I was commenting on a great question posed by @Girish Mohan, and I found myself thinking about it long after I responded.🤔 That reflection led to this post about the future of AI in a practical, real-world sense. The essence of the question: Is there a risk in becoming too dependent on one AI company, product, or tool set? I thought that was a smart question, because there is some real tension there. At this early stage of AI adoption, there is always a risk in overcommitting too soon. We have seen this before. During the eCommerce boom, a lot of companies looked like they were going to dominate, and many of them did not last. Early markets move fast. Leaders change. Sometimes you pick the wrong horse. 🐎 At the same time, over-diversifying creates its own problem. If you keep jumping from one tool to the next, you can lose the benefit of synergy. Some tools work better together. 🔗 Gemini and NotebookLM are a good example. When tools are designed to complement each other, the combined value can be better than chasing ten separate platforms that do similar things. There is also a practical reality that matters. One person cannot learn every AI tool coming to market. There are too many. At some point, each of us has to decide where we want depth, where we want breadth, and what kind of workflows actually fit the way we work. 🎯 That means some specialization is going to matter. People will need to find their niche instead of trying to master everything. But for me, the bigger point sits above all of that. We are moving into a very different communication model. 1) AI is shifting toward natural language. 2) More of the work will be handled through machine-to-machine interaction at machine speed, 3) All this be done without the user interface we think of today. 🛍️ My shopping AI may eventually interact with a retailer’s concierge AI. 🤖 Your scheduling assistant may work directly with mine. 🔄 Business systems will increasingly pass tasks, context, and decisions across platforms without the same kind of manual navigation we deal with today.

We just crossed 600 members in AI Bits & Pieces. Consistent growth from day one, fueled by people trying to understand what AI actually means for their work and day-to-day life—and how it can help them stand out in the workforce, business environment, or executive ranks. That’s been the goal from the start. A place for: 🔵 AI Curious — figuring out what this all is 🟢 AI Enthusiasts — using it regularly 🟠 AI Practitioners — applying it to real work 🟣 Enterprise — thinking about scale across teams What’s been interesting isn’t just the number—it’s the mix of people and the conversations starting to take shape. Members are building small things. Members are asking in-depth questions. And members are starting to connect the dots between tools and outcomes. A special shoutout to each and every member, and the people who have supported me from the beginning: @Michele Wacht @Dena Dion @Debra Schmitt @Patti Hoekstra @Mark Zayec @Matthew Sutherland @Jason Hagen @Usman Mohammed @Nick Mohler @Eduard Friesen We have some exciting updates and new offerings for the community designed to help you win the AI game in life, at work, as a business owner, or as an agency. A heartfelt thank you. Michael

Edit NotebookLM infographics in Canva! One of the nice things about NotebookLM is how quickly it can turn source material into a useful infographic. The challenge is that the finished infographic is a static image, so if you want to make small visual changes, adjust wording, or move elements around, you cannot really edit it directly. A simple - yet powerful trick - is to take that infographic into Canva and break it into editable pieces. ▶️ I put together a short video showing exactly how this works, or you can follow the process below. Here’s the basic flow: 1. Import your source document into NotebookLM Start by bringing your source document into NotebookLM and shaping the content until it says what you want it to say. 2. Create the infographic Once the content is where you want it, generate the infographic inside NotebookLM. 3. Copy and paste the infographic into Canva When the infographic looks close to right, move it into Canva by copying and pasting it. 4. Select Edit, then Magic Layers 🪄 Inside Canva, choose Edit and then Magic Layers. 5. Break the infographic into editable elements Canva will separate the infographic into individual parts so you can edit text, move sections around, adjust spacing, and refine the design. 6. Polish the final version Instead of starting from scratch, you are starting with structure already in place and then improving it into something more usable and presentable. This is one of those practical little moves that makes AI output easier to turn into something polished and usable.

In our recent survey, over 50% of respondents said they want to see live sessions on Claude Code. That’s clear direction. While we’re preparing for those sessions, here’s a preview of what we’re actually building. 🔨 One example: A client asked me to transform a simple spreadsheet of cancellations into something more useful. The spreadsheet was simple, with three fields: - Name - Date - Reason This app does not just organize the data — it helps my client understand customer behavior in a real, tangible way. - AI suggests categories instead of guessing - Highlights trends over 14 / 30 / 60 days - Sentiment analysis (positive / neutral / negative) Most importantly: it helped them understand the intent behind why people leave and provides suggestions on how to address it. Watch this short video that highlights how powerful Claude Code can be when applied to a simple spreadsheet.

Welcome to the Out of The Box Series — where I test how far curiosity and AI can take you in 30, 60, or 90 minutes using today’s best no-code and low-code tools. No studio. No production team. Just exploration — right out of the box. 🎬 This Episode: ElevenLabs – Professional Voice Clone 🕒 Time Limit: 60 Minutes 📂 Category: AI Voice + Video Workflow 💡 The Starting Point: I had two full hours of recorded video and audio from a event. I brought that into CapCut and did a very rough edit to remove anything that was not my voice. What I Built in 60 Minutes: 🎙️ Used Professional Voice Clone in ElevenLabs to generate polished narration ✂️ Created a rough cut video in CapCut 🎛️ Ran the ElevenLabs audio through a light cleanup filter in Audacity 🎧 Exported the cleaned audio 🎬 Dropped the refined narration back into CapCut and aligned it with the visuals 🔧 What Is Professional Voice Clone? Professional Voice Clone creates a high-fidelity digital version of your voice using longer, clean recordings. It’s designed for more stable, production-quality narration — especially for long-form content. This isn’t a quick novelty clone. It’s built for repeatable workflows. See the rough draft of the video below. This stack — ElevenLabs + Audacity + CapCut — is worth testing. That’s Out of The Box in 60. Have a blessed and creative AI day 🙏 @Michael Wacht