AI Assistants Connect to Hundreds of Services

ChatGPT and Claude are evolving into digital dashboards, capable of integrating with hundreds of external services through plugins and connectors. This integration allows users to perform complex, multi-part commands that leverage the AI's contextual understanding of their work, preferences, and objectives. For instance, a user can instruct Claude to add prep sessions to their calendar, including relevant excerpts from meeting summaries and referencing dictated planning notes. Similarly, these AI assistants can be tasked with gathering and summarizing relevant links from bookmarking tools like Raindrop, and creating new reminders based on this information and related notes.

This enhanced functionality is facilitated by what is technically termed Model Context Protocol (MCP). While the technical details of MCP are complex, its user-facing application is designed to be as intuitive as plugging in a USB device or using the World Wide Web. The AI's ability to access and process information from various applications, such as Superhuman Mail for email, Google Calendar, Granola for meeting notes, and Readwise for digital highlights, provides a centralized command center for managing diverse work-related tasks. The AI maintains a memory of the user's work, style, preferences, and objectives, which is crucial for executing these sophisticated commands.

Users can establish "Projects" within Claude and ChatGPT to define primary work areas. Each project can include detailed instructions and reference documents, further enriching the AI's contextual awareness. This setup enables the AI to understand the specific context for a user's work, leading to more accurate and relevant responses. The ability to query meeting notes, update email status, or find specific passages from digital notebooks transforms the AI from a simple chatbot into a powerful productivity tool. The integration allows for commands that require synthesizing information across multiple platforms, a capability not natively present in individual applications like Google Calendar or Raindrop.