Hey all - important announcement for the month of January here at GenAIU. In my opinion (and I know I'm not alone)... If you're going to pick ONE tool to master this year, it's Claude. Not five tools. Not hopping between ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and whatever dropped last week. It's fine to use the other tools too. I do, and use all the tools I just mentioned every week, too. But lately as I've been going deep into Claude Code... it's become apparent, this is the tool I recommend everyone master if they are an AI-native agency or business operated. That's why this month, to start 2026, we're going deep and building real skills, real workflows and real business applications with Claude. Then you can apply that mastery everywhere else and pair Claude with other platforms to get even more out of it. Claude is different. And Claude Code is a beast by itself. Yet... Most people haven't even touched Claude Code. Haven't built a single artifact. Haven't set up projects or custom instructions. They're scratching the surface of the most powerful tool available. That's fine, if you're OK with being average. But if you're already using Claude or see others crushing it with Claude and feel stuck, then you're going to want to join this sprint. Also, I'm not here to sell you on the benefits of using AI in your business with this. You're probably already using a number of tools and by now if you've seen how we operate at GenAIU, have some understanding of why we are focusing on just one platform each month. That's why we're choosing Claude. It's a no-brainer. Why? Because Claude isn't just another chatbot. It's the backbone layer of your AI engine. Sales. Marketing. Operations. When you actually master it, you're not "using AI." You're actually building with it. One tool. Deep mastery. That's where the leverage is. This spring will last 4 weeks. 4 weeks. 8 workshops. January 6-29. Me and you in a group setting. Building. Tuesdays @ 10am CST: Claude Deep Dives Projects. Artifacts. Custom instructions. Claude Code. The capabilities most people ignore that create the most leverage.

We're 2 weeks into January and have covered a TON inside our workshops already this month with lots of wins each week being shared on those calls live. What wins did you have with AI this week in your life/biz? Share them here in the comments! Have a great weekend. Darby

Thursday's Claude Mastery Sprint session is now available. The big unlock from this call: Skills are account-wide. You do not copy them between projects. You do not import them. You build the skill once in your Settings under Capabilities. Then you trigger it from any project with any client context. One skill. Unlimited uses. The skill handles the framework. The project handles the context. Three workflows you can steal today: 1. Gamma presentations from Claude. @Big Jason Henderson showed his split test data becoming presentation-ready slides in one command. The secret: add "use powerful visuals" to your prompt. The image quality jumps dramatically. 2. Notebook LM to Claude pipeline. @Assaad Fakhry exports mind maps from Notebook LM, pastes them into Claude, asks for a step-by-step guidebook. His words: "absolutely spectacular" output. 3. Skill improvement loop. @Dr. Nikki Siso goes to her skill in Settings, clicks "edit with Claude," and asks it to 10x the framework. The skill gets smarter. Then she deploys it through a chatbot her developer built. The skill becomes her IP engine. MCPs explained in one sentence: If you hire a teammate but never give them access to your Gmail, calendar, or Notion, they cannot do anything useful. MCPs give Claude that access. What we figured out live on the call: Composio's dedicated MCP connector for Gamma works. Run the PowerShell script it gives you. Check your Claude connectors. Tell Claude to "run gamma-mcp and create the presentation." Your generated decks show up in Gamma under a new tab called "API generated." Quote of the day from @Charles Gibson: "Learning Skills, MCPs, and Projects in Claude is literally like being able to go 18 feet versus six feet with the same amount of effort on any given day." We covered this, and a WHOLE lot more. Including the new Claude Cowork update and how it's impacting tech/dev types vs non-tech/dev types working with Claude.

==> Week 2, Call 3 Replay is Ready (VIP Implementation Intensive Only - VIP Vault - 1/13/2026) This session packed a lot. We covered Claude Code setup, GitHub repository configuration, secure API key management, and I used @Leandra Nisbet's CEO Playbook generator as the working example for deployment. Core Insights: Build to learn, not to ship. Claude Code builds working prototypes fast. But the person who builds may not be the person who maintains. After you finish a project, ask Claude Code to create a course that teaches someone how to use the codebase. This prevents the "figure it out" handoff problem. Progressive tool adoption matters. If you are not comfortable with Projects, Skills, and MCP integrations, Claude Code and GitHub will overwhelm you. Master the foundation first. Internal vs external tool building. Skills inside Claude Projects serve internal teams perfectly. The moment you want to monetize or share externally, that is when Claude Code and repository management become necessary. VIP Wins This Week: @Big Jason Henderson built a comprehensive Skills library for Truly Free Home. Emotional Bunny Power skill for sales copy. Awareness Level Optimization using Eugene Schwartz's method. Ryan Levesque Ask Method skill. He discovered skills can reference other skills. His Copy Chief skill now orchestrates multiple skills in sequence. @Jessica Schneider Schneider created an email campaign template generator that outputs complete Klaviyo campaign layouts. Input campaign duration, start date, product name, and offer details. It generates the full structure. Eliminates the copy-paste workflow across 30-day campaigns. @Mark Kennedy shipped two major wins. First, automated his entire social media workflow with Claude Code and MCP. One skill execution generates posts, creates images, adds headlines, and uploads to draft folders. What took hours now runs in one command. Second, built an ROI Calculator analyzing four parameters: hire internally, outsource, use AI tools with current team, or hire an AI developer. Three-year projections with complexity factors across six executive roles. Includes a $399 premium report option. He identified 30 niches for deployment and is treating it as a moonlighting product.

Week 2, Session 3 Replay is Live We went deep on Claude Code and GitHub this session. If you have been curious about how to take what you build in Claude and deploy it as an actual website or app, this is the one to watch. What We Covered: Setting up GitHub repositories from scratch. Securing your API keys so they never get exposed. The complete workflow from Claude Code to Netlify deployment. Running multiple Claude agents simultaneously on different projects. I built a sponsor landing page live on the call. Started with an empty repository. Ended with a deployed website you can visit right now. Took about 40 minutes. Community Wins From This Week: @Kevin Kuykendall built a skill that finds AI Meetup events by geography and date range. No more manual searching every time he wants to find local AI events. @Big Jason Henderson integrated Gamma API with Claude using Composio. He generated a complete presentation in under two minutes. His second iteration with better prompting produced what he called "100 percent perfect." @Assaad Fakhry built a functional app in 15 minutes using Google Antigravity and Claude. Still figuring out deployment, but the speed is wild. @Bo-Peter Laanen connected Claude Code to GitHub and deployed using Vercel. Figured out the whole flow independently over the weekend. @Tim Clements set up a skill for designing accountability workflows in hospitality organizations. @Jessica created a campaign template generator that eliminates copy-paste across 30-day email campaigns. @Dr. Nikki Siso completed a health assessment tool, hired someone to build it out, then asked Claude to 10x the output. Loved the result. What You Will Learn When You Watch: How to create a GitHub repository and connect it to Claude Code. Why environment variables matter and how to set them up. The exact steps to deploy your project on Netlify. How to run parallel agents when you have multiple projects cooking.