and efficient. He advocates for using a combination of AI platforms to capitalize on each one's strengths, such as using Gemini for data management and ChatGPT for strategic analysis.

Kieran Flanagan [10:55]: "So I'll take the output from Gemini Gems on the one pager it built for the executive team and then I'll put it into Claude and I'll say, hey, can you rewrite this for my executive team?"

Conclusion and Takeaways

Kieran concludes by reiterating the transformative potential of AI assistants in enhancing productivity. The key takeaways include:

Establish a Robust Folder Structure: Organize data into clear categories to maximize AI efficiency.
Leverage Automation Tools: Use tools like Zaps to minimize manual data handling.
Choose the Right AI Platform: Utilize Gemini Gems for integration with Google Suite, ChatGPT for strategic insights, and Claude for specialized tasks.
Combine AI Strengths: Integrate multiple AI platforms to benefit from their unique capabilities.

Kieran Flanagan [12:30]: "All of them are pretty good to create a first pass at a meeting executive. They all do a really good job..."

By thoughtfully implementing these strategies, professionals can harness AI to streamline workflows, enhance project management, and drive organizational success.

Notable Quotes:

Kieran Flanagan [00:00]: "I'm going to show you how to create two AI assistants to make you the most productive person in your company."
Kieran Flanagan [06:00]: "You basically tell it to do meeting analysis."
Kieran Flanagan [09:30]: "What I really like about Gemini is the context window is really large."
Kieran Flanagan [11:10]: "In OpenAI ChatGPT... the output does a slightly better job of like strategic analysis, strategic recommendations."
Kieran Flanagan [10:55]: "So I'll take the output from Gemini Gems... and I'll put it into Claude..."
Kieran Flanagan [12:30]: "All of them are pretty good to create a first pass at a meeting executive."

This episode provides a valuable roadmap for professionals seeking to integrate AI into their workflows, offering practical steps and comparative insights into the leading AI platforms. By following Kieran's guide, listeners can unlock significant productivity gains and streamline their organizational processes.

Transcript

A (0:00)

On this episode, I'm going to show you how to create two AI assistants to make you the most productive person in your company. I'm going to show you how to build a executive assistant and a project assistant. And better yet, I'm going to show you how to do that across Gemini Gems, ChatGPT and Claude Projects. And I'm going to compare and contrast which are better. Which one should you actually use for what? All of that and more on today's show. I'm Kieran Flanagan, the co host of Marketing against the Green. Let's go build some AI assistance.

B (0:36)

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A (1:20)

So this is a really great video if you just want to get started with the AI. Like I think this is one of the easiest things you're going to be able to replicate for your day to day work. Because it's not my day to day work as a marketer, it's not my day to day work as a special whatever I do. It's really just how we do work. And I'm going to show you how I actually started to use AI to be way more productive. And so let's get into it. The two AI assistants I'm going to build is an executive assistant and a project assistant. So people who follow along my videos may have seen me build an executive assistant for Claude. Well, I'm always building upon and iterating upon what I've done in the past and I've made that really much better. And I've also replicated it for the three core platforms, Google, Gemini, OpenAI, ChatGPT, and Claude. And I'm going to show you a comparison because I think it's pretty interesting in comparison, like which ones are better for your day to day work as a knowledge worker. The first thing I actually want to start with is something you probably haven't even thought about for AI, but you should. Here's a little sneak peek at something I do that I think you should start doing. And no one else would tell you this tip because it's so mundane. It's actually folder structure. If you are using Google Drive or whatever folder you're using, I'm going to show you how to use your folder structure to build these AI assistants. I am someone who is pretty disorganized in terms of like where I keep things. And because of AI that actually no longer matters, it doesn't really matter where I keep things. So there's two things you have to do when you're building full structures and the way I would do this. So for me in HubSpot, I have three large pods that I oversee. I have our go to market in the lower end of our business. We have our overall demand just how HubSpot's go to market works and then we have all of our AI work. And so what I do is I have a folder structure that basically just has two different folders of stuff. I have one where I put every single meeting transcript, record everything, put the meeting transcripts in there, and then all of my strategic docs. And what I'm going to show you is the reason I do that is I build an AI executive assistant for the meeting transcripts and I build an AI project assistant for all of the strategic docs. So that's kind of tip number one. I always start to think about how your folder structure allows you to build these kind of AI assistants. And I think to follow along my video, this is my recommended structure. One, whatever your project, break it into meeting transcripts, which is all of the meetings you're having on Zoom or whatever else, and you're keeping the transcripts and then the strategic docs. Now, at some point I will do a follow on to this video where this is not just Zoom meeting transcripts. It's going to include emails and it's going to include slacks. But for the time being, I think that is where I would start. The other cool thing is, you know, a lot of people, what you'll do is go to Zoom. I'm going to use Zoom because it's the most common. But whatever you're using, you go, you record the meeting, you get the transcript and you have to put it in the folder. Or what I'm doing is I have set up Zaps. So every time the meeting ends and the transcript is available, it just zaps it into the right folder. So that's number one. Okay, let's go into Build this in Gemini because we haven't actually built Gems. I focused a lot on Claude. I'm still going to do Claude in this video, but we haven't actually talked much about Gemini Gems Gems are basically Google's equivalent to custom GPT. So when you go into Gemini you'll see the gem manager here. So basically you can see all your gems. So they have pre made for Google. Very similar to ChatGPT store. I built two, I built our project assistant and I built a scaled selling assistant. So these are for one of my pods and so I go into the project assistant and so one of the things I can do now is show me the last summary of our meeting, including key follow up points, taking a little bit of time to load, analyze and response. And it will go through and it will show me my last meeting and tells me everything I need to know. And so let me go through how we've actually built this. We go to Gem Manager, we're going to edit Executive assistant. And so what you do is you build an executive assistant and this is the prompt here. You basically tell it to do meeting analysis. So anytime you give it a meeting transcript, it analyze the meeting transcript. It identifies key decisions and action items, it tracks deadlines and ownership, it flags high priority items and then I give it the exact output format. Now if you want these prompts, you sign up to my newsletter. I'm going to give you this prompt and the project assistant prompt. You can find my newsletter sign up in my LinkedIn. And so we'll go back to Gems. And so I put the prompt in and then the next thing you can do is you can basically upload everything from your Google Drive. And so if you have a folder structure. So again, what did I say? All my folder structure looks pretty the same. And, and then you can go to meeting transcripts and grab all the meeting transcripts. Now word to all of the people building these AI assistants, Google, ChatGPT and Claude all do a bad job of this in that you have to kind of go in and upload the files or you connect to your Google Drives and you go add them. I have to go in here and add the new meeting transcript in here to get all of the follow up actions. What I want to do in the future is be able to just zap it straight into this context window. So every time I come back into my assistant it has the latest meeting. So that's it. So now you have an agent to be able to tell you anything that's happened in any of your meetings. It has access to all of your meetings. Just remember to go in here, add them from your Google Drive. I've already done that. You can go in, add any meeting transcript, add the latest One. So that's the only piece of work you have to do is like go, remember to do the meeting transcript. Now the next one is super cool. The project assistant. So this is a strategic project assistant and it does some pretty cool things. So it basically says you are an AI project assistant with expertise in project management, risk analysis and organizational dynamics. Now remember, when you get this prompt, if you follow along in my newsletter and you really want to kind of replicate this for yourself, you can actually play around with this prompt, right? You should just not copy and paste for your needs. You should use it as a foundation and then build upon that foundation and tweak to your needs. Again, the meeting exec1 has access to all of your meeting transcripts. Remember the folder structure. Now your project assistant has access to all of your strategic docs. And what it does is basically it presents a menu of available services. So anytime you have a new strategic doc, you put it into that folder. And what it will do is it will analyze all the documentation and basically give you a summary of their project, including some really cool things, right? Team structure, responsibilities, any timelines, all of the budget, risk assessment, technical specifications, stakeholder communication logs, previous status reports and minute meetings. This one here I'm trying to think through. Someone may argue why don't you just combine these things in two. It's actually better to keep them separate. They work much better if you have one very focused on project management, one very focused on beta notes. And so this is doing a little bit of like executive assistant where it is grabbing previous minute meetings. But I'm probably going to take this out and keep it very centric to project management work now and then it provides actually a menu from you to pick from. So you can basically ask it to do further project status analysis. And I'll show you what that looks like. You can do a risk assessment which is really good. It like pinpoints any potential risks. It does a really good job. Well, some better than other. I'll actually show you the three perform very differently when I give it this prompt. Tactic generation. So we'll actually pull out the core components of your project and recommend different tactics to make that component a success. Strategic recommendations. If you're having to put something together for your executive team, you can choose us. It does a really good job and then any kind of document generation. So I can basically create a monthly summary, a quarterly summary, a quick summary for the executive team for our CEO really easily because it has all of the documentation. The minute meetings compilation. Again, I'll take this one out because I've actually since progressed to split these things out. I had it all in one and then action item tracking, decision log maintenance. Like it gives you the kind of history of how a decision was made, which I think is really important. And then progress summaries, which is really important. Now I can ask it for specific things. It actually is very good. It gives me some really interesting things I hadn't thought about. But I'll show you what I mean. Like let's create a one page summary for my executive team detailing key accomplishments and challenges. All right. Gives key accomplishments, give some key challenges. Looking back over all of the presentations and docs that we've done. Overall status like pretty good length. So it actually does a really good job of being your project assistant. Now for any project I have a meeting assistant for that folder and then I have a project assistant for the strategic docs folder. And again, just going back to that project assistant, really what we want to do is have it summarize all of those strategic docs anytime you want. Now when you're summarizing the strategic docs, you can ask it for specific parts of the docs, like show me what is different from this month to last month in terms of the progress we've made. Show me that summary. Then you can get into the actual what are the options you want? This is the one that actually is really good because I was trying this where it actually shows you key components of a project and will show you tactics. But then it will do anything for you. Like it will do all document generation, it will do strategic recommendations, it will do all of that stuff. Now that's the way I'm sending it up. The reason I've kind of glossed over some of the output is because this is actually my real assistant, right? So it actually has access to a lot of real documentation. Again, the documentation you have to go in to Gemini. What I really like about Gemini is the context window is really large. So you just have to go in and remember to continue to like add the latest docs. There's no way yet to like automatically add the docs into that context window. Now if you're watching along LinkedIn, this is where I will leave you because the LinkedIn video can't be too long if you are subscribed to my newsletter. If you are a Marketing Against Green Podcast listener, you're going to get the full episode where now I'm going to go on and show you how to do this in Claude, how to do it in OpenAI and one of those is actually even better than Gemini. So Gemini is really good. Very, very good actually. But one of the ones I'm going to show you is surprisingly amazing.