Stop Chatting, Start Building: AI Beyond the Chatbox
Are you still just asking ChatGPT questions? It’s time to build.
Hello fellow devs,
This year has truly been the “Year of AI” for me. We’re all discovering how much these tools can help us, not just at work, but in our daily lives.
But are you still just “chatting” with your AI?
In our latest Out of the Box Developer session, I showed how I’ve moved beyond simple Q&A to actually building useful tools on the fly. We often get stuck treating these models like search engines, but they are capable of so much more.
Use “Deep Research” for the heavy lifting.
I used Gemini to research how to update my passport in Canada. Instead of me browsing 50 tabs, the AI went deep, verified the sources, and gave me a step-by-step guide. It’s not just about “knowing” things; it’s about organizing complex information into a report you can trust.
Canvas is your personal software factory.
I demonstrated how I built a “Brazilian to Canadian Unit Converter” and a personal tax simulator right inside the chat. I didn’t spin up a server. I didn’t create a repo.
I just asked for a tool to help me convert shoe sizes and temperatures, and it generated a working HTML/JS application instantly. This is “Canvas” (or Artifacts in Claude). It turns a conversation into a working product.
Key Takeaways:
* Deep Research is for Action: Don’t just ask “what is X”; ask for a “step-by-step plan to achieve X” and let it browse the web to verify.
* Build Micro-Tools: If you have a calculation you do often (like taxes or unit conversions), ask the AI to “create a tool for this” instead of just calculating it once.
* Trust but Verify: Use features that cite sources (like Deep Research) to avoid the “hallucination” trap when dealing with real-world data like visas or dates.
Cheers,
Pedro Cavalero
P.S. Stay tuned for Part 2, where I’ll show you how I stepped up from these simple tools to full-blown Python automation scripts.
Listen to the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSdaDQh3TCw
What’s your take? Hit reply and let me know.
