Hey there. Welcome to Day 5 of our 5-day practical AI series!

Yesterday, we gave you an exclusive peek into one of our premium workshops on creating AI agents with no code.

Today, I'm writing to you as Rowan, the founder of The Rundown — pulling back the curtain to show you exactly how I use AI in my content creation and business to reach over 1M+ people daily.

By the end of this email, you'll understand:

• My personal AI journey and how it transformed my career

• The specific AI tools and workflows I use daily

• Top tips for integrating AI into your work

Let’s get into it.

The Journey

My friends and family call me the AI guy.

I didn’t like it at first, but I’ve learned to embrace it.

This is because in in just over a year, I grew my Twitter/X account from nearly 0 to over 500,000 followers by posting about the latest developments in AI, and why they matter—which netted me as The Fastest Growing Creator on Twitter in 2023.

The growth of my account (and a whole lot of AI, of course), also helped me bootstrap my business from zero to 7 figures in revenue in that same time frame.

But believe it or not, just a few years ago, I barely knew anything about AI.

I taught myself how to code, design, create content, market products, trade stocks, start a business — you name it, through the internet. But I thought AI was mega nerds. No way was I going to be able to teach myself how to use it (or so I thought).

Everything changed on April 22nd, 2022.

This was the day I started leveraging Generative AI in my learning and work processes.

It was the first time I tried DALL-E 2, the original AI image-generation tool by OpenAI (before the ChatGPT boom happened).

The images it generated back then look terrible compared to what we have now. But it was still good enough to make me have an epiphany that would change my career forever...

"Why am I learning this if AI can just do it for me?"

This idea transformed the way I work:

• Instead of spending hours editing content manually, now I use Claude and ChatGPT as an expert editor who makes my writing twice as impactful.

• Instead of wasting time coding basic front-end projects, I cut my development time in half by using Cursor, OpenAI’s o1 models, and Replit's AI features.

• Instead of wasting hours in Canva or outsourcing design work, now I create The Rundown's visual assets in seconds with Midjourney and Ideogram.

As a business owner who now reaches over 1,000,000 million people (and counting) every day, I can’t imagine how I’d manage my time without these AI workflows that helped me scale The Rundown to where it is today in less than 2 years.

Here are some achievements AI has afforded me:

• Kind words from billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg (Founder of Facebook) saying that he’s a “big fan of what I do“ and Dharmesh (Co-Founder of HubSpot) saying he “would have bet on me“.

• Several features in major publications like Forbes, Fast Company, TechCrunch, Business Insider, and more.

• Exclusive back-stage invitations to major tech events like Google I/O, OpenAI DevDay, Meta Connect, and more.

• Becoming the most-followed AI creator on X/Twitter, receiving over 1 billion organic views in 2023.

• Growing my newsletter to over 750,000 daily readers achieving nearly 50 million reads in 2023 — the highest readership of any creator in the AI space.

How I use AI in my work

For my business:

• Lindy AI: An AI agent tool that automates simple emails, customer support, negotiations, and pings me in Slack when it needs me

• Custom GPTs: These are ChatGPT assistants that I specifically train on Looms, SOPs, and internal docs to onboard new employees

• Notion AI: My project management tool that organizes thoughts into actionable plans and generates pages for our AI tool database

• Cursor/Replit Agent: AI development tools that help me spin up/build simple landing pages in seconds

• ChatGPT Voice/Gemini Live: Useful AI consultants to chat about tax/business advice while on a walk

• Zapier Central: AI agents that scrape the web and automate actions like posting jobs in my Job board

• Fireflies AI: An AI assistant that lives in my Zoom calls and takes meeting notes for me (Pro tip: Put the notes into Claude and generate a post-meeting action plan)

As a writer/content creator:

• Claude: My personal co-editor which I use to help me create more impactful content. The secret is to throw your drafts in there and prompt Claude to "make it better"

• Perplexity Pro: An AI research tool that helps me when I’m going down rabbit holes. It’s way faster than Googling and reading Reddit

• Gemini: An AI chatbot by Google that I use to timestamp my videos and find clippable highlights from interviews or workshops

• HeyGen + ElevenLabs: Two tools I use to clone my face and voice, to create content on Instagram using my likeness using my written content (check it out here - pretty uncanny)

• Runway Gen-3: An AI tool that can take in images and spit out high-quality videos, which I use for b-roll for to create more engaging videos

• Ideogram: An AI tool that generated images with legible text for the newsletter and thumbnails

• NotebookLM: An AI tool by Google Labs that turns long research papers into engaging podcasts (I’m a nerd and like to listen to this stuff on long walks)

In The Rundown AI University, we break down exactly how to use these tools, including best practices, tips and tricks, and full workflows.

What I've learned from integrating all these tools is that I don't work less — I actually work more because of all the opportunities it unlocks.

These tools help my business get more done, accelerate my learning, and help me create better content in more places. I'd estimate that AI helps me work an equivalent of ~20 extra hours/week on top of my ~60 hour weeks.

My top 3 tips for integrating AI tools:

1. Don't just try tools for fun. Start with a problem you want to automate, then work towards that.

2. Spend 2 hours every week exploring AI tools and integrating them into your work (I do mine on Sundays)

3. To keep up with everything: Stay subscribed to The Rundown AI newsletter → read 5 mins/day → highlight any tool you want to explore later → tinker every Sunday

Remember, the curious learner will win in the AI age.

Why does this matter to you?

Well, if you're feeling flustered by all the AI tools and use cases sprouting up every second...

That's exactly why I started The Rundown AI University with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, a Ph.D. in computer engineering and a leading professor in AI research. So you can learn AI without the struggle I went through.

Stay curious,
Rowan (founder of The Rundown)

P.S. AI has accelerated my growth in ways I never imagined. It even led to me meeting + interviewing Mark Zuckerberg for the launch of Llama 3.1. I'm excited to see where it takes you.