S2. Ep30 - How to Set Up Claude Properly: Instructions, Memory, Connectors, Skills & Plugins

Katie: Welcome to the AI Automations for Business Podcasts. We're your hosts, Katie and Null, and we'll be discussing how you can use AI for your business along with the latest news, updates and automations to help you stay ahead of the curve, allowing you to grow and scale your business more efficiently. Please be sure to subscribe and I hope you enjoy this episode. Hi, hello, welcome back to another episode. Hi, I'm Katie. And as always, I've got Noel here with me this week. Hi, Noel. How are you doing?

Noel: Yeah, doing great. Thank you. How are you doing?

Katie: Yeah, all good. Thank you. Good. Good.

Noel: Good.

Katie: So, in this part of the podcast, we always start with any updates in the AI or automation world. Sometimes we've done a whole podcast episode on just new updates. Sometimes we talk for a couple of minutes. What are the updates looking like this week, Noel?

Noel: Not as bad as last week. Last week there was a lot, wasn't there? So this week, not so bad. But it's still lots of things to talk about. So I guess the first one is OpenAI. They decided to cut the prices for their terror and lunar models on their 5.6 models. on the API. So if you're using them in your automations or using them via the API, then the cost for your token usage has been slashed. And not just by a little bit either. So the Terra model, which is, if you're unfamiliar with the Chachapit models, they run in from Seoul, Terra and Luna. So Sol being the most powerful, Luna being the not so powerful. So Terra is in the middle, and that got cut by 20%, which is pretty good.

Katie: Do we know why they've done this? Is it for?

Noel: I think they've done it to kind of what's been going on with AI costs and us recently. I think they're trying to market themselves as something that's maybe a little bit cheaper. They're a bit more competitive when it comes to the API usage because they'd rather you were spending it with them than someone else, I guess. And also, they've probably got a lot more data centers than they definitely have compared to Anthropics. So, yeah, they're able to use that as well. But the other model, Luna, now that got slashed by 80%. So it was already the cheapest model. So now it's ridiculously cheap in terms of any others, which is, yeah. So they always measure the cost buyer per million tokens. So your input cost is 20 cents per one million, and then your output is $1.20 per million tokens. So that is super duper cheap. So yeah, if you're looking to save some costs and you don't need super duper, you know, frontier model level intelligence, then yeah, I would probably switch that into your automations and test that out.

Katie: Very good. Yeah.

Noel: Also something that we kind of skipped over, I think, last week. I don't think we covered it, but Gemini, they sneakly released a new model. It's not, it's nothing amazing. It's not groundbreaking. But what they were doing is they were targeting the lower end of the spectrum, so, and basically looking for something that was faster and cheaper. Now, they did have the faster and cheaper title until Open AI changed their prices. So, so, yeah, unfortunately, yeah, now is more expensive than the lunar model. So it's kind of on that lunar model level. So that one is Gemini 3.6 Flash. So, yeah, still pretty good. It kind of sits around the Sonnet sort of level. And, yeah, compared to prices for Sonnet 5, Gemini 3.6 is half the price. So, worth considering.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: The last bit of news is something also we covered last week as well, where Open AI admitted to one of their cyber models going rogue and then hacking into a few websites online to help it finish a task when it shouldn't have been able to.

Katie: I remember this well. Yeah. Yeah, not ideal.

Noel: but Anthropic for the, you know, just for the completeness, decided to do a full review of all of their tests. So they've done over 141,000 tests, and they found just three instances where their models also broke out and hacked into other websites. So, yeah, I think they were just doing that for transparency, more than anything, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, still worrying that they can break out, but they are clever. of these models these days. So, yeah.

Katie: Interesting.

Noel: Yeah, it is, yeah. I guess it's only going to get worse, to be honest. If they, the smarter they get, the better they'll be at breaking out of enclosed sandboxes, which these were in. Yeah.

Katie: Very interesting. Okay, so we'll watch this space then for that sort of updates and news, I think. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Noel: And the last bit of news is some news for us, really. So I've been working with Gen.A.I. Dotworks. We're the biggest AI community, online community. And, yeah, I'll seem to be an instructor for them in a few weeks, hopefully. So, yeah, I'll be putting the links in the description of the podcast. So you can check them out. They'll be coming soon. and, yeah, hopefully within a week or so. So, yeah, I guess the first course I've done is on Clyde. So you'll learn everything about Clyde. And I also did an extra little bonus bit in one of the modules. So I showed basically Clyde working with your Gmail account and then basically assessing your emails and then adding you clients and things into HubSpot. So that was all done within, you know, a couple of minutes. So, yeah, quite interesting. And, yeah, the other course will be on make.com. Of course it would be.

Katie: Of course it would be.

Noel: So, yeah, we'll go through five different business cases and things out and then show how to build those step by steps. Yeah.

Katie: Well, congratulations, Noel.

Noel: And yeah, be sure to

Katie: put those links in the show notes, but it's Gen A.I.

Noel: It is, yes.

Katie: Okay, people want to go and check it out. If you haven't checked it out, if you've never heard of it. Very large platform with lots and lots of AI courses. And what I particularly like about this platform is that just not anyone can upload courses to it, like places like EUDOMI. It's, you know, you have to be invited to be an instructor and actually, you know, even when you create a course, there's lots of really strict guidelines. So, yeah, you just know that. it's going to be like a high standard of information and the course itself. So, yeah, looking forward to saying it on there, Noel.

Noel: Yeah, so am I. Hopefully not long.

Katie: Okay, so this week we are talking about how to set up your clawed LLM in the best possible way. So we've got a couple of questions, actually, from different people. And it was kind of like, how do I set up Claude in the best possible way? So, you know, not only am I going to be able to get the most out of it, but also, you know, that I know that I'm using it in the correct way. And I don't know about you, not all, but I wouldn't say there's a wrong or right way, but there's a productive way and maybe like a less productive way of using Claude or any LLM?

Noel: Yeah, I think, yeah, there's definitely, you can just get started, you can just start firing questions at it and it, you know, that's fine. But I would say, yeah, there is benefits from going off having a little thing about, you know, been a bit more strategic, I guess, with how you set up the account. So, yeah, it will make your interactions in the future a lot easier going forward. So, yeah, but this is always changing. So I would caveat all of this episode with this is as of August 26. You know, there's likely stuff going to change because some of these features weren't in here last year. They definitely weren't.

Katie: No, no. That's the thing with AI as, you know, we always talk about on this podcast things can just change so quickly in you know not months or years it's a matter of days and weeks with AI and automation world someone brings out something new and it just changes everything or yeah it's it's a lot so that's why we always do the update at the beginning of the podcast that you know we're we're not kind of like just sharing the news, it's important that actually, if you're interested in AI and automations for your business, then actually you are kept up to date. And, you know, we're not interested in things like, you know, if I was talking in terms of like social media, it would be like appeasing the algorithm. You know, we just want to make sure that you're using your AI and your automations in the most productive and easiest way for you and your business. Because obviously, we're using AI and automations to save time.

Noel: Yep.

Katie: So you don't want to be doing anything that's outdated?

Noel: No, no, definitely not. Yeah. I guess every update that they do bring out does add that level of, you know, making you more productive. I don't think they've released anything yet that would be seen as a better waste of time. So, yeah, it's always worth constantly evaluating, I would say. So, yeah, we could set it up today. But, yeah, in six months' time, maybe have a look, triple check. You know, everything's still relevant, I guess. Make sure there's no new tools and things out. That could help you even more.

Katie: Yeah, I think so. Okay.

Noel: So we've Claude.

Katie: We're going in with Claude because that's what we know best. So you, someone's, let's say, got an account, they've maybe had a look around it, they've seen that there are skills and plugins and connectors and all of the things, but they want to make sure that they are using it in the best possible way. Where are we starting?

Noel: So I wouldn't start with any of those to start with. The very, very first thing we need to do is within the account settings in the general section are the instructions for Claude. So this is kind of like a free text box you can put in as much as you wish in there. But basically it gives you the option to teach Claude a bit about you, maybe what your aims are, maybe put in a bit about your business, what kind of products you sell or services and things that. that's kind of the place to start really personalising your Claude experience. And yet, I would say you would get far more better things out of it. So one of the things you could also put in here is if you're sick and tired of reading really, really long responses from Claude or any AI, you can put in there. Just give me the key points. Like, don't go crazy. Yeah.

Katie: I don't need the essay. Exactly. Be concise.

Noel: So, yeah, you can preload that in there. And yeah, that was, you know, make your experience using Claude 10 times better. Just from that one thing.

Katie: I totally agree with you on that one. And I think it's something that a lot of people don't even realize it's there.

Noel: Yes.

Katie: And yeah, it just makes a huge difference. And I feel like you're not having to repeat yourself so much because it all. already knows you, it knows your business, it knows like maybe you could put in your business goals or, you know, anything that you feel is relevant and important for Claude to know for helping you with, you know, answers, I guess. Yes, definitely, yeah.

Noel: There is actually another thing, which I'll mention now, it's not really a setting as such, but it's the way that the memories work within Claude. So I remember we did this maybe a few months ago. And I'm looking at it now and it's changed again since. So before it used to create like almost like a mini document about how, what you were up to, what you were talking about and things like that. So now it kind of breaks it into different sections. So I'm looking at mine now and I've got a section on Clyde. I've got one on the Gen AI Academy where I've been. chatting about the courses. I've got other things that are going on in there. It's even got hobbies in there. I hate to think what it's got on there. So it uses those memories as kind of like a point of reference. So you could be having a conversation in six months' time that's relevant and it's saved it in that memory bank and it can basically go off, gather that information and make the response more personalized to you. I believe you can't actually edit the memories. No, I don't believe you can, looking at it right now, but you can delete memories as well if you don't want it to remember.

Katie: You can actually say to it as well, like you can actually go in and type, like, you know, forget this memory or this isn't relevant to my business anymore. So, yeah, that I've had to go in and do that, I had a memory that it was getting confused with, that wasn't part of my business, and I was like, no, like, this is not relevant at all. Like, you're getting a hobby and a business, like, mixed up.

Noel: Yes, exactly. It does, it can do that, yeah, sometimes. So I find that myself. But if you kind of want to protect yourself a little bit from getting confused, because this is something it does automatically, is when you start a new chat, you'll see a little ghost icon in the top right, whether that's on the desktop, mobile, whatever. And basically that opens it in like an incognito mode. So anything that you chat about in there won't be saved in a chat history. It won't remember in the memories. So if you're just like, you know, I just want to, you know, talk through something. Could be business related as well. It doesn't have to be some sort of unhinged question or anything like that. But, you know, you could have that conversation in there and they go, right, okay, that was helpful. And then maybe, you know, start that conversation again outside of incognite to a moment, you know. So, yeah, it kind of protects, you know, your memories and you don't get polluted with all sorts of stuff that you don't want to remember, really.

Katie: Yeah, okay, that's a really good tip, really helpful. Yeah.

Noel: Yeah, and I guess the next thing to maybe go. on after the instructions of memories is it's kind of like, I think you probably need to take a step back from Claude and then have a look at the different applications that you use on a daily, weekly basis. And, you know, maybe assess like which ones are those do you want to connect into Claude, maybe which ones don't you want to put in. And once you've decided that, then maybe then go and have a look at the connectors within Claude. And these are incredible. They're really good. So you could connect your Slack in there or a database. So every time you start talking about it and say, oh, well, what's going on on Slack today is there any if I need to be aware of? It can go off, have a look at your account and then go, well, actually, yeah, there's, you've been tagged in these sort of conversations or maybe you haven't followed up with this person like they asked or whatever, you know, and it will bring all that information out for you. So that's incredibly helpful. but yeah it can do all kinds of different things there's loads and loads of apps within the kind of got like a marketplace of sorts so you can put in like you know things like Gmail Google Drive even got things like a Saan a HubSpot so there's a lot of like the big tools that most people would be using are already in there and to connect it all you've got to do is hit a plus button and then it take you through like the pro to log in. And that's it. That's all you need to do. Really easy to set up. And you can also create your own custom connects as well. I won't get into how that works. But, you know, if you do have an application that has like an MCP server, which is a way to connect your application into Claude, then you can add the in as well. So I have one for Clyde, for example.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: Yeah. But yeah, really, really, really awesome. and how they work. So once you've figured that out and got those connected, I would obviously do a quick test just to make sure it's got the right stuff. You can also set permissions as well. So they have like these little things where you can have like the tool permissions. So within each application that you connect, there'll be several tools. Some of the big ones like HubSpot will have many, many, many tools. There's lots, lots of different things that the AI can do for you. And basically, the permissions allows you to either allow it. So I don't care. You can use that tool regardless, go crazy. There's also then the option to, you need to ask me for permission before you do this action, or you're not allowed to do it whatsoever. Do not use that tool, which is fair enough. So there could be things like in Gmail, like I don't want you to send an email without be authorising it or rather send an email, you know.

Katie: That's quite

Noel: an important one.

Katie: Exactly, yeah.

Noel: Yeah, very important. So yeah, those are connectors. Yeah, very, very helpful. The next biggest helpful thing is skills. And the way I would describe skills are pretty much like a instruction manual for whatever task or process that you want to run or do in Claude. So, you know, you could say to Claude, look, you know, this is, I've connected in my HubSpot. This is actually the process that I follow to, you know, go through and research clients or go through and, you know, score leads or whatever. So you could teach it that within a skill. and if you ask Claude to create a skill based on that, it would then do all of the hard work for you. It would go off, it will create what they call the skill document, and every time you start a chat and say, well, I need to go off and qualify this lead, it will go, well, I'll get the lead qualification skill. I'll read that first, and they will go off and do the task for you. Also with skills, like we mentioned last week, they also have the record a skill. So you could be screen sharing and then taking the AI through like a video screen share and showing you where they click and all that different sort of thing. And say, well, this is where I want the data to go. And it can go off and then create a skill file based off of that as well, which is pretty awesome to see. Makes it a lot easier. When you're typing, you always forget stuff. I always do. So, you know, you end up waiting a couple of things. of minutes for a skill file to be creating and you go, oh, no, I know.

Katie: I forgot the

Noel: middle step, you know, which isn't particularly helpful. Yeah. But at least, at least with that way, you've got a way of showing it. And it will control your browser as well. So if you're wanting to do stuff within the browser, it will remember where those clicks are and it will be able to do it. It's very, very slow, but it's only going to get faster in the future. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, which is pretty awesome. Um, yeah, and I guess while we're setting up those sort of things, there's also things called plugins. Now, I don't think many people really use plugins. I've never really seen it on YouTube, you know, whether, with anyone really using it. They always use connectors and skills. Uh, but plugins is kind of different. Uh, and basically it's, it's like a group of skills and connections all in one plugin file, basically, which is kind of helpful. So they've got loads in there within like a library. So if you go on, I believe it's clod.com forward slash plugins, that's kind of like their online, you know, a marketplace so you can go through and have a look what's available. There's lots more on there than what there is within the Claude app. But yeah, you can browse them on the app. show you which ones have been created by Anthropic, which ones are partner ones, things like that. But I installed the marketing plugin earlier and basically that gives you eight different skills. So you've got like SEO audits, brand review, campaign plan. So there's all pre-built for you and then there's 13 connectors to go with it. So it's got like Slack, Canva, Figma, HubSpot and loads of other different things. You've got a HRF for your SEO, so you can go off and get live SEO data.

Katie: Do you like that? Yeah.

Noel: And all the instructions are all built in within that plugin, which is pretty awesome. Yeah. Yeah, so if you don't want to create skills and then create and then have all the connections, then yeah, this is kind of a cheap way of doing them both at the same time.

Katie: Yeah. Do you know why most people aren't using this?

Noel: I just never see anybody talking about it. I mean, they probably are. I mean, I'm looking at the anthropic ones at the moment. They're looking at about 1.2 to 2 million downloads, which I think of the grand scheme of things, isn't actually that many?

Katie: No, it's pretty low, isn't it? It's seen as how many active monthly users there are.

Noel: Yeah.

Katie: Do you think it's just one of these underrated...

Noel: Yeah, I think so, yeah.

Katie: Within Claude.

Noel: Mm, definitely, yeah.

Katie: And because there aren't many people talking about, it, then more people aren't finding it.

Noel: Yeah. I mean, there was, on my YouTube, my YouTube's absolutely cramful of AI stuff, as you can probably imagine. I can imagine. So, yeah, this sort of thing comes out and they go, oh, this is amazing. And then, you know, that's it. It's gone within a week. Yeah.

Katie: Yeah. I do find, though, a lot of the AI YouTube videos and this isn't me talking trash, is that they kind of, want to cover the latest and newest thing, which I get, I understand. But sometime, actually, if people are, you know, only come into AI and automations now, actually it's going to be really helpful to have more details on, like, one platform, whether it's Claude, it's ChatGPT, or if it's something like Make.com.

Noel: Exactly, yeah, yeah. I always find it better looking at YouTube and then find, like, after the hype cycle's gone for a particular plugin, there'll be somebody who will do a video, go, have I got this, this new feature that I've just found? And it's like, well, that was probably four months old. But I'd rather listen to what you say about it because, you know, you're getting into more detail and not just being like, this is incredible moving on.

Katie: Yeah. Yeah,

Noel: I do find as well,

Katie: everything is like, yeah, it's the best thing ever. And I know it's great to get excited about some things, but sometimes new, you know, new things are great and they are exciting, but actually they're not going to be like life-changing when it comes to using AI or automations.

Noel: No, no,

Katie: definitely not. But it gets like that, though, as well, like with social media. And, of course, I refer back to things on social media because that is my background. But there would be hype about, you know, these new little updates or, like, new tools within, like, Instagram or Facebook. And people would get really excited at first and then, like, it would really die down. And I think it causes quite a lot of anxiety and a lot of phomomot. people thinking that they're getting left behind and actually some of these things really don't matter at all but yeah I guess like the differences with AI it's actually just making you more productive and saving you more time which is really important but it's always like don't don't always believe the hype

Noel: no no I always give it a week or so before I even implement anything unless it's something i instantly see value in then i'll go off and add it in but other than that yeah i just yeah let let it die down a bit and then assess it sometimes it can be you know it can save you time it can be better other times you're just like well i just rather like doing it way i'm doing it so i'm just going to stick stick with it both are fine yeah but on the on the social media side, I remember there was that platform called Periscope, wasn't it, that everyone went mental about. My goodness.

Katie: Like, yes. And there was one that was very similar called Meerkat. So you're either on Meerkat or you were on Periscope. And yeah, it was, so it was like, for those of you who never used it, it was almost like the same format as TikTok but everyone was live so there were no posts like there was no photos from this is what I remember because we're talking like over 10 years ago that Periscope was about but it was just like a feed of everyone going live and you followed people and you would get like notification when they went live and yeah and it was It wasn't just business owners. It was like I can remember I used to follow this guy. Did I follow him or did he just come up on my algorithm? Whatever. And he had an apartment in New York and his view was looking at the Empire State Building. And at a certain time, I think it was midnight. Again, forgive me, it was a long time ago that I used to watch these videos. That they're like, Empire State Building. high light buildings you know like at the very top would change colour so he would always be like out on his balcony or terrace whatever it was at like midnight doing a live periscope ready for like the empire state buildings to like to change and you know sometimes they put on different colours for you know different events and you know things like that so yeah and then he had like just this a mass following and he would just be chatting to people but his his camera was never on him it was always at like the empire stoke building i mean madness madness i absolutely love it and i think that's probably why i love ticot so much because it's just like anything goes it's just the most random and sometimes unhinged content as well as like really sensible content

Noel: exactly yeah but i think like with AI and i guess also periscope is kind of like there was that massive hype everyone jumped on my instagram and whatever to to get on this platform and then we're just like they just died away so like with AI you could jump on that height train and then just end up slowly veering back and go actually i'll just go back to yeah to the lane i was already in you know i

Katie: feel like there are platforms like that that do that all the time. There's new platforms that come out, everyone gets really excited, everyone jumps over. And the thing is, as well, like, if people don't enjoy the platform, then they all just migrate back to, like, where they, where they were before and that.

Noel: So, yeah,

Katie: really interesting. People's behaviour in psychology, love it.

Noel: Yeah, absolutely.

Katie: Yeah. But we do hope that this podcast is helped you with setting up your Clause account. If you've got any questions, please either email us hello at makeautomations.aI or come and join our free LinkedIn group, AI Automations for business. It's completely free to join. You can come and ask questions, tell us what you're up to, what you're building, how you're using AI. We absolutely love to hear it. Or if you've got a question for the podcast. Again, please send us an email or drop it in their free LinkedIn group. But thank you so, so much for listening and we will catch you next time for another episode very soon.