Following AI news has become a full-time job.
Every day thereās something new. A workflow someone swears saved them 10+ hours. A tool that looks fun enough to try over lunch. Some of it is useful. A lot of it is just novelty, and itās hard to tell which is which when it all shows up in across my main information feed: X, Newsletter, and Youtube Channels. All of them feels like game-changing.
As a result, a constant feeling of lagging behind is the default state of my conscious mind as an AI curator for my readers :)
If Iām not careful, I end up running around like a headless chicken. I open a new tool in the morning, switch to another one by the afternoon, and by the end of the week nothingās changingāmy actual work looks exactly the same as it did on Monday.
So Iāve been using one filter: does this thing change the return on my work? Does it save me time I can measure, help me ship something I couldnāt before, or eventually make me money? If I canāt answer yes to at least one of those, it goes on the āinteresting, laterā pile.
Then last week, OpenAIās DevDay gave me one thing that passed the filter: plugins. ChatGPT can now suggest a plugin in the middle of a conversation, and thereās a directory where people can browse them. Claude has been moving the same way: plugins now come with every paid Claude plan and work across chat, Cowork, and Claude Code.
Greg Isenberg put the builderās version of this bluntly two days after DevDay:
His point is about distribution. ChatGPT reports 1.2 billion weekly users. If you are a builder or have something people can use, you want to make sure your product can be accessed through ChatGPT or Claude, because that gives you an unfair advantage in distribution.
But I read that from a slightly different seat. Iām not trying to build an appāat least not at this moment; Iām planning to. The thing is I write a newsletter where every week I hand you a workflow, a skill, a prompt, or a system, and then you have to rebuild it yourself in your own chat. A plugin changes that. The skills I use can live inside the AI you already open every dayāChatGPT or Claudeāand when I find a better way to do something, the plugin gets the update instead of you having to download and upload a new version.
So I built one. Itās called Maker Labs, and starting today itās part of AI Maker Lab.
What a plugin actually is
Before I explain why I built it, letās first explore what the plugin actually is.
A plugin is a package you add to ChatGPT or Claude once. After that, everything inside it is available in your chats, so you donāt have to set it up again every time you start a new conversation.
Most plugins carry some mix of three things:
Skills: written instructions that teach the AI how to handle one specific job, usually with examples and checks so it knows what a good result looks like.
Connectors: access to apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, Slack, Zoom, or Notion, so the AI can read and write in the apps you use every day.
Interactive pieces: some plugins also add controls inside the chat itself. Adobeās plugin in ChatGPT, for example, now lets you edit images and PDFs right in the conversation.
Another example of an interactive piece is MagicPath, which allows ChatGPT users to use their apps to design websites directly inside ChatGPT through an extension. See this as an example:
Plugins is also easy to use. You just need to mention the pluginās name and ask what it can do for you based on your request. Weāll get into how to use it in a second.
If youāve built a custom GPT before, this is where those are heading too. OpenAI plans to retire custom GPTs on December 11, 2026, and migration provides a path to turn a GPTās instructions into a skill inside a plugin.
Why I build ChatGPT/Claude plugins for Maker Labs member
Now, let me explain why I built it.
If youāve been an AI Maker Lab member for a while, youāve seen me share a lot of skills. A skill is a set of written instructions that teaches the AI how to handle one specific job, usually with examples and checks so it knows what a good result looks like. Iāve shared skills for writing, researching, making decisions, and turning one piece into content for other channels. You can access all of them on my Perks page.
The problem is theyāre scattered. Every skill lives in a different post, so you have to find it and install it one by one. And when I improve a skill later, you donāt get that update. The version you installed stays exactly how it was the day you set it up.
A plugin fixes both of those. Itās a single bundle you install once, and it brings every skill with it. My plugins also connect to apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, Granola, Zoom, Notion, OpenSEO, etc., so your AI agent can read and write in those apps.
After that, you just use it. You call a skill by name (in Claude, you can also type ā/ā and pick it from the list), hand it your draft, your notes, or the decision you keep going back and forth on, and it works through the job the way the skill lays out. Whether youāre writing, researching, or creating content, the skills are already in the chat you have open. You donāt need to dig through my archive to find the right one anymore.
And when I update a skill, you update the plugin and get the new version. Thatās what I like most about plugins.
It also changes what Maker Labs is going to be š„
From now on, the plugin is the one place where the assets I share with you end up. When I write about a new workflow, the skill behind it goes into the plugin. When I find a connector worth using, it goes in too. Anything I find interesting and useful enough to keep, Iāll add there and keep updating.
So think of it as a place you come back to. Every skill or connector I add after that is one more thing you can use without hunting for it, which means the plugin you install today gets more useful the longer youāre a member.
One thing I want to be clear about, though. The in-chat suggestions from DevDay donāt go to every plugin. OpenAI decides which plugins to feature based on how much theyāre used and how satisfied people are with them, and developers canāt apply for it. So Maker Labs wonāt pop up in a random strangerās ChatGPT conversation, and it isnāt meant to. I built it for AI Maker Lab members, and youāll install it from the link in this post.
And I also want you to know this is the first version of Maker Labs plugins. Iām currently building an app that can turn into an extension you can use in the future. Stay tuned for further updates!
Hereās what one Plugins skill looks like in practice
Let me show you one plugins skill working. Iāll use LinkedIn Carousel Generator, because it generates a visual output that you can post on your LinkedIn account.
You start by giving it something to work from. That can be a draft, a published post, meeting notes, a transcript, or a link. For this example, I gave it my past archive about Skills to help me generate them into a multi carousel slides I can publish on my LinkedIn account.
The first time you use it, you can simply say that you want to generate a LinkedIn Carousel. It then asks five setup questions in one message: your name, your publication, a one-line positioning, a photo or logo, and it also asks which of the nine LinkedIn templates you want. It saves those answers so you donāt have to give them again. After that, each new carousel only asks which template and which image to use this time.
Then you can share your sources: article, notes, draft, or topic you want, and the skill will help you pick one angle. A long post usually generates a few carousels (in my case, it was nine slides). Before it builds anything, it shows you the outline: each slide in a line or two.
Once you say yes, it builds the slides as an HTML preview at LinkedInās 1080 x 1350 size and checks every slide for text that gets cut off. You review the preview and ask for changes the way youād ask a person: āshorten the headline on slide 3,ā āmake it seven slides,ā āswitch to brutalist-mono.ā
Only after you approve the preview does it export a PDF you can upload to LinkedIn as a document, plus a PNG of each slide. One caveat: the automatic export needs Node and a Chromium browser wherever the skill is running. When those arenāt available, you get the HTML file and save it as a PDF from Chrome yourself.
If you use the ChatGPT or Claude desktop apps, youāll see the result on the right side of the screen when the built-in browser appears:
Thatās 1 skill out of 16 Iāve created for you!
Weāll dive into the rest of the skills in this post.
Whatās inside Maker Labs Plugins
Here are 16 skills in the version youāre getting today (v0.1.23), grouped by the kind of work they help with.
For writing
Brain Dump to Content: paste your messy notes, pick an angle, and get a writing brief built from your own material and voice.
Interview to Draft: get interviewed about something you actually did, then get a draft grounded in that experience.
Draft Review Panel: get 3-5 subagents to review your draftās audience, purpose, and format, and give recommendations to fix it without rewriting your draft.
Anti-Slop: catch the patterns that make writing sound AI-generated and fix them without flattening your voice.
Voice Builder: turn your own writing (and, if you want, your own words from meeting and dictation transcripts) into a VOICE.md file you can hand any AI so its drafts sound like you.
For ideas and research
Inverse Ideation: find an angle on a topic that most people arenāt already taking.
News Digest: get a source-linked briefing on any topic, covering the last 48 hours by default and using whatever search your chat has.
Competitor Analysis: compare competitors and alternatives for a specific business decision, with dated sources, pricing caveats, and the unknowns spelled out.
SEO Brief: give it a topic, keyword, draft, or page and get a sourced call on whether to create something new, update what you have, or reconsider the idea, plus a writing plan with metadata and internal links.
For content and design
Social Repurposer: turn one piece into posts for different channels (LinkedIn, X, & Substack), and save them to Notion when you ask.
LinkedIn Carousel: the one you just saw, turning a post, notes, or a transcript into slides with nine templates.
DESIGN.md Builder: turn your brand references into a reusable design guide you can hand your AI before any visual work.
For decisions and planning
Strategic Decision Framework: compare business options against your evidence and constraints through 10 different lenses, and end with a next step you can measure.
Visual Plan Builder: turn a plan into a single HTML page with the assumptions, options, risks, and success checks laid out.
For meetings and your workday
Meeting Decisions: pull your existing meeting transcripts or notes, find what was actually decided and who owns what, and track how those decisions changed across meetings, with links back to the source.
Daily Work Brief: start the day with a read of your email and calendar (and Slack, if you connect it), a recommended first action, and prep for todayās meetings. It only reads. It never sends, books, or changes anything.
The skills can also connect to the apps your work already lives in: Gmail, Google Calendar, Notion, Slack, Zoom, Granola, and Wispr Flow, plus OpenSEO for keyword and search research. Every connection is optional. You connect only the apps you use, and the skills still work when you paste in or upload your material instead.
What weāre setting up from here
The rest of this post gets all of that working in your own chat:
The Maker Labs plugin (v0.1.23) and how to get it.
A step-by-step install guide for ChatGPT, from install to your first skill run.
A step-by-step install guide for Claude, with the same first test so you can compare the two.
A when-to-use guide for every skill: what to paste in, what good output looks like, and one sign it went wrong.
How updates work: how to get each new version on both platforms, and how to ask me for a skill you want.
Once you have installed them, simply describe the task you want to do, and the plugins will direct you to the right tools to complete it.
One thing you need to know is that each app connection uses your own account and never sends, publishes, or changes anything on its own. OpenSEO needs its own account, and its research can use up your OpenSEO credits. Meeting Decisions can only read transcripts that already exist, so your Zoom, Granola, or Wispr Flow setup has to be capturing them.
Letās get it installed.
