Many people commented that they liked my comic illustrations and asked how I create them. Here is my process: Paste a reusable prompt fragment that’ll take any content, think about what to draw, then draw it. Paste a style variation for different comic styles (optional). Paste the content itself and run it. I use ChatGPT with gpt-image-2 more often than Gemini with Nano banana 2. Here are the prompts. STEP 1: Reusable Prompt Fragment: I have a few of these right now: ...
I’m a fan of the Code Mode approach - i.e. letting agents run code rather than narrow functions. Many people agree: CircleCI, Perplexity, etc. In fact, mcp2cli gives MCPs a CLI interface. I feel the main reason is UNIX composability. I can run CLI commands in a loop, pipe them, etc. I tested it out on ChatGPT. ChatGPT has an @Gmail Plugin. I build a Local MCP Server that exposes my CLIs, including gws (Google Workspace CLI). I gave it 3 tasks in a single prompt: ...
I conducted a session on Fri, 07 Aug 2026 at Data Hack Summit 2026 - Bangalore. Summary: Managing AI resembles managing experts: specify work clearly, verify outputs systematically, and borrow proven practices from professions that already manage complex judgment. Here’s the link to the session Links: Video (58 min) Transcript Audio (59 min)
On 16 July, my auditor sent me a draft Indian tax return: a refund of Rs 3 lakhs. I gave ChatGPT my AIS, Form 26AS, bank statements, mutual fund statements, property papers, travel records, prior returns, and so on, told it not to look at the auditor’s draft, and asked it to calculate my tax independently. It calculated a refund of about Rs 2.8 lakhs, roughly Rs 20K lower. (Less money, but a smaller refund felt less worse than a larger tax.) ...
It’s amazing to watch the cost of intelligence falling. In Nov 2023, we had college-junior level intelligence for $10 per million tokens, i.e. it would take them $10 to read and process something as large as all seven Harry Potter books. ...
As agents get smarter, and when we ask questions outside our expertise, it’s pretty hard to understand what they’re saying. Andrew Carr uses “only report to me in ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English” to simplify their writing. Ben Sehl suggested making this a permanent instruction. But, does simplifying the writing worsen their thinking? I tested six tasks on ChatGPT (GPT 5.6 Sol), with and without this suffix: “Answer in ASD-STE100”. ...
Agents are increasingly the consumers of things that used to be made for humans: Docs are increasingly for agents to read. E.g. llms.txt Code is increasingly for agents to edit. E.g. AGENTS.md Tests are increasingly for agents to satisfy. E.g. SWE-bench, GitHub repository Software is increasingly for agents to operate. E.g. --json, --schema, --dry-run, CLI-Anything, AXI Websites are increasingly for agents to invoke. E.g. WebMCP Capabilities are increasingly for agents to discover. E.g. MCP tools, MCP Registry Procedures are increasingly for agents to follow. E.g. SKILL.md, Agent Skills Products are increasingly for agents to choose. E.g. Universal Commerce Protocol Money is increasingly for agents to spend. E.g. Agent Payments Protocol Identity is increasingly for agents to prove. E.g. Visa Trusted Agent Protocol Agents are increasingly for agents to delegate to. E.g. A2A Agent Cards and Tasks Humans are increasingly for agents to escalate to. E.g. MCP Elicitation Agent Experience or AX is the new UX. ...
I track the cost vs capability of LLMs at LLM Pricing - the rough cost to read all Harry Potters (~1M tokens) vs the intelligence level on the LMSYS Leaderboard - over time. Here’s what the models’ strategy evolution looks like. Claude started at the mid-to-high end of the cost-capability frontier. Over time, they decided to specialize in the high-end, which they’re doing well on. ...
Bring AI to where people already work: email Lots of companies are putting AI into their chat applications. Add Claude to a Slack channel, tell “@Claude” to do something, and it reads the conversation, uses tools, does what you tell it to, and replies in the same chat. Nice, for companies that use Slack a lot. (Many do. We don’t.) Straive and many of our clients use email more. There’s Google Chat, Teams, and others too, but email’s what most people access. (Apart from WhatsApp.) ...
I conducted a session on Sat, 25 Jul 2026 at IIM Alumni Singapore — AI Unboxed (3/4). Summary: Agentic tools can perform much of a data scientist’s research and analysis cheaply. The leverage comes from framing the question and checking the result. Here’s the link to the session Links: Video (138 min) Transcript Audio (138 min)
One of my goals this year is to publish 2 books. One got published. Sort of. Data Science for Sustainable Development Goals: India Case Studies is an open-access anthology and I’m the designated author of Chapter 10: Using Data Analytics to Improve Students’ Performance is about how Gramener worked with NCERT to analyze the National Achievement Survey data, discovering stuff like TV hurts maths but not reading scores, playing helps maths but not reading scores, fathers of West Bengal (not mothers) and mothers of Punjab (not fathers) influence their children’s scores the strongest, and so on. ...
At The Curzon Hotel, my key card didn’t work. But every time I went to the reception, they’d send a bellboy who would use the same key card, jiggle it a bit, pull it in and out a few times, and the door would open. Every night. For five nights. I just couldn’t get the knack of it. I’ve been at the other end of this. People often reach out to me saying, “Anand, this software isn’t working.” Then I go do the same thing they did, and it works. (Sometimes, I just need to watch them do it and it works.) ...
I had Claude Code with Fable create a small scrollytelling map for my 14-minute walk experience at Bagmane Capital in Bangalore. I used this as an opportunity to explore the current status of the technology. ChatGPT suggested: Try ArcGIS StoryMaps first for a polished scrollytelling story. Try Google Earth Projects if this is primarily something you will present live, like a map-based slide deck. Use MapLibre GL JS with a coding agent if you want precise choreography, animated routes, unusual visual effects, or an asset you can continually extend. None of these fit my requirements, which was: ...
Here’s roughly what I said in my When Data is for Agents workshop for Fifth Elephant on 7 Jul 2026. Or you can read the detailed AI-generated version if you prefer - it has all the prompts, links, results, etc. I think agents prefer data in a different form than humans. But I don’t know. So, everyone, open ChatGPT (or Claude or whatever), research and ask it! Now, let’s collate them and see the result. Aha! Looks like: ...
Last week at VizChitra, I ran a “Dialogue” session. A new format for me. I usually speak 80% in my workshops. In this dialog, I spoke 20%. The group discussed. PART A I showed 6 charts and said, “Pick the best.” Then I shared the audience & purpose and asked: “For THIS audience and purpose, will you publish, fix, or kill it?” INSIGHT: almost no one said, “Ship”. That’s good – these were all drafts. ...
I conducted a session on Thu, 09 Jul 2026 at AI in Education — Sivaswamy Iyer School - Mylapore, Chennai. Summary: Teachers should use AI as a participant in lesson planning, explanation, assessment, and reflection—not treat it as a separate subject or shortcut. Here’s the link to the session Links: Transcript
I conducted a session on Thu, 02 Jul 2026 at PGP-BA Multivariate Data Analysis — Term 4 - IIM Bangalore. Summary: AI makes sophisticated analytical methods cheap and accessible. The scarce skill becomes choosing the right analysis, questioning assumptions, and judging whether results matter. Here’s the link to the session Links: Transcript Audio (185 min)
Ranjeeta asked me for an article for Built In. I went straight to ChatGPT and said: Write an article for Built In. Read the section below for context on Built In's audience, style, and content preferences. Read the pitch that explains what the article should be about. Then use my blog posts, talk content, transcripts, TIL, etc. Write an article using my writing style. … and gave it all related information. ...
For thirty years, we cleaned data for humans. Now, agents are reading it. What do we do differently? On Tue 𝟳 Jul 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲, 𝟮-𝟲pm IST, I’m running a Fifth Elephant workshop: “When Data is for Agents, Not Humans”. I have a few theories we’ll be testing on your data. Like: Tools beat tables. Agents prefers functions over tables they can read. Logs beat docs. Logs show actual usage - not how we’re supposed to use it. Messy beats clean. Agents can do clean & join data. You just need descriptions. ...
Yesterday, I wrote about @syu-toutousai, the bounty-hunting agent ecosystem. That led me to OpenAgents. OpenAgents has plenty of bounty issues: Fix JWT auth middleware accepts algorithm none - $8k Fix rate limiter doesn’t differentiate authenticated vs anonymous limits - $2.2k Add structured error responses with error codes - $8.6k Fix Math.random used for nonce generation - $8k Fix ABI encoding BigInt overflow - $9k Most issues also include a trick requirement. For example, #100 asks contributors to add a @generated-by block with: ...