Tag: AI Tools

Claude Skills
Try AI for Growth

What If Claude Could Remember How You Work?

What if, instead of repeatedly explaining how you want something done, you could teach Claude the process once?

In this episode of Try AI for Growth, I explore Claude Skills after realising how much time I was spending repeating processes I had already worked through with AI. I had developed my own workaround: “Playbooks” inside Excel files that told Claude exactly how to complete recurring accounting reconciliations. They worked — but the knowledge stayed trapped inside individual workbooks.

So I experimented with turning one of those nine-step processes into a Claude Skill.

That experiment made me think beyond my own accounting. From recurring reports and presentation guidelines to review checklists and team processes, Skills offer an interesting way to capture not just information, but how we actually get things done.

And for organisations, that raises an even bigger question: how much valuable knowledge is currently sitting in someone’s head, an unread document — or a very good AI conversation from six months ago?

Investment Guide for Kids with AI
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Building an Investment Guide for My 9-Year-Old

When my nine-year-old son received a cash gift to buy his first shares, I thought the challenge would be choosing the right company. Instead, it became an unexpected AI experiment in designing a learning experience. Rather than telling him what to invest in, I wanted to help him understand how businesses work and how investors think.
In this episode of Try AI for Growth, I share how a simple ChatGPT conversation evolved into a printable investing guide, a company rating framework and a series of child-friendly company profiles—all through continuous iteration. Along the way, I explore why AI is at its best when it helps us refine ideas, build reusable systems and think more deeply about the problems we’re trying to solve. Whether you’re creating learning materials, developing a business framework or simply looking for a better way to brainstorm, this episode is a reminder that AI can amplify your thinking, not replace it.

Claude for Word - Photo by Tiger Lily
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The Best Reports Start as Messy Notes

What if your best client reports already exist—you just haven’t assembled them yet?

In this episode of Try AI for Growth, Sara Vicente Barreto shares how she used Claude for Word to transform rough working notes into polished, professional client progress reports. Instead of spending hours rewriting, formatting and structuring information, she uploaded her project mandate alongside her weekly notes and asked Claude to create the first draft.

The result wasn’t simply better writing. It was a repeatable workflow that allowed her to focus on what mattered most: the quality of her thinking and advice. By keeping good notes throughout the week and letting AI handle much of the structure and presentation, she created consistent, client-ready reports in a fraction of the usual time.

If you’re a business leader, consultant or entrepreneur looking for practical ways to use AI in your daily work, this episode demonstrates how AI can remove friction from routine documentation without replacing your expertise or judgement.

AI Agents for Revenue
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Building an AI Agent for Real Team Work

Can AI agents help businesses identify opportunities faster and more strategically?

In this episode of Try AI for Growth, Sara Vicente Barreto shares how she built an AI Grant Scout agent for her charity, Um Pequeno Gesto — and why the lessons extend far beyond fundraising.

What started as a grant research experiment evolved into a structured AI workflow designed to scan opportunities, prioritise fit, support decision-making and guide action. Along the way, Sara explores how AI agents can support commercial teams looking for partnerships, funding opportunities, leads or strategic relationships.

The episode also goes behind the scenes of what it actually takes to build a useful AI workflow: creating rules, designing scoring systems, structuring instructions, developing team processes and refining outputs over time.

Rather than treating AI as a one-off prompt tool, this episode explores how leaders can start thinking about AI agents as operational support systems for real business workflows.

Claude for Powerpoint, Photo by Markus Winkler - Pexels Photo
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What Happens When You Let Claude Loose on Your Pitch Deck

In this episode of Try AI for Growth, Sara Vicente Barreto shares how a moment of complete creative paralysis at a workshop led to her first experience building apps with Lovable. From redesigning field data collection workflows at the charity to creating spelling and football apps with her son in under ten minutes, this episode explores how AI-powered app building is changing the relationship between ideas and execution — even for non-coders.

My First Lovable Experiment
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From Blank to App: My First Lovable Experiment

In this episode of Try AI for Growth, Sara Vicente Barreto shares how a moment of complete creative paralysis at a workshop led to her first experience building apps with Lovable. From redesigning field data collection workflows at the charity to creating spelling and football apps with her son in under ten minutes, this episode explores how AI-powered app building is changing the relationship between ideas and execution — even for non-coders.

Dual monitors showing sales dashboard on left and AI chat conversation on right
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Claude for Excel: The AI That Made Me Question My First Job

In this episode, Sara Vicente Barreto explores how Claude for Excel—an AI tool embedded directly into spreadsheets—goes beyond productivity gains. From fixing complex models to building full dashboards, it compresses hours of analyst work into minutes. But more importantly, it raises a bigger question: if AI can now do the work that once helped us learn, how do entry-level roles evolve?

Excel automation with AI
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Automating Without Breaking What Works (Excel, AI & Small Wins)

In this episode of Try AI for Growth, Sara Vicente Barreto shares how a small experiment with AI and Excel macros led to a deeper reflection on automation. Starting with a simple but repetitive accounting task, she explores how automation can add memory, reduce cognitive load, and support decision-making — without breaking systems that already work. A grounded, practical story for business owners curious about where to start with automation.