Creating my First AI Agent: My Publishing Partner

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Hi, and welcome back to Try AI for Growth. I’m your host, Sara Vicente Barreto, and here I share short, real-life stories of how I’ve been using AI to make my work more focused, efficient, and—sometimes—surprisingly joyful.

I have been away for a while. When I bring new experiments here, I like to bring those that I have tried myself and that I can see how they multiply to different areas of life. And as I took a summer hiatus, there was not much experimentation going on! But today, I am coming back with a blast!

Today’s episode is about an experiment I was eager to try for a while, but I always wondered what the right application would be. I have now built my own ChatGPT agent. And as I finished polishing it, I could already see another 2 or 3 I want to create!

For my first experiment, I built my own AI publishing assistant. A behind-the-scenes partner to help me edit, package, and publish my reflective blog posts on Make Space for Growth—without losing the voice, tone, or care I bring to every post.

Let’s dive into how I built it, what it actually does, and why I think this is one of the most high-leverage tools I’ve created for my content—and sanity.

The Pain Before the Agent

If you’ve been following my work, you know writing is core to how I process, reflect, and share—not just ideas, but questions I’m still sitting with. Whether it’s about deep work, boredom, or the shape of speed, each blog post is personal. I write it from beginning to end, usually in one go, either from a situation lived or from an article that catches my attention to go deeper into a topic. It is actually a very smooth process for me.

But the process of publishing those blogs? Not so smooth. Editing, SEO, formatting, scheduling social media—it started taking more time than the writing itself. I had a system, yes. But it was getting painful. I was using ChatGPT, and the chat just got more and more difficult. I may have put too much info into it, and I kept having to reboot my browser to get anything done. It was one of the reasons I also reduced my writing this summer, because it was getting really cumbersome. I love writing, I didn’t want it to be painful!

So I asked myself: what if this were the right application for me to create an agent? I already had enough repetition that I knew what I wanted to get out of it. So perhaps establishing this workflow formally could make it a better experience for me overall?

Could AI be trained to be my publishing partner? Not just a tool to polish grammar or suggest hashtags—but a true assistant that understands how I write, what tone I use, and the rhythm of my process?

Understanding the next steps

With that in mind, I went out and discussed it with my friend ChatGPT. I asked whether the process that we had in that chat would be applicable for an agent, and that’s when things took shape. ChatGPT immediately created for me the workflow of all the things I usually ask for help so that I could instruct the agent. After a few tweaks and quite a few questions, I was ready to start!

I went into the Explore section of ChatGPT and I created what I now call the Make Space Publishing Partner—an AI agent trained on my exact process. I thought it was cute that it asked me for a name and a logo. I then gave it the workflow I had designed with the help of chatgpt and a few examples. My favourite part? It started asking me questions about my tone, my preferences, the details I wanted in each step. I had a feeling this was going to work.

Building the Agent

What do you need to create your own agent? You need a repeated process and some information so you can train it. First, the process: I started by mapping out each step I go through when I publish a blog. Think about what it can do for you!

• Editorial review – review for typos, unclear sentences, and duplications. But more than that, for places where my arguments are shallow, for areas where I can go deeper and even suggest further research, I can look at
• SEO suggestions – the boring part for me, really. Identify what the SEO key phrase I should be using, making sure I always get 3 suggestions and a pros and cons analysis of each
• Title generation – I always have a starting title, but with the SEO suggestions in mind, it is good to review and consider what the final product should be
• WordPress meta info – the fineprint of WordPress, including what goes in the summaries and so on. Not a place I want to spend any time on
• Image suggestions – I prefer to use images from my library, but I am not always taking pictures. So I ask for 3 recommendations of what could illustrate my point, and if I have something in my own photos, great; if not, the agent can generate an AI image. This was an add-on to my prior process.
• Social Media – Based on my tone, suggest LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook posts and hashtags. Over time, ChatGPT has gotten much better at giving me suggestions that align with my voice and give me some consistency. I also ask for suggestions for T+2 reels and carousels, which is something I have been toying with, and this will give me some ease to explore whether I like the format
• And finally, a short newsletter blurb. I have not published the newsletter in over 6 months, but I thought I might as well give myself a push.

I worked closely with ChatGPT to refine the tone for each step: reflective, authentic, and warm—never salesy or corporate. I asked it to be honest and give critical feedback, as I was not just looking for positive reinforcement. To strengthen the training, I provided a document with my draft blog library of the last 3 years, my list of WordPress tags, as well as 20-30 past social posts, as I usually edit them on Onenote so I have a record of them. As we went through each step, I explained what worked for me in the feedback and what didn’t and provided further examples from my old ChatGPT logs.

The result? A tailored workflow that feels like working with someone who gets me.

Testing it for Real

Then came the moment of truth: running the agent with my latest blog post. Does it work?

The editorial review came back with a strong sense of tone and even reminded me of consistencies in past blogs I hadn’t consciously noticed. It flagged a section that lacked rhythm—and even suggested where I could make parts of my text a highlight quote. I re-edited my blog and gave it back to the agent as my final copy.

With this, the agent gave me SEO key phrase options—explaining the pros and cons of each. This wasn’t just keyword stuffing—it helped me balance visibility with voice. Alongside it, it came back with 3 title options—each with a brief note on tone, intrigue, and SEO fit. I picked one and moved on. At the end of each step, the agent reminds me of the next step and if I am ready for it, in short and practical terms, just as I requested. We then moved on to WordPress metadata, image ideas, social media posts, Instagram reels suggestions and finally the newsletter intro. No browser hangups, no slowness.

I had been delaying this for a while, but it was faster, better, and more fun than I expected. Actually, I did know I was going to love it!

What It Doesn’t Do (Yet)

Of course, it’s not perfect. There are some things on my wish list for now!

• I wish it would send my final copy to my Eleven Labs account to generate the audio version
• I wish it would send my final copy to WordPress as a draft blog and give the first format edits
• I wish it would send the carousel suggestions into Canva directly so I would just edit it there directly!
• Oh, and why not send all the socials as suggested posts into my Buffer account as a draft so I can edit and post there directly?

Lessons Learned

I know, I am wishing for too much, but hey, as it stands, it’s already reduced my publishing time by 1-2 hours. I am trusting it will help me recover consistency, without sacrificing the care I bring to each piece. In reality, it leaves me more time to research and write and fewer worries about putting it out there.

So what did I learn?

✅ Clarity before automation – I had to know my own workflow before teaching it. That time spent documenting it was key!

✅ AI can scale soulfully – When trained well, it doesn’t flatten your voice. It supports it. It was key for me to upload as many past blog posts and social media posts as I could, to ensure it does not go into a different style.

✅ Done is better than perfect – My blog may not always be perfectly SEO’d. But now, it gets shared—on time, with love and much less pain. And by the way, the agent can continue to be improved in creator mode any time you want parts of the process changed or improved.

✅ Consistency matters – Having a structured output across platforms means readers know what to expect—and I spend less energy reinventing the wheel. With an agent, that consistency is much smoother than always having to worry about using the right prompts!

What You Can Try at Home

Having a Publishing Partner was my first experiment. But I can tell you already what I am thinking of – having a podcast editor (for this AI podcast), having a podcast assistant (for the research and outreach for my Make Space for Growth podcast), having a financial analyst (for my charity’s monthly financial reports), and the list goes on!

If you’re a content creator, solo founder, financial analyst, report writer or even just someone who has a process you repeat on a consistent basis and often try to get AI to help:

1. Map your workflow – What steps do you go through every time? What do you give the AI, and what do you want it to do?
2. Define your tone – What words do you avoid? What kind of voice do you want to maintain? Do you want a yes-man or a critical partner?
3. Train an agent – Upload your past writings, reports, and analyses to help AI learn your style
4. Start small – Even having help one step can be a game-changer. You can always add steps later!
5. Don’t fear automation – When done right, it supports your creativity—it doesn’t replace it. And you can audit the model any time!

Wrap-Up Time

If you try to create your own agent after this, be sure to let me know. And reach out if you are debating on how to go about your first experiment, I am always happy to brainstorm!

Thanks for listening to Try AI for Growth. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Try AI for Growth. Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, or share how you’re using AI systematically as an agent. Until next time—keep experimenting, keep growing, and keep having fun!