[AI SPRINT] Your AI can already talk to your other tools. You just haven't turned it on.

WHEW! Last week I gave three keynotes in three cities to almost 6,000 leaders and businesses: credit union service organizations in Orlando, mental health professionals in Denver, and real estate executives in Sacramento. Three industries that have almost nothing in common.

They all asked me the same four questions.

Where do I even start? Is it safe to use at work? Are we already behind? And what should I actually do this week?

That last question is what this issue is about.

Your AI Doesn't Know Anything About Your Work

Here's the problem most people don't realize they have.

When you open a chat window, type a question, and get an answer, your AI is working in isolation. It doesn't know your clients. It doesn't know what was said in your last meeting. It has no idea what's sitting in your CRM, your project tracker, or your inbox. Every time you start a session, it starts from scratch.

That's changing. And most people haven't noticed yet.

Claude, ChatGPT, and Copilot now supports connectors: integrations that let your AI read from and write to the tools you already use. Your CRM. Your meeting notes. Your project management system. No code required. No IT ticket. In most cases, setup takes 1 minute or less.

Once a connector is on, your AI stops being a generic chatbot. It starts being something that actually knows your work.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Here's a concrete example. Say you just finished a client call where you agreed to send a proposal.

Most people do this next: scan their notes, open their CRM, type in what happened, switch to their project tracker, add a follow-up task, then maybe send a recap email. Fifteen to twenty minutes. And a lot of it still gets skipped.

Now imagine your AI is connected to three tools: Read AI for meeting transcripts, HubSpot for your CRM, and Notion for task tracking.

After that call, you open your AI and type one prompt:

"Pull the summary and action items from my last meeting. Update the contact record in HubSpot with the key takeaways and note that sending a proposal is the agreed next step. Then create a task in Notion to send the proposal by Friday."

Your AI reads the transcript, updates your CRM, and creates the task. You didn't open any of those tools. You didn't copy and paste anything. You didn't forget to log the call.

That's not a demo. That works today.

And here's what's easy to miss:

You just built something that functions like an AI agent. No code. No special tools. You connected a few things you already use and gave a clear instruction. That's it.

I used Read AI, HubSpot, and Notion because they're tools I know well. But connectors exist for hundreds of platforms: Salesforce, Google Drive, Slack, Asana, Jira, Outlook, Zoom, and many more. Whatever your team runs on, there's a good chance your AI can plug into it. Most people try it once and immediately think of three more things to test.

And importantly: these connectors can now write to these systems. That’s pretty new. A few days ago I talked with a salesperson at a company who said it takes him hours to go through and update individual contacts after an event.

Now? Just give your AI the list of contacts to update, and it will do the update for you.

How to Turn This On (In One Minute)

The process is straightforward:

• ChatGPT and Copilot: Apps Menu → search for the tool

• Claude: Settings → Connectors → Add Connector → search for the tool

One exception: enterprise plans on ChatGPT, Claude, or Copilot may require admin approval. Worth a quick check on what's already been enabled.

And sorry, Gemini users. Google is testing limited apps in your Personal Intelligence settings, but those are currently quite limited.

This week: Start with one tool. Not three. Pick the one where you lose the most time — the place where you're copying things manually, logging things late, or just skipping steps because the friction is too high. Connect it, ask your AI a question about your real data, and see what comes back.

What This Means for Your Business Right Now

When I asked those 6,000 people "Who has made AI safe, supported, and expected in your organization?" — maybe five hands went up.

Part of the reason is that people assume AI adoption requires a big strategy. A company-wide initiative. Buy-in from leadership. A consultant.

Sometimes it does. But sometimes it starts here: one tool, one connection, one prompt that saves you fifteen minutes on something you do every day.

That's the spark. One person on your team figures this out. Others see it. The bar for what counts as normal shifts. That's how culture actually changes around technology — not from the top down, but from someone showing what's possible.

This week, try one thing:

Pick the tool where you waste the most time on manual entry or context-switching. Connect it to your AI. Write one prompt that uses real data from that tool. See what happens.

Then hit reply and tell me which connector you're going to try first. I read every response.

-- Trent

Trent Gillespie is CEO of Stellis AI and a keynote speaker helping business leaders understand and operationalize AI in their companies. He spent almost nine years leading global innovation efforts at Amazon before leaving to help other companies build the capabilities they need to compete. Book Trent to speak to your group or book a call to discuss using AI within your business.

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