chief of staff

an AI that reads your email, preps your meetings, clears the noise, and briefs you every morning. you just open the page.

Not a prompt. Not a chatbot. A chief of staff that actually does things.

The exec signs in with Google or Microsoft. The app reads their email and calendar automatically. Every morning they open one page and get a briefing: what needs their attention, what's been cleared, what's coming up, and the context they need before they walk into a meeting.

It doesn't just summarise. It archives the noise, flags the politics, preps them for meetings, and connects dots they'd otherwise miss.

What they see every morning

The exec opens their Chief of Staff page. This is what's waiting for them.

Thursday, March 13 — your morning briefing
Your priorities today

Reply to Sarah Keane. She sent the revised contract terms last night. Legal needs your sign-off before noon or the timeline slips to next quarter.

Prep for the 10am with David. He attached a 14-page strategy doc on Tuesday that you haven't opened. The three things you need to know: they want to cut the UK budget by 30%, move spend to DACH, and they're pitching a new agency. More detail below.

John Murray wants to talk. He's emailed you twice this week, and cc'd your boss on the second one. It's about headcount for Q3. This feels like it's escalating. Worth a 10-minute call today.

Meeting prep

10:00 — Strategy review with David Chen

David's doc proposes three changes. Here's what you need to know going in:

1. UK budget cut (30%) is driven by underperformance in retail, not a strategic shift. The data's on page 4.

2. DACH expansion assumes the Munich office is fully staffed by June. Last you heard from Karen, they're still two hires short.

3. The new agency pitch is from the same group you rejected in October. Different proposal, same team.

2:00 — Weekly ops sync

No pre-read. Recurring meeting, standing agenda. Last week's action: you owed James the revised forecast. Check if you sent it.

Cleared from your inbox

12 newsletters and internal updates archived. Summary: Marketing Week covered the Unilever restructure. The internal “Friday Wins” email mentioned your team's Q2 launch. Nothing that needs action.

6 cc'd threads archived. One worth noting: finance approved the travel budget for the Berlin trip. No action from you.

FYI

Board pack draft circulated by Emma. Due date for comments is next Wednesday. Not urgent today but worth blocking 30 minutes later this week.

HR announced the new parental leave policy. Applies from April. Relevant if you're planning around Lisa's leave.

What happens behind the scenes

Gmail / Outlook
Calendar
Claude API
Briefing page
  • Reads email — pulls last 24 hours via Gmail API or Microsoft Graph. Read and write access so it can archive noise.
  • Reads calendar — pulls today's meetings and any attachments or linked docs from the invites.
  • Analyses with context — Claude processes everything against the exec's profile: their role, team, priorities, VIP contacts, what to flag, what to ignore.
  • Takes action — archives newsletters and noise. Doesn't just report, actually clears the inbox.
  • Preps meetings — reads attachments, cross-references with recent emails on the same topic, pulls out what the exec needs to know before they walk in.
  • Spots patterns — someone emailing twice in a week, an escalation tone, a missed follow-up. Flags it like a real chief of staff would.
  • Renders the briefing — clean page, formatted, scannable in 2 minutes. Not a wall of text.

What the exec configures

The system prompt is built from their profile. They fill this in once, then refine it over time.

Who they are

Role, company, team size. “I'm CMO at a mid-size SaaS company, 12 direct reports, report to the CEO.”

VIP contacts

Emails from these people are always flagged. Boss, key clients, board members. Everyone else gets normal triage.

What's noise

Newsletters, internal updates, automated notifications. Archive and summarise, don't show me the full thing.

What to flag

Anything mentioning board, budget, headcount, or my boss's name. Anything that sounds like an escalation.

What we build

front end

Simple web app. Sign-in page, briefing page, preferences page. Hosted on Vercel or similar.

auth

Google OAuth and Microsoft OAuth (Azure AD). Read + write access to email. Read access to calendar.

AI layer

Claude API. System prompt built from exec's profile. Processes emails, calendar, and attachments.

email actions

Archive via Gmail API (remove INBOX label) or Microsoft Graph (move to archive). Batch process noise.

storage

Minimal. User profile, preferences, VIP list. No email content stored. Processed in memory and discarded.

scheduling

Optional cron: generate briefing at 7am so it's ready when they open the page. Or generate on-demand when they visit.

The 60-minute session

0:00

The demo (you show yours)

Open your dashboard. Show the email triage: action, FYI, noise. Show meeting prep. Show tasks pulled from conversations. Don't explain how it works. Just use it. Let the room see what “good” looks like.

Then: “That took me months. You're going to have your own version working in the next 50 minutes.”

10:00

Sign in and connect

Everyone opens the app on their laptop. Signs in with Google or Microsoft. The app connects to their email and calendar. First briefing starts generating immediately.

15:00

See your first briefing

Their real emails. Their real calendar. Triaged, prioritised, and formatted. This is the moment. They didn't paste anything. They didn't write a prompt. It just worked. Now they're leaning forward.

20:00

Configure your chief of staff (30 mins)

Round 1: Set your VIP contacts. Who should always be flagged? Regenerate. See the difference.

Round 2: Define your noise. Which senders are always archive? Which internal emails never need your attention? Regenerate.

Round 3: Set your flags. What topics should always surface? Budget, headcount, board, a specific project? Regenerate.

Each round takes 5-8 minutes. By the end they've trained it to their specific world. You walk the room, helping people sharpen their rules.

50:00

Tomorrow morning

The briefing regenerates every morning at 7am. Open the page, read for 2 minutes, start your day knowing exactly what matters. Show them how to keep refining: “That wasn't noise, flag it next time.” The system learns.

What makes it not slop

  • No pasting. No prompting. It connects to their actual email and calendar.
  • It doesn't just summarise, it archives the noise and preps them for meetings.
  • They calibrate it in the room with their real data. Three rounds of refinement.
  • The morning habit is zero effort: open a page, read for 2 minutes.
  • It gets better every day as they refine their rules.

Kyle Poyar: “The hardest part isn't the technology. It's knowing which jobs you actually need done.”

Things to nail down

1. Do we need IT approval for OAuth?

Some companies restrict which apps can access email. Need to check with the client's IT team before the session, not during it.

2. Google or Microsoft?

We support both. Ask the client which one their org uses so we can test the right flow beforehand.

3. How many people in the room?

Under 15 is ideal. You can walk the room and help people sharpen their rules. Over 20 and you need a second facilitator.

4. Do we let it archive on day one?

Maybe start with “suggest archive” rather than auto-archive. Let them see what it would clear, approve it, then turn on auto-archive once they trust it. Safer for the first session.

What we need to build

  • to build   The web app: sign-in, briefing page, preferences page
  • to build   Google OAuth + Gmail/Calendar API integration
  • to build   Microsoft OAuth + Graph API integration
  • to build   Claude API briefing engine with configurable system prompt
  • to build   Preferences UI: VIPs, noise rules, flag topics
  • to build   Email actions: archive, label, batch clear
  • to build   Morning cron: generate briefing at 7am
  • to build   Demo script for your opening 10 minutes

The upgrade path

week 1

Daily briefing. Open, read, refine rules. Build the habit and the trust.

week 2

Turn on auto-archive. Let it clear the noise without asking.

week 3

Add meeting prep. It reads attachments and connected docs before you walk in.

week 4

Weekly review. “Here's what you committed to this week. Here's what's still open.”

Can I help?