Hi!

I’m super excited to share my very first newsletter with you. A lot of people have been asking me to share more AI and automation resources so I’m committed to sending this out every week and I’d love your thoughts and feedback. 

Okay, let’s get into it! 

If you’re anything like me, you’ve felt the shift happening in business. The pace is faster, the tools are smarter, and the way we work is being reshaped in real time. It’s exciting, but also overwhelming, which is exactly why I started this newsletter. Not to add more noise, but to cut through it with insights that help you do less of what drains you and more of what drives you!

That’s what this newsletter, “The Ampra Edge,” is all about. Every edition of this newsletter will reflect the values we live by at Ampra: thinking like builders, staying relentlessly curious, and always being ridiculously helpful. We’ll focus on:

• Recent news and information in the world of AI and automation that is relevant to business owners and busy professionals so you can stay up to date and be informed.
  

• Practical insights on AI, automation, and productivity tools you can put to work right away.
  

• Step-by-step Tips and Guides for tools and strategies that drive efficiency.

My goal is simple: to give you actionable insights you can use to reclaim time and focus on what truly matters: building relationships, growing your business, and doing work that energizes you.

I’m grateful you’re here from the start and it means a lot to share this journey with you.

Cheers to building an EDGE that lasts!

Julien Brandt,
CEO, Ampra.ai

New and Noteworthy

• Recent AI Developments

  • Nano Banana 🍌: An amazing new image generation and image editing tool built by Google and easily accessible within Gemini 2.5. I’ll be sharing more guides and how-to videos on this inside the Ampra Circle community in the coming weeks and just published a blog post about it a few days ago!

  • Veo3: A powerful video generation model now available inside platforms like Canva, Manus, and Gemini. You can experiment with Veo3 and generate free 8-second clips by going to Gemini or Google AI studio and access its full capabilities via tools that are using its API. Here are some examples of the video (and audio) realism that’s possible from a simple prompt.

  • ChatGPT “Branching”: ChatGPT’s new branching feature lets you spin off alternate conversation paths from any point within a ChatGPT thread, so you can explore different ideas or drafts without losing the original chain of thought.

  • ChatGPT “CustomGPT Calling”: You now can now "@" mention CustomGPT's in existing threads

  • Gamma 3.0: One of our favorite tools just got a major upgrade. If you follow us, you know we love Gamma as an AI-powered presentation tool and if you've seen one of my presentations you know how much I rely on it. Yesterday, they updated to version 3.0 with some impressive enhancements: Gamma Agent for conversational content creation, enhanced API integration, 10x more visual variety in templates, and improved collaboration tools for teams.

• Tools We Love

  • WisprFlow: I use Wispr to dictate instead of typing. It works in any app and is about 3x faster than typing, plus it’s AI-powered and its accuracy is way better than the native dictation on iPhone or Mac.

  • Beeper: I use Beeper to unify all my chat apps (WhatsApp, Slack, SMS, Facebook Messenger, etc.) into one place. Instead of bouncing between a bunch of apps, I just open Beeper and see all my messages in a single interface.

• AI Model News

  • ChatGPT-5: Launched mid-August with mixed feedback. Now that the dust has settled most people agree that it’s a step in the right direction (as long as it’s prompted well, which is a topic we delved deeper into within the Ampra Circle community). That said, it’s not the massive leap towards AGI that OpenAI was hyping.

  • Claude 4.1 Opus: This model topped the leaderboards for a brief moment in time, but the news quickly shifted with the release of ChatGPT-5. Claude continues to be my favorite AI tool for business, specifically the way in which Claude Projects functions. If you want help figuring out how to use Claude to support your business, let me know!

  • DeepSeek V3.1: (released August 21st)  is free and open-source, offering a robust alternative to proprietary models, and a strong contender that rivals even ChatGPT-5.

  • Grok4: Currently free for all users for a limited time (as of early August).

  • Qwen AI: Currently completely free to use with no login, including its impressive image generator.

Some Tips To Get More Out Of ChatGPT-5:

Stop asking ChatGPT to "write" things. Instead, ask it to "help you think through" problems. I get way better results saying "Help me think through our Q1 pricing strategy" than "Create a pricing strategy." It becomes a thinking partner, not a content generator.

Get extremely specific with GPT-5. Don't just ask for "a proposal." Define tone, format, length, and what to avoid. GPT-5 follows detailed specifications much more reliably than previous versions. Also consider following a prompting framework like “RACE” or “CARE”. You can click here to read more about these frameworks and prompting tips. 

My honest GPT-5 take after a few weeks of testing: It's good, not revolutionary. You can get my complete assessment plus 5 advanced techniques in the Ampra Circle community here.

Get Involved

Inside the Ampra Community

The Ampra Circle community brings together business owners and professionals who share a vision for smarter, more efficient operations through AI and automation.

I share prompts, templates, case studies, guides and step by step tutorial videos and anything else that I think would be helpful!

PS: I’d love your thoughts on this first issue. What was most helpful, and what would you like to see more (or less) of? Too long or too short? Just hit reply, it’ll go straight to me. And if someone in your world would find this useful, feel free to pass it along and encourage them to sign up for the newsletter.