How Dan Shipper uses AI to think, write, and build
From ideas to execution, discover Dan Shipper’s blueprint for using AI to unlock his creative potential.
Published 2024-12-11
.avif)
Dan Shipper is pioneering internet creativity.
He’s the CEO of Every, a platform known for in-depth essays on business and technology and problem-solving products for creators. Dan spends his days testing, building, and refining AI-powered workflows that make work easier - but more importantly, make thinking deeper.
In a recent live workshop, he sat down to chat with me about the AI-driven systems he’s using to do more, create faster, and push the limits of what’s possible in the creative space. He broke down how AI can be a partner in everything from idea generation to execution.
If you're a creator, writer, or anyone who feels bogged down by repetitive tasks (and who doesn’t?), his workshop will make you rethink how AI fits into your daily workflow. Dan’s tools and methods aren’t just about saving time - they’re about creating the headspace you need for the big, meaningful work.
Here’s what Dan uncovered in my 60 minutes with him:
Using AI for input: Deeper learning with ChatGPT
Dan started by showing me how AI changes the way he consumes and processes complex material. As a writer and creator sitting at the intersection of technology, business and philosophy, reading is a huge part of Dan’s workflow.
But reading, especially deep reading, can be challenging when you’re working with dense literature, philosophy, or technical writing. Here’s how Dan turns AI into an intellectual partner while he reads:
- Voice-assisted reading with ChatGPT: While reading, Dan uses ChatGPT’s voice note feature to ask questions on the fly. Instead of letting confusion pile up or notes gather dust, he asks real-time questions about the meaning of the text or any points that puzzle him. "I get way more out of my reading by having ChatGPT listen to me as I read, or just asking a question as I go," Dan said. It’s like having a reading companion who can explain things in the moment.
- Understanding prevailing opinions and counterarguments: When reading philosophical or technical texts, Dan goes a step further by asking, “What are the prevailing opinions or counterarguments on this topic?” AI can synthesise different perspectives, helping him form a well-rounded understanding and, ultimately, his own viewpoint.
- Simplifying complex passages: Dan also takes pictures of difficult passages and asks ChatGPT to rewrite them in simpler terms. This ability to break down dense material is really useful if you’re trying to grasp difficult concepts without spending hours flipping through reference books.
- Visual learning with DALL-E: For especially complex texts, Dan sometimes switches up modalities entirely by asking DALL-E to generate an image based on a passage. Shifting from words to visuals often unlocks new layers of understanding. "Sometimes, having a different modality - like a picture - really helps you get what the text is trying to say," Dan shared, emphasising how visuals can unlock deeper comprehension.
Using AI to refine taste: Defining and expanding your creative preferences
An insightful point Dan made during the workshop was about taste - what you like, why you like it, and how defining your taste helps shape the work you create. According to Dan, the ability to articulate your preferences is crucial for any kind of creative work, and AI can help refine this understanding.
- Exploring your taste: Dan explained how he asks ChatGPT to help him explore his own creative preferences. Whether it’s literary authors, filmmakers, or products, he inputs a list of things he likes and asks ChatGPT to describe the vibe of each. "ChatGPT is great at naming things you’ve felt but never been able to articulate. It can say, ‘Oh, this is what you like about William James - it’s the philosophical warmth in his writing.’ And once you have that description, it becomes a target for your own work.”
- Building a creative target: Knowing your taste helps you create a target for the kind of work you want to produce. For Dan, this insight becomes fuel to drive more projects and more creative experimentation. He even uses AI to help him find similar works or thinkers that he might not have discovered otherwise. “You can bump into things you like that you never knew existed, and that becomes more fuel for your creative process,” he explained.
- Customising AI for decision-making: This exploration of taste extends beyond creative work and into decision-making. Dan uses AI to articulate his tastes, and then feeds that info into ChatGPT’s custom instructions. Doing this helps guide its interactions with him. By teaching AI about his preferences, personality, and creative vision, he makes it a more useful partner in his work - whether that’s choosing new hires, managing his team, or discovering more works aligned with his taste.
Using AI to synthesise: Turning chaos into clarity
When you’re dealing with big ideas or long-term projects, synthesis can be a challenge. Whether it’s a new business concept or an essay that spans multiple disciplines, distilling your thoughts into something coherent isn’t easy. Dan shared how he uses AI, particularly Claude, to make sense of complex, ongoing projects.
- Building a project knowledge base: Dan creates projects in Claude and continuously adds resources, notes, and passages over time. This isn’t just about dumping information - it’s about feeding a growing knowledge base that can eventually help him piece together a larger narrative.
- Refining big ideas: Often, Dan doesn’t even know exactly what he wants to say yet. He has fragments of ideas, examples, and research, but no thesis. Claude helps him synthesise these fragments by offering a clearer perspective on what the data points toward. “I’ll ask Claude, ‘What’s my thesis?’ I don’t expect it to write the thesis for me, but it can take all these fragments and tell me what it sees. From there, I refine and rewrite,” Dan explained. This back-and-forth between Dan and Claude helps him move closer and closer to clarity - ****a critical step for anyone working on big, complex projects.
Using AI for output: Streamlining execution
AI isn’t just useful for processing inputs and generating ideas. It’s also a powerful tool for execution. Once Dan has refined his ideas and knows what he wants to say, AI helps him get things done faster and more efficiently. Here’s how:
Writing with Lex
No matter what anyone says, writing (well) is hard. It gets even more difficult when you're dealing with abstract concepts or juggling multiple ideas. That's why Dan uses Lex, another AI-powered tool developed by his team (h/t Nathan Baschez). Lex is an AI writing app. It has a great interface and powerful, practical functions. It’s a lot like writing in Google Docs (but better in my opinion) with an assistant right next to you to help out when you get stuck or need inspiration.
Dan chiefly uses it to keep his ideas organised and his drafts flowing. “When I’m working on something big, like an essay that connects philosophy to AI, I use Lex to structure my ideas. It helps me take the mess in my brain and turn it into something organised and coherent.”
Lex is like having a second brain to help you refine ideas, draft sections, and keep everything on track. Whether you’re a long-form writer or just need help organising your thoughts, Lex makes the process smoother by making AI a direct collaborator in the writing process.
Automating repetitive tasks with Spiral
We use Spiral here at Ben’s Bites for several different tasks. And we love it. What is Spiral? It’s a prompt builder that automates a huge portion of repetitive writing, thinking, and decision-making tasks. “Spiral gets me 80% of the way there for things like generating social posts or summarising podcasts. I spend my energy on the final polish, not the initial grunt work.” It’s a tool that helps you focus on refining rather than generating from scratch. I highly recommend it.
Better digital organization with Sparkle
Another tool created by his team, Sparkle is designed to automate digital file organization. It essentially keeps his desktop and folders clean and organised without him having to lift a finger. "It just happens automatically. My desktop is super clean, and I don’t have to do anything," Dan shared. It might sound simple, but this digital hygiene saves Dan valuable time and headspace, leaving him free to focus on higher-value tasks.
Wrapping it up
Dan Shipper’s AI-powered workflow isn’t just about saving time. It’s about making the creative process richer, deeper, and more efficient. Whether it’s using ChatGPT to dive deeper into complex texts, asking AI to articulate your taste, or relying on tools like Lex and Spiral to streamline output, Dan’s approach offers a glimpse into the future of AI-assisted creativity.
His workshop was a close look at how AI can transform the way we work, create, and think. You can watch the full recording to learn more about his strategies and see them in action. All workshop recordings (and full transcripts) are available for paying Ben’s Bites members.
Enjoyed this post? You might also like: