I Want to Help You Vibe Code a Comms Tool

Happy Wednesday! On deck for today:

Let’s get started!

Something happened a few months ago that I'm still thinking about.

One of my early consultancy clients wanted to do an audit of how their brand was appearing across ChatGPT, Claude, and Google Gemini. There are a lot of SaaS solutions out there, but those are expensive. I can do an audit manually, but that takes a lot of time. I was deep in learning about GEO, generative engine optimization, and I wanted to be able to run my own quick audits without switching tabs a dozen times and trying to hold everything in my head at once. I didn’t have a good solution, and it was frustrating.

So I built one.

I want to be careful here, because I'm not telling you that to sound impressive. The tool is not impressive. It's functional and it does what I need it to do — and the client was very happy with the report, which is what ultimately matters. But I’m not really here to talk about the tool. I keep thinking about three words: “I built it.”

I've spent most of my career in communications. I'm not a developer. I'm not an engineer. I went to law school before I went into corporate communications, which tells you something about the career path I thought I was on. At some point along the way — and I'm genuinely not sure when — I started being described as the "tech person" on whatever communications team I was part of. Not because I had training in it. Because I was curious about it, and I didn't assume it was someone else's job.

That's a pretty small thing. It sounds almost too simple to be worth saying. But I think it's actually the whole story.

There's a version of AI adoption in communications that goes like this:

That version is playing out at a lot of organizations right now, and I understand why. There are real security concerns. There are real risk questions, and frankly, at larger organizations, that's probably the right way to do it.

But there's a version of that caution that tips over into something else — a kind of learned helplessness where technology gets treated as something that happens to the communications function, not something it can participate in shaping. That’s a huge mistake, both for our companies and for ourselves.

Vibe coding is a term coined by AI researcher Andrej Karpathy to describe a new way of building software: you describe what you want in plain English, and an AI coding assistant writes the code for you. You don't need to know what CSS is. You don't need to understand what an API does. You just need to know what problem you're trying to solve. Tools like Claude Code, Lovable, Base44, and Codex handle the rest. For the first time, building is something people like us can actually do.

I don't know what tool you need. But I'd be willing to bet there's something — some piece of your work that is repetitive, or slow, or requires toggling between eight things that should really just be one thing. I'd be willing to bet you've noticed it. And I'd also bet you've filed it under "that's a technology problem" and moved on.

Maybe it isn't, though. Maybe it's just a regular, non-technical problem — and maybe you're closer to solving it than you think.

Next week, I’m going to prove it. Details below.

Next Wednesday, May 27, at 1 PM ET, I’m hosting my first webinar. I’ll walk you through how to build a simple but genuinely useful web-based app that takes a press release, holding statement, internal memo, whatever — and gives you feedback on how to make it better. You'll use Claude Code to build it — and the tool itself will analyze your draft and give you feedback, powered by Claude. I hope you’ll join me.

All I ask is that you have Claude Code set up beforehand. It’s easy to do, and if you get stuck, no worries — Claude itself can walk you through it. Here's what you'll need to participate:

One more thing: you'll need an API key, but we'll set that up together during the webinar. To save time, create a free account at https://platform.claude.com/ and add a few dollars ($5 should be plenty) beforehand.

Ready to build? Sign up here. I’ll see you there!

ChatGPT is a superpower if you know how to use it correctly.

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Learn to automate tasks, enhance decision-making, and foster innovation with the power of AI.

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AI adoption is critical for communications teams — and I’m on a mission to help you get there. Let’s work together to get your team moving — or moving faster.

📅 A strategy call. Whether you're trying to build systematic AI adoption across your team or focused on AI search visibility for your brand or organization, I’m here to help. Learn more and book an intro call.

🎓 Self-paced learning. I’ve created six courses to get you up to speed on how AI impacts communications. Get started here.

📋 A prompt playbook. Need a kickstart? My communications-focused prompt playbook has more than 600 prompts to help you get started. Download it, free.

The work that got you here won’t take you further.

Without support, it’s easy to stay stuck doing everything long after you’ve outgrown it.

Download Operator to Owner: How to Exit the Middle to learn how to refocus your time on the work that actually deserves you.

Download the Free Guide.

This Sunday at 1 PM ET, AI consultant Hadas Frank is hosting a webinar on how AI and PR come together. She describes the session as “a practical way to combine PR and AI to position yourself as an authority, scale your message, and consistently attract clients and partnerships.” Sign up here.

Looking for a role at the intersection of communications and AI? Here are some opportunities to check out:

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Quick question: how can I help?

What workflows are you struggling with? Where does AI still feel mysterious or overwhelming? What has worked that you’d like to share with others?

I’m a builder, and I’d love to help you and the rest of The Comms Stack community find great new ways to use AI.

Reply and tell me.
I read every response.

Even a one-sentence reply helps. For example:
“I wish AI could help me with ______.”

Until next Wednesday,

Dan

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