It’s been 2 ½ years since ChatGPT was publicly released. Since then, AI has quietly crept into many different aspects of our lives. From writing to research to the “Giblification” of our photos, LLMs are increasingly impacting how we navigate the world.

Last week, Shopify’s Tobi Lütke sent a memo directing that reflexive AI (incorporating the use of AI tools as a “reflex” while working) was a baseline expectation of all employees going forward.

While Tobi’s post made waves, there wasn’t really anything in his memo that tech leaders around the world haven’t already been saying to their employees for some time (other than a dictum that managers would need to show extra work in order to justify new headcount).

“AI is here. Figure out how to leverage it.”

In fact, many of us have been kicking the proverbial tires on all manner of AI tools for awhile.

Almost all programmers now use copilots and coding assistants to some degree (whether or not you consider yourself a “vibe coder”). Content creation — from writing to video editing to social media management — has similarly been taken over by AI tools.

Of course, we’re still very early when it comes to all of this. Today’s AI landscape is very much a wild west. Dozens of tools are competing for mindshare (and users) in almost every segment of the market. Few categories have clear leaders. But, frankly, that makes the current state of AI a hell of a lot of fun. We can each try out different tools, figure out what fits best for how we think and work, and learn from others. Which is awesome!

Just last week, Jason Lemkin of SaaStr shared unprompted his current “AI stack”:

There’s no right or wrong in Jason’s list. Just a simple sharing, “here’s what I like and am using right now.”

In my case, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about knowledge sharing. How I can leverage AI to help founders around the world more effectively access the knowledge and best practices that are typically only available to those in Silicon Valley?

For nearly 10 years, I’ve been designing and running startup accelerators, fundraising bootcamps and online founder education programs. For the past 3 years, I’ve been writing a weekly newsletter for founders sharing Silicon Valley best practices and pulling back the curtain on the business of venture capital. I’ve given hundreds of talks, joined dozens of podcasts, and even made a few social media videos. Imagine if founders could instantly tap into all of that…

Today, I’m taking the wraps off my first AI experiment: an AI “clone” that I’ve built using a tool called Delphi.

AI Chris has been trained on nearly 400,000 words that I’ve written, plus hundreds of social media posts, videos and audio clips. You can interact with AI Chris using the Ask Chris link above. Ask it any question, like “How do I meet investors?” or “How do I run a high-velocity fundraising process?” and you’ll get a detailed answer with links to all of the relevant blog posts and other original sources it was based on.

My hope is that AI Chris will help founders more easily find the information they’re looking for about startups, Silicon Valley best practices and the business of venture capital.

It’s still a work in progress — in the coming weeks, I plan to add even more training data to the model and add more capability. I’d love for you to give it a try and let me know what you think!

It’s Alive!

Life is Short. Have Fun.