In partnership with
Welcome Automaters 👋
So listen up: The real gap in 2026 isn’t between people who know about AI and people who don’t; it’s between the folks who see it early and the ones who react late. (And let's be real: reacting late is just a fancy way of saying "losing.")
Most content out there helps you stay "informed," which is usually just code for "overwhelmed." Very little helps you think clearly, decide faster, and act with confidence. That’s why we built The Automated. Our members aren’t here to play with prompts for fun; they’re here to build awareness, develop actual judgment, and compound leverage over time. It’s about signal, structure, and systems, delivered at your pace.
Choose Your Track ⚡️
Whether you're an investor, operator, or builder, we’ve got a lane designed for your specific speed:
📰 The Briefing | $9.99 / month
The Vibe: Your "Signal Layer." This is for the people who want to understand what actually matters in AI, without the noise, hype, or the info-overload. You get:
Weekly exclusive thoughts, personal takes and "between the lines" analysis from Tak Lo.
Early access to upgraded Workout of the Day (WoD) and prompt videos before the general public.
Clear framing around trends, narratives, and those tricky second-order effects.
The Bottom Line: If awareness and timing matter to you, this is how you keep it sharp.
🎓 The Classroom | $19.99 / month
The Vibe: Turning Understanding into Capability. Master the how of AI, not just the hype. This is where you get high-impact 4K lessons and practical frameworks from one of Asia’s leading AI educators and investors.
Everything in The Briefing, plus:
Weekly Deep Dives: Personal strategies from Tak Lo that go way beyond the surface level.
30-minute direct access calls with Tak (a $200 value, y'all) to talk shop and troubleshoot.
Ad-free experience of our daily newsletter.
The Bottom Line: This is for the people who want usable mental models and real structure, not just updates.
🧪 The Lab | $39.99 / month
The Vibe: Where ideas get tested, not just explained. The Lab is for the builders, the ones who want proximity to how systems, products, and thinking evolve in real time. You get:
Everything in The Classroom, plus:
The "fastest" access to the earliest possible drops for upgraded WoD products and prompt videos.
Raw, unedited WoD footage and the "inner monologue" thinking that goes into them.
Early access to experiments, live sessions, and unfinished ideas.
The Reality Check: This is not polished content. It’s process, judgment, and iteration as it happens.
Why Upgrade? 🚀
Information is everywhere. Perspective, synthesis, and lived experience are not.
We don’t just tell you that AI is changing the world. (We've all heard that enough, right?) We help you understand where, how, and when it actually matters for your work, your capital, and your decisions.
The best way to predict the future isn’t to guess it; it’s to understand exactly how it’s being built.
Upgrade when you’re ready. Build at your pace.
Here's what we have for you today
🛡️ ChatGPT Caricature Trend: 5 Ways to Join the Fun Without Giving Up Your Data
Caricatures generated by ChatGPT using a trending prompt, but the two shown here feature individuals who are not real people.
Welcome to 2026’s first viral AI trend, and oh boy, is it a doozy.
If your social feeds have suddenly transformed into a digital carnival of cartoonified humans surrounded by coffee mugs, laptops, and inexplicably giant heads, you’re not hallucinating. You have just witnessed the ChatGPT Caricature Trend, that’s taking the internet by absolute storm.
The magic formula everyone is copying and pasting is simple: "Create a caricature of me and my job based on everything you know about me."
That's it. That's literally all it takes. You upload a selfie, drop in that prompt, and ChatGPT spits out a playful, exaggerated cartoon version of you. It comes complete with props related to your job, your personality quirks, and (if you’re a regular user) shockingly accurate details pulled from your chat history.
Why this is hitting different
Unlike previous AI avatar trends (RIP Ghibli filter, you had a good run), this one hits different for a few key reasons:
It is creepily personalized. For Plus users, the AI does not just make you look cartoonish; it remembers you. One TechRadar writer found that ChatGPT included their office dogs in the background. That was a detail pulled directly from a conversation months ago. So, if you've ever complained about being caffeinated or stuck in Zoom hell, expect to see coffee cups and laptop screens everywhere.
It is stupid easy. No design skills are required and there are no sketchy apps to download. You just use the tool you already have. Even better, the free version lets you generate up to five images daily, so everyone is invited to the party.
It's actually shareable. These caricatures are hitting LinkedIn profiles, Instagram stories, and practically everywhere. People are using them as profile pictures, email signatures, and presentation slides. The professional-yet-playful vibe makes them perfect for both personal and work contexts.
Oh and fun fact: It broke the server. The trend went so nuclear that on Feb 4th, Downdetector lit up like a Christmas tree with 13,000+ reports of ChatGPT outages. OpenAI blamed "elevated error rates," but we all know the truth: the servers were choking on a million cartoon selfies
But before you run off to cartoonify yourself, we have to talk about the elephant in the room: privacy.
Cybersecurity experts are raising some legitimate red flags because when you upload a photo, you are potentially handing over biometric data (like facial features) and EXIF metadata (like your GPS location).
UAB researcher Shuya Feng pointed out that these models can learn your "bioinformations" directly from these uploads. Plus, once that data is in the system, you basically have zero leverage over what happens to it next. Some users are even accidentally revealing ID badges or sensitive computer screens in the background of their "fun" selfies.
So How to join the fun safely:
If you still want in (and honestly, who can blame you), here is how to do it without the digital hangover:
Strip your metadata. Use a tool to remove location data from your photo before uploading. Also: Your location, your company name, device info, timestamps, or specific family circumstances don't need to be part of the package.
Use a "clean" photo. Take a fresh selfie against a plain wall. Do not give the AI a tour of your office or home address in the background.
Check your settings. Go to Settings → Data Controls and turn off chat history and training if you do not want your face helping train the next model.
Be the boss. Instead of letting it guess, give it a specific prompt: "Create a caricature of me as a [job] using a [style] with [specific colors]."
Think before you share. Once it's on social media, it's out there forever. Ask yourself: "Would I be comfortable if this showed up in a Google search five years from now?"
The Big Picture
This is the exact dynamic that defines AI. The tools are incredible, the results are delightful, and the privacy implications are… well, we will probably figure those out later.
It shows how AI personalization has crossed a new threshold. ChatGPT isn't just responding anymore; it is building a profile of you. That is simultaneously amazing and mildly terrifying depending on your relationship with privacy. We are not going to tell you whether to participate, but remember: we often trade a lot of privacy for content that is this fun.
Is one caricature going to destroy your life? Probably not. But we are definitely normalizing a world where data disclosure is the price of entry for the "cool stuff."
You can learn more here.
6 AI Predictions That Will Redefine CX in 2026
2026 is the inflection point for customer experience.
AI agents are becoming infrastructure — not experiments — and the teams that win will be the ones that design for reliability, scale, and real-world complexity.
This guide breaks down six shifts reshaping CX, from agentic systems to AI operations, and what enterprise leaders need to change now to stay ahead.
🧱 Around The AI Block
🦾 The brands who made bold plays with AI in Super Bowl ads
📈 The AI stock that could be one of the most valuable in the world by 2027.
🥋 Robots practice kung fu with monks at Shaolin Temple in China.
🤯 Bots on Moltbook are selling each other prompt injection “drugs” to get "high ".
😎 ChatGPT, Google Gemini and other AI apps might be coming to Apple’s CarPlay.
💼 ChatGPT’s new internet browser can run 80% of a 1-Person Business — no tech skills required.
🛠️ Trending Tools
For the Intuitive Editors: Aixio lets you edit photos and videos by simply sketching or doodling directly over them. Want to turn a rough drawing into a 3D character or change a background with a quick scribble? Aixio’s "pixel-perfect" AI interprets your hand-drawn lines and turns them into professional-grade assets.
For the Brand Designers: Khroma is an AI color tool that learns which colors you like and creates a limitless library of personalized palettes, typography pairings, and gradients. It’s like having a color theorist who perfectly understands your specific "vibe."
For the Aesthetic Searchers: Same Energy is a visual search engine that groups images by artistic style, mood, and composition rather than just tags. If you find one image you love for a moodboard, it will find 500 more that share the exact same "energy." It's the ultimate tool for early-stage creative direction.
For the 3D Explorers: Dora AI lets you generate entire 3D, animated landing pages from a single text prompt. It handles the complex "spatial thinking" and motion design for you, turning a simple brief into a site that feels like a high-end motion piece. Plus you can refine everything in a visual editor without ever touching a line of code.
For the "Heavy Use" Builders: Lovable isn't just a prototyping tool; it turns your design concepts into fully functioning, deployable web apps in hours. You describe the features (e.g., "I need a fitness tracker with progress charts and a social feed"), and it builds the frontend, backend, and database instantly. It's the ultimate "idea-to-MVP" engine.
Hope these tools help you reclaim some of your time today!
🤖 AI Workout Of The Day: How To Have AI Build You an Online Store
ChatGPT Generated
It’s official y'all: the barrier to entry for starting an online empire has basically vanished. Nearly four out of five companies are already using AI for everything from 24/7 shopping assistants to inventory management.
The financial stakes? Generative AI alone is expected to add between $240 billion and $390 billion in annual value for retailers. That is not a typo. We’re talking about "if this was a country, it would have a higher GDP than half of Europe" levels of money.
The best part: You don’t need to be a tech wizard. Tools like Shopify’s AI Builder, 10Web, Ucraft Next, and Storebuild.ai are doing the heavy lifting. You answer a few questions, pick a vibe, and boom: a fully functional store with product pages, payments, and SEO copy appears out of thin air.
How this "magic" actually works:
The Interview: You tell the AI if you're dropshipping phone cases or selling handmade candles.
The Vibe Check: You pick your colors and fonts. The AI uses this to build a custom design that doesn't look like a 1990s Geocities page.
The Build: In minutes, the AI generates the site, writes the descriptions, and sets up the checkout.
The Stock: Tools like Storebuild.ai even come with "winning products" pre-loaded so you can start selling immediately.
But it doesn’t stop there. Once you're live, these bots handle the boring stuff. They can automate 80% of your customer service, personalize product recommendations, and even predict your inventory needs.
The Toolkit for 2026
The market is absolutely exploding right now. If you’re looking to dive in, here are the heavy hitters:
10Web: Describe your business in plain English and it generates the layout, images, and content in minutes.
Ucraft Next: Their "UC Copilot" is getting rave reviews for being powerful but super user-friendly.
Storebuild.ai: The go-to for dropshippers. It connects to Shopify and Zendrop so you have a "ready-to-go" store with products imported before you even finish your coffee.
The results are real: businesses using AI for personalized marketing are seeing up to a 30% jump in customer retention.
The Reality Check (Because we keep it real)
Before you go quitting your day job, let’s talk shop. While an AI can build a store in five minutes, making it actually look good—tweaking the copy, adding your personality, and uploading custom shots—usually takes hours.
AI is brilliant at execution, but it still can’t read your mind. The more detailed your prompts are, the less "generic robot" your store will look. Overall, the AI gives you the foundation, but you still gotta bring the soul.
The Bottom Line: We’ve officially entered the "one-person unicorn" era. If you’ve been sitting on a business idea because you didn’t know how to code, you’ve officially run out of excuses. Go build something!
Try this prompt structure:
You are a senior e-commerce product manager, UX designer, and full-stack developer rolled into one. Your job is to design and build a conversion-optimized online store that’s ready to launch.
I want to create an online store that sells [PRODUCT TYPE] to [TARGET AUDIENCE] with the main goal of [sales / subscriptions / preorders / brand awareness]. The brand should feel [modern / playful / luxury / minimalist / bold / cozy] and inspire [trust / excitement / urgency / community]. Build this for [Shopify / WooCommerce / custom / no-code] using [tools or languages, if any].
Must-Have Features Include:
-Homepage layout (hero, product highlights, social proof, CTA)
-Product pages (pricing, images, descriptions, FAQs)
-Cart & checkout flow (simple, low-friction)
-Payment methods [Stripe, PayPal, etc.]
-Mobile-first design
-Basic SEO setup
Write high-converting copy for:
-Homepage headline
-Product descriptions
-CTAs
-Email capture section
If possible, also include:
-Recommended apps or plugins
-Upsell / cross-sell ideas
-Launch checklist
-Post-launch growth ideas (ads, email, social)
Is this your AI Workout of the Week (WoW)? Cast your vote!
That's all we've got for you today.
Did you like today's content? We'd love to hear from you! Please share your thoughts on our content below👇
What'd you think of today's email?
Your feedback means a lot to us and helps improve the quality of our newsletter.
