Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Welcome to Prompting Curiosity, a podcast for the AI curious. No coding background required. I'm your host, Dr. Shantae Cofield, also known as the Maestro, and I created this show to explore what these AI tools actually are. Really, though, are the files in the computer, how to use them, and what they might mean for how we think, work, create, and move through life. Whether you're skeptical, intrigued, or already experimenting, you're in the right place. All that I ask is that you stay curious. All right, let's get into it.
[00:00:38] Hello, hello, hello, my curious people. Welcome to episode 65 of Prompting Curiosity. I am your grateful host, the Maestro, and today we're talking about my current AI tech stack. This is my current stack as of October of 2026.
[00:00:55] And I say this because it is pretty cool to have this podcast as kind of like a time capsule, if you will. And then I can look back at episodes and be like, damn, has changed. And very quickly.
[00:01:09] Um, so a few. A few episodes ago, I spoke about what I think your AI should and shouldn't have access to. So I figured today we kind of expand on that, and I'd share exactly what I'm using. So, you know, it feels like these days everything is powered by AI and packed with protein. And yes, my friends, the limit does exist. But I will. Let me move this mic closer. I will say that in some cases, AI is super, super helpful, you know, and has improved it. It has improved tremendously. Right. Yes, the limit for AI does exist, but it is also incredibly helpful. It can be incredibly helpful. And just how much it's changed since, you know, it came onto the scene at 20:22, like, it's just mind blowing. Right? And so I want to put you on to the things that I've been using. So some of the tools I'm gonna talk about, I've actually dedicated entire episodes to in the past. So I'll note that, where appropriate, I'll link those in, uh, the show notes. But, uh, there's some others that I've only mentioned, you know, either in like a How I used AI this week section, or maybe not at all.
[00:02:20] So we opening up them gates and sharing the goodies. All right, so top of the list, of course. First off, I be using this every day. It's Claude, right? Claude is my daily driver. And also I just be using it every day. Um, sometimes when people say daily driver, they're kind of implying that they use other LLMs, and it's like, no, it's Claud or it's Claude. Um, anything that I share in the how I used AI this week section of this podcast. If I don't specify an LLM, it is Claude that I use to do that thing. Um, I use Claude for brainstorming, for proofreading. I use it as a thought partner.
[00:02:59] Um, I use Claude code for any of my builds. Any kind of vibe coding I'm doing, it is happening with, with Claude code.
[00:03:08] I will say, folks, I will, I'm going to be transparent here. I will say that I do use ChatGPT, the free tier, to make the images for this podcast. Um, because Claw doesn't do the images, but they ain't getting any of my money.
[00:03:22] But I will use their right, resist, unsubscribe, whatever. I don't, I don't pay them, but I do use it for the images. Um, and I also will say that if there's like a simple question I have, I just want an answer to. I am finding myself using Google's Gemini more and more. And I did say this in a previous episode, right, where I just Google it and I the AI summary. I don't need to like go into Claude to ask because cloud be too verbose and like saying the most and I'm like, I just want like a quick answer. So, um, I will say that. But top of the list, first off, obviously of the, of the tech stack list, AI tech stack list is Claude. Next up we have Granola. And I am not sure if I've mentioned this, maybe I did it in a how I used AI this week. Um, but either way, I fucking love this software. Granola is an AI note taker. It is so accurate, it is so fast. It does real time transcription which is also helpful. Um, if you're ever like on a call and you're like, wait, what did that person just say? You can literally just look at the transcript. It's incredible. Um, my favorite use is it generates post meeting notes immediately, like right when the meeting ends. And it takes like less than a minute. Right? It's phenomenal. Absolutely, absolutely phenomenal. I have no affiliate link because I'm on the free tier. Um, the pay tier does give you longer access to the transcripts and the notes, but I just manually copy them like immediately, at least by that night. Um, and that works for me. Like, you're currently limited to like 30 days of access on the free tier, which is more than enough. But, um, if you want to pay, you can pay. Um, but I, I recommend granola. 15 out of 10. Like, yes, it is the best. Yes, you do have to give it access to your calendar. But in my opinion, it's worth starts when you have. Because it has calendar access, it'll start the note taking automatically. Um, there may be a workaround for this.
[00:05:08] I don't know, but honestly, I do not care. Like, it's have access. It is so good. It is worth whatever risk is there.
[00:05:14] Um, you know, I do feel like they cannot keep this free forever.
[00:05:19] Uh, so get in now and use it while you can. And maybe they'll do some sort of discount for us when they inevitably raise the price. But it is so good. It is so accurate, the notes. Yes, it is better than the zoom notes. Just so, so, so good. It gives you the actionable steps, right? Because it's, it's. It. Because it is AI. So it like it's not thinking right, but it is able to see the patterns and then it'll tell you the next steps. I do try to speak in such a way when I'm wrapping up calls to be like, hey, here's the next steps. Um, but it pulls from the. The call as well. And like, I just find myself so much. I'm not more invested in calls, but I don't take notes in calls anymore. Like, I. You can type as you're on the call, which is nice. And then you like, hit a button and it does like the smart notes. Um, so you. Obviously, if you want to be taking notes as you go, you can. Um, but I find myself just having my calls and it's great. And it produces these super, super accurate, super clean notes. Just absolutely worth it as a, as a software.
[00:06:21] All right, next in the tech stack is Whisper Flow. Um, it is an AI voice dictation software. I did an episode about this Entire episode, episode 45. It was entitled Stop, Stop typing, Start speaking. Whisper Flow explained. Uh, the link is in the show notes. I use this primarily when I'm at the computer, especially when I'm working with Claude. I just want to riff on things, especially when I'm building stuff and I'm like, hey, I'm just kind of gets out of my head. I kind of want to make this thing looks like this. Does this. Like, can you summarize? Can you pull out. What do you think about this? Can you pull out the most important part of this? Um, I actually don't use whisper flow as much with writing things because I tend to write slightly different than I speak.
[00:07:03] Um, and like brain, my brain works a little bit differently, but I will use it for some of my blogs. I will say that, um, but it is exponentially better than whatever iPhone is using. Exponentially better. Um, it will make things into lists, which can be a good thing or a bad thing, because sometimes I will say things in like a list format, but I don't want a list. And I'm like, put a comma in there. Um, it has appropriate punctuation. It can, you know, make the tone more or less formal or informal based on where you're quote, unquote, writing this. I don't love this setting, but I do understand the utility, right, for people that have to kind of like quote, unquote, code switch from work to. To texting and things like that. Um, but overall, it's just super accurate and it does what it's supposed to do, which is transcribe what you're saying. I. I do have an affiliate link for that though, so I will share that. If you use the affiliate link, we will both get a free month of Pro.
[00:07:56] All right, that'll be in the show notes.
[00:07:59] Next up, we have a sometimes use case, and that is descript. So descript markets itself as an AI video editor. And that is literally not at all how I use it, nor do I think that's what it is. But when, um, it first hit the scene quite a few years ago, it was marketed as, you know, edit your videos from a transcript. It is still that. And it is phenomenal at that. I think that, you know, if you take a step back, it is. It's a really good editing software. I use it almost every day. Uh, if I'm making Instagram posts, I'm on it to put captions on my, My video. I love. Cause it's on the computer. It's big. My computer's bigger than my phone, obviously. And I just, I really, really like it. Uh, I can pull my. Pull clips from my podcast, my other podcast, um, that's a video podcast. I can pull clips and, and cut them down in there. It's just very easy because you can see the transcript instead of like scrubbing through the video and trying to remember what you said. Just. I think it's an incredible tool. Um, and it's just like, also visually to edit things and, and cut things and move things around. It's much easier. You know, I, I'm proficient with Adobe, I'm proficient with DaVinci, and I really, really like, really like the script. But it does have a bunch of AI features. The majority, again, I do not use them, but it made the cut for this list because there is one AI feature that I have used a handful of times, which is generate media with AI. So I think I spoke about this in how I use AI this week. Um, but I have used this feature to generate sounds that were not in the sound library and the native sound library that they have. And also to create the most recent. I used it to create a static opening scene for one of my reels because I didn't want to go into Canva and, like, have to deal with all that. I was just like, just make this thing. And it did it. Um, so I am literally using the, you know, the minimum as it relates to the AI features inside of descript. But it, in my opinion, it is worth knowing about descript at all. And also the ability to generate media with AI with AI is. Is, in my opinion, like, this is super, super helpful.
[00:09:56] Last up, to round out the list, we have Google Notebook LM, which as of July 2026 goes by the name of Gemini Notebook. So I did a full episode about this that, um, was episode 25. Google Notebook LM the best AI tool you've never heard of. We will link. And by we, I mean me and Rupert. We'll link that in the show notes. Um, but Gemini Notebook is an AI tool that works only from the sources you give it. Documents, links, YouTube videos, text that you've pasted, PDFs, whatever. It will only create stuff and pull stuff and pull answers from that.
[00:10:32] You can have it go and find those sources as well, right? From there, you ask it questions. It'll give you summaries. It can turn the material into audio, visual or video responses and overviews. I honestly haven't used it in a bit, but it is a really, really cool way to learn things.
[00:10:50] I'm not gonna lie. They need to do a better job with marketing it. They need to do a better job with actually just explaining what it is. Because you go to the website and you're like, but what is this? And until you try it, you really don't know.
[00:11:00] Um, but it's a phenomenal way to learn things. My favorite use case was when I was, uh, really first learning about AI and vibe coding and web development. I had to create custom podcast episodes for me. So I would have it find sources from the. From the Internet. I would also find some sources. I would check the sources that it, you know, had turned up, and then I would just have it make a podcast episode for me and I would listen to them while I clean the house. You could choose how long the episode was.
[00:11:25] If you want to focus on Certain things on the episode, in the episode, it was just super, super helpful. And honestly, it's like a really cool thing, right? So the podcast episodes, it's actually a back and forth conversation between two hosts. It's like a male host and female host, or like a male voice and a female voice. And it sounds like a legit episode with two humans. It doesn't sound robotic at all. Kind of interrupt each other.
[00:11:46] The cadence, there's the back and forth, the banter. It's done very, very, very well. Cannot recommend that enough. So also within Gemini Notebook, for my educators in the crowd, um, it's a really helpful tool for creating one sheets and flowcharts. Um, it can make slide decks as well. But honestly, Claude does that. And now that Claude does that, I don't even worry about trying to have a notebook, Gemini notebook do it. I. I tried in the beginning. I was like, this is just isn't what I want and you can't edit it and so not worth it. But Claude crushes there. So, um, no need to do it for that. As for the price, it is free.
[00:12:26] It's not something that they have different tiers as well. Um, it's not something that I use all that often, but it is, in my opinion, definitely worth knowing about and worth checking out. So that is my list, right? I am a big fan of AI, but I also don't need AI everywhere into everything. Right. I use it when it makes sense and I want it when it's actually helpful and not, um, you know, not just going to give me more work, which is often the case. So what does your list look like?
[00:12:57] Is there anything that I didn't mention that you think I should know about? Anything that you're loving?
[00:13:01] Hit me up.
[00:13:02] I'd like to know these things. You can. You can send me an email, but actually, don't do that. Excited? I don't really like email. You shoot me a message on Instagram Movement maestro, you can shoot me a text. 310-737-2345.
[00:13:14] Let me know. All right, last up. Um, how I used AI this week. If you're new here, welcome. Each episode, I share a quick example of how I used AI that week. This week, I used Claude Design for the very first time to mock up the website that I'm building. So if you listen to last week's episode, you know that I submitted a proposal for a website build and I got the gig, y'. All. I got the gig. I'm actually super stoked about it. Um, I'm actually super, super stoked about it. I like, don't know what I can and cannot say. So I'm not saying anything about it except for the fact that I got the gig.
[00:13:51] But I wanted to play around with what the site was going to look like before actually building it with Claude. So I asked Claude, rather I should say before actually building it with Claude code. So I Claude how to use Claude design and I was like, is this, how do I use this thing? What's the best, is the best use case is, you know, how will this work, how I wanted to on it and it helped, you know, held my hand through that. And then I had to write me the prompt that I fed into Claude Design and Claude Design mocked up the whole thing.
[00:14:19] It's a simple website, three page website, nothing crazy. Um, but the improvements since the early days of Clause, since the early days of AI, are astonishing.
[00:14:28] I vibe coded a website early on, uh, for my brother using cursor, and it was just so cumbersome. And I'm glad that I did it that way because, like, I understand you know, how to use cursor, I understand next JS and that framework and I'm very happy with doing that, um, that I did that. But this is just wild that you can just do it like this. No, it's not like a live site. Um, but it's the HTML, it's the code for, it's the HTML, the CSS for it. Um, it will, when you're done mocking everything up, it will export it in different formats depending on what you need it for and how you, what you're going to do with it. Um, but it is incredible. It's just that you use it just like Claude, meaning you just use natural language to instruct it on what you want. And obviously the better the instructions about, you know, the better the input, the better out the output. Which is why I use regular Claude to come up with. I went back and forth quite a bit. I've been talking with Claude for a bit about this project, so it knew what I, what I needed. Um, and like the sources that I had, what I wanted to look like, what I didn't want.
[00:15:30] Um, but I was trying to highlight what the like, goal with this was.
[00:15:35] So I fed that into Claude and I had it make the prompt for me and then I fed the prompt into Claude Design and it built it. And it's just, it's incredible, like the fact that you, uh, I will say this till I'm, you know, blue in the face. The, the Most impressive part about LLMs and AI is that you can use natural language with it to communicate with it, to. To instruct it. That's wild.
[00:16:01] Absolutely wild. So call design. Honestly, it's incredible. If you haven't figured it out yet, you don't have to perhaps wait until you have a use case, because, like, I've known about it for a while and actually it's. I think it's moving to. To Claude. It's moving to, um, Arc or what is it called?
[00:16:18] There's another word. I'm not on the computer right now. It's moving. Cloud design is moving to artifacts in the Claude app.
[00:16:24] Um, which is good because right now it's like in a separate thing. It's like pops out in zone window. So hopefully everything stays the same. Um, But I think December 14th, it's moving to. Into the cloud app, um, which is what I use every day anyway. But, um, maybe wait to use it until you have a use case. Something like need to. You need to build a sales page. Um, and then prepare to have your mind blown.
[00:16:49] All right, that, my friends, is all for today. Hopefully you found this episode helpful. If you did consider sharing with someone who you know is curious about AI, let them know about the old techie tech stack. Don't forget I have a companion newsletter and blog called the Curious Companion, and that drops every Thursday. And it's basically. And by basically, I mean exactly, the podcast episode in text format. So if you prefer to read or you just want a written record of the things, join the newsletter, check out the blog, you can head to prompting Curiosity.com Newsletter or blog, or keep it simple and just check out the link in the show Notes.
[00:17:28] As always. Endlessly, endlessly. One more time. Endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until we chat again next Thursday, stay curious.
