I Moved 9 Playbooks to Claude Code. Here’s What AI Operators Need to Know.

Claude Code, Claud Cowork, Clawdbot… you might feel like you can’t “claw” your way out of all the fresh AI hype right now! 

Whether you’re annoyed, overwhelmed, confused, or stoked – we wrote todays’ newsletter to tell you the “so what” for AI operators in all this hype.

Our first 🌶️ take: this didn’t happen overnight.

Claude Code launched in November 2024. 

Claude Skills launched in October 2025.

CustomGPTs had a lot of this power too (if you used them right) and those were released November 2023. 

But what has accelerated is how easy it is to get set up, how fast you can start getting value, and as a result – how big the upside is growing to using these tools effectively.

The next wave is about giving agents your “playbooks”

Yes these tools are powerful, but they run on the instructions you give them. Either one-off in the chat. Or saved as a process it’s “been trained”. AKA - your playbooks. 

The basic anatomy of a Claude skill works like this:

• You create skill files in markdown

• Each skill file can hold one playbook

• Your playbook can even integrate outside tools, templates, custom code scripts, MCPs and a lot more

• Or just run a powerful playbook as is! 

Want to know the best part?? The playbook is the exact same you can run in any other AI tool too.

Each platform calls them differently – in Claude it’s “skills”, in Gemini it’s “gems”, in ChatGPT, it’s “customGPTs”. 

But if you follow our Own the Playbook; Rent the Tech mindset – it’s all the same. 

What that means for AI Operators: Playbooks that used to be clunky in automation tools or slow in chat tools can now be run with even more capabilities.

The real shift: AI is getting more and more autonomous

When you use ChatGPT and it shows that it’s “thinking”... this is actually ChatGPT being more agentic in the background. Claude does the same thing. 

Where tools like Claude Code and Claude Cowork get interesting is that they can do even longer tasks without any of your input. 

What that means for AI Operators: less back and forth is a good thing for productivity, but a bad thing if your instructions weren’t clear. Imagine an intern going off for 2 days and coming back and what you asked it was nothing like what you wanted. 

More autonomous = more parallel workstreams = more management overhead

Have you ever been managing a project and there are so many parallel paths that it made your head hurt? 

Well that same thing has been happening to us nonstop the past few weeks. It’s truly an art to manage multiple agents executing multiple playbooks in parallel. 

But incredibly powerful when you do. 

What that means for AI Operators: the leverage AI unlocks is about to compound even faster. A process that used to take days could now take hours with normal AI. But with increasingly autonomous AI, you could be executing multiple if not dozens of those processes at once. Checking in only when needed. 

The gap is widening

As our friend Connor Grennan posted, the gap is widening between the teams using the tools to their fullest – and those that are still waiting for that green light from IT. 

This is a great opportunity for AI Operators. With most major platform shifts, the tides shift quickly where demand starts outpacing supply. AKA – there will be more companies that need these skills and help implementing, than there are people that actually know how to to it right. 

Get your reps in now. Be ready when the tide comes.

Join the next AI Operator Bootcamp (With Bonus “Playbooking in Claude Code” Workshop!)

Our flagship 6 week bootcamp just got a content refresh! 

And more is coming. 

This is THE bootcamp designed for people wanting to learn to operationalize AI – not just for flashy demos, but for real teams and real use cases. 

And we’re adding a new workshop on Claude Code for this next cohort. 

Want to get ahead of the tide? Grab a spot here.

Run a team and stuck on your next steps with AI operations?

We’re offering 3 more of our $499 consults in February to teams of 10+ who are looking to scale themselves with AI operations, playbooks and agents. 

It’s the fastest way to get clarity & momentum:

1. Our custom intake process

2. AI operations strategists with 3+ years in the field review

3. 60 minute coaching session on exactly what to do next

Hit reply to learn more. 👋 

LINKS

For your reading list 📚

• ChatGPT is getting ads soon, and OpenAI is thinking about what to charge… this will be interesting

• Apparently Apple is turning Siri into an AI bot more like ChatGPT

• Speaking of Claude skills… this was a pretty cool one that spots AI slop, made by the Wikipedia team

That's all!

We'll see you again soon. Thoughts, feedback and questions are much appreciated - respond here or shoot us a note at [email protected].

Cheers,

🪄 The AI Exchange Team