If you’re new, welcome! If you’re a regular, thanks for being here as we navigate this AI shift in eCommerce. I share what I’m testing and what’s actually moving the needle. Where’s the vault you ask? Every previous edition is saved here.

In this edition (shortcuts):
Make Every Mistake a Rule💥
Marie Kondo Your Claude Chats 🧹
Voice Finally Grew Up 🎙️
4 AI Hacks From the Seven-Figure Seller Summit 🎤
News and Events Worth Following

Ever corrected your AI, then watched it make the exact same mistake a week later?

Then you already know the problem. Today I am going to show you how to make a fix permanent, so you never have to give the same correction twice.

This one changed how I work. It is not a tool. It is a habit, plus two upgrades that make the habit stick even when you switch between AI tools.

Here is the part most people miss.

The expensive thing is not the mistake. It is the re-explaining. You tell your AI how you like your subject lines written. You fix the tone. You correct a formatting choice. It gets it right. Then the session ends, and all of that context evaporates.

Next session, you start from zero. Same corrections, same tuition, paid again.

Think about that for a second. Every correction you give is a small piece of training. And most of us throw it in the trash the moment we close the window.

The fix is to treat every correction as an asset you keep, not a note you lose. There are three ways to do it, from the ten second version to the one that carries across every tool you use.

This is the one you can do today, and it costs nothing.

Most AI tools read a plain instructions file when they start up. Claude Code reads a file called CLAUDE.md. Many other tools, including Codex, Cursor, and Windsurf, read one called AGENTS.md. Whatever the name, it is a file that loads before your AI does any work, and it treats what is inside as standing instructions.

So when your AI gets something wrong, do not just fix the output. Add one line to that file.

🔶 It keeps calling your brand "PPCNinja" instead of "PPC Ninja"? Add the rule.
🔶 It writes in long paragraphs when you want short ones? Add the rule.
🔶 It keeps slipping an em dash into your copy when your style forbids them? Add the rule.

That last one is mine. I have a hard no dashes rule, and every time it broke, I wrote the correction down instead of re-explaining it. Now it is one line in a file, and every new session already knows.

Pro Tip: Spend the extra ten seconds. Fixing the output solves today. Writing the rule solves every day after.

Here is where it gets a little more powerful.

Some rules the model just keeps breaking. You wrote it down. It read it. And it still slips up now and then, because a written instruction is a suggestion the model is supposed to remember, not a wall it cannot cross.

That is what a hook is for.

A hook is a small check that runs automatically at a specific moment, on its own, whether or not the model remembers the rule. In Claude Code, you can set one to run right before the AI writes or edits a file. It can inspect what is about to happen and block it if it breaks your rule.

The difference is simple:

🔶 A rule is a note. The model reads it and tries to comply.
🔶 A hook is a guardrail. It does not care whether the model remembered.

Take my no dashes rule again. I can write it in my instructions all day, and once in a while a dash still sneaks through. A hook closes that gap for good: a tiny check that reads anything about to be saved and refuses it if it finds a dash. The model can forget. The hook cannot.

You would not do this for every rule. It is more setup than a one line note, so save it for the rules that actually matter, or the ones the model keeps breaking no matter how many times you write them down. For those, it is the difference between "usually right" and "never wrong."

I am keeping the setup out of this piece on purpose, because the idea matters more than the syntax. If you want my starter hook, there is a reply link at the end.

Now the part I have been most excited about, especially if you use more than one AI tool.

I run both Claude and Codex. They are good at different things, and I move between them depending on the task. For a long time, switching meant re-briefing the second tool from scratch. Everything the first one had learned about the job stayed locked in the first one's session.

Two things fixed that.

First, a shared instructions file. AGENTS.md is becoming the common standard that many tools read, and it is stewarded by the Linux Foundation, so this is not one vendor's walled garden. Codex, Cursor, Windsurf, and others read it natively. Claude Code reads its own CLAUDE.md, but you can point it at the same AGENTS.md with a single import line, so both tools work from one source of truth. Fix a rule once, and every tool you use inherits it.

Second, a handoff document. This is a short note you have your AI generate at the end of a working session. Not the whole transcript. Just the state:

🔶 What we did
🔶 What we decided, and why
🔶 What is still open
🔶 Where the important files live

Then when you open the other tool, you hand it that document, and it starts where the last one stopped instead of asking you to explain the whole project again. It is the same move as writing a rule, just aimed at carrying context across a tool switch instead of across a session.

Here is one I actually did.

A few weeks ago I had a big multi step build to hand off. Instead of trying to hold the whole thing in one long chat, I wrote a single handoff document first. It opened with one line that tells you exactly why this works: this document is self contained, you do not need the originating conversation.

Inside it was everything the next tool needed. The business context. Which existing pieces to reuse instead of rebuilding from scratch. The exact phased plan. And a list of known gotchas that would have tripped up anyone starting cold.

Then the actual build happened in Codex, on its own branch. I never re-explained the project once. The document was the briefing, and Codex just picked it up and ran with it. That is the whole trick: the handoff doc is the thing that remembers, so you do not have to.

Step back and look at what these three levels really are.

Every seller has access to the same models now. Same Claude, same Codex, same everything. The model is not the advantage anymore. It is table stakes.

The advantage is everything you have taught your AI that the person next to you has not. Your rules. Your guardrails. Your handoffs. The accumulated corrections that make your AI a little sharper every single week, while everyone else re-explains the basics every time they open a window.

This is the amnesia fix I keep coming back to. Your AI does not remember anything on its own. But you can give it a memory, and the sellers who do are quietly building a tool that fits their business better every day.

The best part is how small the first step is. You do not need to set any of this up in an afternoon. You just need to stop throwing your corrections away.

Next time you correct your AI, ask one question: which rung does this belong on? Write it in your instructions file, enforce it with a hook, or add it to a handoff doc. Then it is fixed for good.

Know anyone who wants to work with an agency that has AI and tech in their DNA and are pros at managing advertising and creatives for E-commerce? Forward them this newsletter and let them connect with us at [email protected].

Ever open Claude, stare at a wall of half remembered sessions, and give up on finding the one you actually needed? I’ve got to say, Search on Claude sucks and is not coming to your rescue.

Good news though! Claude Code desktop app just redesigned its sidebar, and now a little tidying is finally within reach. Started looking a bit like Codex honestly but it is really making my life easier.

🔶 Group the sidebar by project, so related sessions cluster under one heading instead of one endless list.

🔶 Pinned Chats help you move your most important chats to the top in a Pinned section
🔶 Open in a New Window allows you to open multiple browser like windows that you can detach away from Claude main and keep an eye on simultaneously running tasks.

🔶 Filter by status, project, or environment to shrink the list to just what you want right now. Honestly this is straight from the Claude documentation and I am still looking for this filter. If anyone figured this out hit reply!
🔶 Rename a session from the toolbar, so "the one about the scraper" is actually called that.

A clean workspace is not vanity. When you can find and resume the right session in two seconds, you actually reuse your past work instead of starting from scratch. That is the quiet advantage hiding in a tidy sidebar.

Voice is the highest bandwidth input we have. You can say about five times more than you can type in the same stretch of time. For a long while the tools did not deserve that bandwidth. In the last couple of weeks that changed, and the one you can actually use today is Claude.

Claude voice used to be the punchline. The reason: it only ran on the smallest, fastest model, so it got words wrong and felt shallow.

That is fixed. In its late July upgrade, Claude voice now runs on the full lineup, Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku, so you can talk to the smartest model, not just the quickest one. It reaches your connected tools, handles many more languages, and lets you switch models mid conversation. It is in beta across mobile, desktop, and web.

Talking a hard decision through with Opus out loud is a different thing than the old Haiku only version. This is the one to open first.

OpenAI also rebuilt its interactive voice on a new model called GPT-Live, and on paper it is the more ambitious one. It parks a small voice window beside your work on the desktop app, can capture your screen, and can drive the Work and Codex surfaces by voice.

I say "on paper" because I could not get it on my account yet. That is expected. GPT-Live is going to consumer plans first (Free, Plus, Pro) and is not on Business or Team workspaces at launch, so if you live in a work workspace like I do, you will hit the same wall. I will report back once it reaches me.

One thing worth knowing now: the new GPT-Live model does not do live video or screen sharing. For that you drop back to the older Advanced voice mode.

Want to see it in action before it reaches you? The hands-on walkthrough that put me onto this is worth a few minutes.

Voice gives you the bandwidth. Neither tool remembers your rules between sessions, so it starts fresh every time. The fix is this issue's main feature: put your rules in the file the AI reads, and voice starts every conversation already knowing them.

The other downside: These voice apps are a bit TOO chatty for the kinds of work I do. So I am going to stick to plain dictation for now.

I joined the AI hackathon panel at the Seven-Figure Seller Summit, in a room full of eight-figure sellers and tool builders, each one demoing a live hack. Here are the best one-liners, and who shared them.

🔶 Moshe Shiner (eight-figure seller): Bulk-swap seasonal product images across your whole catalog through a tool wired to Amazon's API, using Perplexity Comet to build the prompt, then let it run while you work.

🔶 Andrew Erickson (seven-figure seller): Drop a free MCP into any AI you use (Claude, ChatGPT, or Codex) to pull top keywords, top competitors, and seasonal trends for any ASIN.

🔶 Samuel (BeCool, AI PPC agency): Turn one webinar or YouTube video into a LinkedIn post, an X thread, Instagram captions, an email, and a blog post with a single Gemini prompt.

🔶 Yours truly (Ritu Java): Use the =AI() formula in Google Sheets to run one prompt down hundreds of rows for listing rewrites, review mining, and negative keyword triage. It is a pipeline, not a chat.

Want to watch the full session? The Seven-Figure Seller Summit AI hackathon panel is worth an hour.

If you have spent more than five minutes in the Amazon world, you know Kevin King. He is one of the sharpest, most generous operators in the space, and his events have a reputation for being where serious sellers go to actually level up.

His next one is Market Masters 4, August 20 to 24 in Austin, Texas. And it is not a sit-in-a-ballroom conference.

It is a 3.5-day mastermind at an 18,000 square foot mansion on Lake Travis. The format is built around "hot seats": you put your real business in front of a room of experts and walk out with a plan, not a tote bag of pamphlets.

🔶 Built for e-commerce operators at every stage, from pre-revenue founders to teams running $200M-plus.
🔶 Seven 90-minute workshops on AI, content, PR, email, and more.
🔶 Nine hot seats and thirty audience seats, all meals included. It is intimate on purpose.

I am flagging it because it is genuinely good, and because I have a little something for you. Use code EX1000 for $1,000 off your seat.

If you have been meaning to get out of your own head about your business, this is the room to do it in. You can see the full lineup on the Market Masters page.

🔶 Claude Opus 5 is here. Anthropic's new top tier model landed on July 24, with the biggest gains for long running agents and coding work.

🔶 ChatGPT's cheapest model just got 5x cheaper. OpenAI cut the price of GPT-5.6 Luna by 80 percent on July 30, down to about 20 cents per million input tokens, which makes running AI work at scale far cheaper.

🔶 The Anthropic Economic Index is now a Claude connector. Turn it on in the connectors directory and ask what AI is actually used for in your role, straight from real usage data, with nothing to install.

🔶 Meta launched a Seller app for Facebook Marketplace. It brings AI listing creation, a unified inbox, and inventory tools, and anything you make posts straight to Marketplace.

🔶 Shoppable's one click checkout arrived inside ChatGPT. Its Universal Checkout plugin opens a catalog of 500 million products for multi retailer checkout without leaving the chat.

🔶 Sellers are deploying fleets of AI agents to protect margins. Forbes profiled one operator running dozens of agents for about 1,000 dollars a month to watch listings, ads, and market trends.

🔶 A cheaper, faster Nano Banana is rolling out. Nano Banana 2 Lite is Google's most cost efficient image model yet, now reaching the Gemini app and AI Mode for lower cost product shots.

We hope you liked this edition of the AI for E-Commerce Newsletter! Hit reply and let us know what you think! Thank you for being a subscriber! Know anyone who might be interested to receive this newsletter? Share it with them and they will thank you for it! 😃 Ritu