Ask Steve

GAME-CHANGER ALERT! Now you can build your own 1-click AI Page Scrapers in SECONDS that write directly to Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, Notion, Airtable, Google Docs, Google Chat, Google Calendar and Slack, all with NO CODE. ----------- One of the most valuable use-cases that I've seen for connecting Ask Steve to an external API has been to use AI to process data from the screen and then write it into external systems. But setting up that API is a giant pain in the ***, especially for non-technical users, even using some of the visual workflow systems like n8n and Make. I tried doing it live with someone recently and it was... painful. Which meant that most people just weren't going to do it. So I built it directly into Ask Steve. And made it dead-simple to use. For services like Google Docs, Slack, Google Chat, and Notion Pages it just writes whatever the LLM returns into the service. What's really magical is how it works with structured documents like Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, Notion Databases and Airtable. It reads the structure of the document and AUTOMATICALLY generates a prompt for you so that the LLM returns data formatted specifically for your document. And if it gets something wrong or misses something? You can just edit or add to the prompt. The first time this worked my head exploded. Now you can create an AI-powered page scraper for any structured doc in SECONDS. More to come, but please give it a try and let me know how it goes!

Twice in the last few weeks people have shared with me projects they want to build that involve AI, and both times my immediate response was "You should use n8n for that". Once you know about tools like n8n, for many of these projects writing bespoke code seems like doing it the hard way. Even if you pay someone else to do it, they can probably do it in 1/10 the time, can iterate with you toward your desired end-state faster, and at the end you'll have something that YOU can go in and tweak, instead of an opaque codebase that you're dependent on SOMEONE ELSE to change. One of the big reasons it's easier for you to tweak is that it's practically self-documenting. The visual workflow makes it easy to follow along and see what's happening. Because visual workflow builders like n8n look simple, people often think that they can only use these systems for prototypes, not for production, but that's not true. There are people running real production workloads, and n8n themselves are constantly adding more production & enterprise capabilities. If your data is sensitive or you're worried about cloud costs, you have the option to host it yourself, so your data can stay inside your firewall. This reads like an ad, but I have no affiliation with n8n, just an appreciation for good tools!

Wondering why you should build and scale your tech startup in Arkansas? ?? Check out this excellent article from Arkansas Money & Politics featuring Rajat Paharia and Jeff Amerine, PMP. Here's the highlights (of course made with Rajat's own AI platform Ask Steve ??): ?? Arkansas' startup ecosystem is gaining momentum, attracting entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley and elsewhere due to its supportive resources and growing funding opportunities. ?? Organizations like Startup Junkie , the Conductor, and ARise, along with accelerators like 10X and Fuel Accelerator, are fostering innovation and supporting entrepreneurs across Arkansas. ?? While Arkansas may not have the same volume of investment capital as major startup hubs, investors are looking for ventures with limited risk and high ROI, emphasizing the importance of customer validation and effective communication from founders. ?? The state's startup ecosystem is still in its early stages, but it boasts a collaborative environment, a welcoming attitude, and a genuine desire to help entrepreneurs succeed. If you want to grow and scale your tech startup in Arkansas, enroll in the ARise program here - www.arisearkansas.org. If you want to use the best Chrome plugin to integrate AI directly into your browser, download Rajat's Ask Steve here - www.asksteve.to If you want to see how all this is possible in Arkansas, check out the Arkansas Economic Development Commission's website to learn more about how it's strategically working to advance entrepreneurship across the Natural State - https://lnkd.in/eGRih_xx. #Arkansas #startup #tech #venturecapital #entrepreneurs Esperanza Massana Crane | Bob Kucheravy | Laura Kingrey | Mallory Race | Tyler Hale | Jeff D. Standridge, Ed.D. | Brett Amerine | Grace Rains, MBA | Leslie McColgan, MBA | Kaitlyn Loughridge | Andrew Smith | Grace Gill | Matthew Ward | Cadron Capital Partners

Did you know that you can build your own AI agents with no code at Agent.ai? And that you can access them in the flow of work with Ask Steve? I like to try out the various agent platforms to get a sense for what they're capable of. Billed as the "professional network for AI agents", Agent.ai currently has 800+ agents that you can use, and they have a no-code agent builder so that anyone can build their own and make it available for others to use. It was built by Dharmesh Shah, founder and CTO at HubSpot. The video below starts with a quick demo of the end result, and then dives in to how to create an agent and then wire it up to Ask Steve. If you're interested in building agents but have been intimidated by the process, it's worth checking out! (Some additional notes about using webhooks in Agent.ai in the comments)

Have you noticed that the Internet has been polluted by misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies? AI to the rescue!!! MindStudio partner Ask Steve has announced a powerful new Skill (superpower) -- free fact checker. I love how Rajat Paharia describes "why" he built it: "The Free Fact Checker was made by me, Rajat Paharia. People intentionally spreading mis- and disinformation makes me angry. If I could, I'd punch them in the face. Since I can't, I built this." https://lnkd.in/ghBB-3gD #ai #misinformation

The Internet is full of lies. There are people out there intentionally trying to manipulate your opinion and feed you mis- and disinformation. Social media companies have largely given up defending against this, so we have to protect ourselves. But manually verifying everything you read is so time consuming that it's basically impossible. So I built a free fact checking tool into Ask Steve to make it quicker and easier. Now you have 1-click access to instant fact checks as you're browsing. It comes out of the box with the latest release of Ask Steve and you can learn more at FreeFactChecker.com. Please try it out, send me feedback, and if you find it useful please share it with others who you think could benefit.

You can now connect Ask Steve to a local LLM running on your own computer for free. You can also assign specific LLMs to specific Tools, so can use a fast model like Phi for fast tasks, and a reasoning model like DeepSeek R1 for tasks that can benefit from "thinking". So Ask Steve is free, the LLM is free, and nothing ever leaves your computer, so all your data stays private and secure. What a time to be alive! ??

I've posted before about how Ask Steve when combined with a workflow automation tool like n8n is an incredibly powerful combination. As a fun PoC, I recently collaborated with Jim Le to make a 1-click AI comment generator for Hacker News that: * Reads the source article and comments * Generates an appropriate new comment * Writes it directly into the comment field on the page This showcases two features that I don't think any other AI Chrome extension can do - read content from a specific part of the page, and write it back into another part of the page. I just posted it to HN (link in comments). Check it out!

I've been using Google Docs more recently to write things for print publications, and have found Ask Steve to be super helpful as a writing assistant and editor. It can provide suggestions and commentary, generate lots of alternatives, and more - basically be another set of eyes on what you're writing. And since it's right there where you're writing, it's 100x more useful than bouncing back and forth to ChatGPT or Gemini. You can either ask for whatever you want, or use one of the many writing-related Skills from the library. It also works in Word 365. Give it a try!

I've had several conversations with active ChatGPT users recently who mentioned security as a concern, and didn't know that you can run models locally. When you run a model locally, the LLM runs on your own computer. The primary benefit of this is that?your requests never leave your machine, so all your data is kept private. The secondary benefit is that it's FREE. What are the downsides? - You have to download big model files (e.g. 3+GB) - You need to have a capable computer - The models your local machine can run generally aren't as good as the ones you can access in the cloud - It can be slower, even though it's running locally There are several applications that make using local models easier. Here are the ones I often point people to because they have simple UIs. Some even enable chatting with your own files. Links in comments. LM Studio Jan gpt4all And if you're wanting to try DeepSeek R1 to see what all the buzz is about, using one of these tools is a really easy and secure way to do so. (Picture below is me chatting with DeepSeek R1 in LM Studio running on my MacBook)