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Intro · Step 1 of 6

Level 1 · Session 1 — Build a real product with world-class design

Vibe code your portfolio, extract design DNA, build a reusable design skill, and publish live. 90 min total · 4 builds · Sonnet 4.5

By the end of this session

✓A portfolio website scaffolded with your real content
✓Design DNA extracted from a site you love
✓A reusable design system AI skill
✓A fully styled, published portfolio website live at a shareable URL

What you need for this session

AI tools run best when your computer isn't competing with a dozen other apps for memory and processing power. A slow computer means slow AI responses, laggy interfaces, and frustrating wait times.

Close everything you don't need: other browser tabs, background apps, open files.
Join the AI Builder WhatsApp community and open the app.
Open Claude and make sure you're on the Pro plan.

Become a Builder

The express goal of this program is to change who you are: to help you become a builder. For most of our careers, we've been generating output — communication, slides, spreadsheets, documents, code, graphics, design. But after recent advances in AI, we can now build systems that generate output for us, and we can ship real software products without the skill and effort barriers that used to exist.

A few things that builders do:

→Quickly identify specific opportunities in their roles where they can build, and take initiative to dive in right away
→Spend time building in their workdays and evenings, going further with the concepts and skills from sessions
→Share AI learnings, AI tips, AI news, and AI assets with others in the program, their companies, and their networks

How to learn in this program

Build live with us

Do the full builds during the session, ask questions in chat, and learn from other students' edges as they hit them.

Watch + build after

Watch the demos, try what you can live, then finish the builds on your own time.

Build ahead

Work through the session guide before the live session so you can focus on instruction and ask questions during class.

Program Overview

By the end of Level 1, you'll have:

✓A live, published AI portfolio website styled after a site you love
✓A reusable design system AI skill
✓An AI voice guide skill that writes in your style
✓A scheduled email manager that handles your inbox
✓A research presentation built entirely with AI
✓A complete AI system you ship and demo at Demo Day

Opening Concepts

Concept

Comparing AI ecosystems

Every major AI lab now offers roughly the same suite of features: a chat app, a coding/agent tool, skills, and support for tool connectors. The three ecosystems you'll hear about most:

OpenAI: ChatGPT + Codex

Built for handing off tasks to run in the background, especially coding. Strongest for developers and engineering-centric workflows.

Google: Gemini + Gemini CLI

Gemini's superpower is native Google Workspace integration. If your life lives in Gmail and Google Docs, Gemini will feel native. It can also hold more information in a single conversation than the others.

Anthropic: Claude

What this program is built around. Anthropic offers the widest spectrum of surfaces: Claude Chat for thinking, Cowork for extended knowledge work, Claude Code for maximum-control agent building.

Concept

Claude Chat vs Cowork vs Code

	Claude Chat	Claude Cowork	Claude Code
Interface	Web or desktop	Desktop app only	Terminal, desktop, or web
Access	Free or paid	Paid plan required	Free or paid
What it does	Conversation, research, writing, artifacts	Extended tasks on your local files and folders	Coding agent, multi-file edits, deploys
Best for	Quick tasks, brainstorming	Document processing, file work, building visuals	Building and shipping code, scripting, git workflows
File creation	Artifacts inside chat	Real files saved to your folders	Real files saved to your folders
Scheduled tasks	✗	✓	✓

Today we use Claude directly. Use Chat for thinking and quick questions. Use Cowork for doing. Use Code for building and shipping with code.

Concept

Tokens, context windows, and sessions

Tokens — The basic units AI reads and writes, roughly a word or part of a word. Every model has a limit on how many tokens it can handle at once.

Context window — Everything the AI can see at one time: your instructions, the conversation so far, any files you shared, and its own responses. When the window fills up, older content drops out.

Session — One continuous conversation. Start a new session and the AI starts fresh. Stay in the same session and it remembers everything you've shared.

A model is a specific trained version of an AI system — same underlying technology, tuned for different trade-offs between capability, speed, and cost. Think of it like engines in a car: same body, different power.

Model	Best for	Speed	Cost
Claude Sonnet 4.5	Everyday tasks, balanced use	Fast	$$
Claude Haiku 4.5	Quick, lightweight tasks	Fastest	$
Claude Opus 4	Complex reasoning, hard problems	Moderate	$$$
Claude Opus 4.5 / 5	Frontier tasks (if available)	Slower	$$$$

Sonnet 4.5 is the default for this program. We'll call out when a specific task warrants Haiku (fast, cheap) or Opus (genuinely hard problems). Model names update frequently — if you don't see these exact names, pick the equivalent tier.