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Claude can now learn a task by watching you do it
Published 25 days ago • 6 min read
Weekly AI Highlights: July 18-24, 2026
What Small Business Owners Need to Know Right Now
by Jen Lehner
My deliberate “no AI” activity this week was sitting front row at a Gillian Welch concert. Perfect venue (Cain Park), on a perfect summer evening. AI will NEVER, EVER, replace live music! 🤘
It was a big week in AI…
Claude can now watch you do a task and turn it into a skill it runs again on its own. Google gave Gemini Notebook a real way to sort the pile of notebooks you have been avoiding. Canva opened its website builder to every account, free ones included. And the Claude Team plan quietly cut its minimum, so a two-person business can finally get in.
Let's get into it.
1. Claude Can Now Learn a Task by Watching You Do It
Claude Cowork added a feature called Record a skill.
Claude Cowork is the part of Claude that does real work on your computer, not just chat. It can open your files, run the steps, and hand you back finished work. And a "skill" is a saved set of instructions for one specific job, so Claude does that job the same way every time.
Here is what is new. You turn on recording, do a task on your screen, and talk through your choices out loud as you go. Claude reviews the recording and proposes a skill. You read it over and decide whether to save it, so nothing gets added behind your back.
The reason this is a big deal is the "watching" part. Until now, teaching Claude a repeatable job meant writing out every step yourself. Or at least giving Claude a document of some sort to work from. This lets you show it instead of tell it, the way you would train a new hire standing over your shoulder.
One caution worth knowing. Whatever is on your screen gets recorded, so close anything private first, like email, your password manager, or client records. And test the skill on a fresh example before you trust it, because one recording shows how you did it once, not how to handle every version.
This only works in Cowork in Claude for Mac, on Pro, Max, and Team plans. You find it in the + menu in Cowork.
ChatGPT got here first. OpenAI added a record-and-replay feature to ChatGPT back in June. So this is not new ground.
I am glad to see it spreading. When two companies land on the same idea a month apart, that usually means the idea is real and not just a demo.
2. Gemini Notebook Can Finally Sort Your Notebooks Into Groups
Gemini Notebook added Collections, a way to organize your notebooks.
If you use Gemini Notebook, the research tool where you upload your own documents and ask questions about them, you can now group your notebooks into Collections. They work like playlists or photo albums. Group them however you want, put one notebook in more than one group, or skip it entirely and keep the single list you already have.
Collections are personal only. You cannot share a Collection with anyone yet. Google has hinted that sharing may come later.
Open Gemini Notebook, click the Collections tab next to Shared with me, and group your notebooks. Two minutes.
If you have leaned on this tool as much as I have, you know the notebook list gets out of hand fast. I have been wanting this update FOREVER so I'm thrilled.
3. Canva Just Made Its Website Builder Free for Everyone
Canva Code 2.0 is now open to every Canva account.
"Vibe coding" is a casual name for building a website or app by describing what you want in plain words instead of writing code. You type what you want, the AI builds it.
Canva Code 2.0 went from a limited preview to available on every plan: free, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education. You can start from a prompt, pick from more than 50 templates, or paste in HTML you made somewhere else, including from another AI tool. Then, and this is the part that matters for anyone who does not code, you edit the result like any normal Canva design. Swap images from Canva's library, retype the text, change colors and fonts with the same toolbar you already use.
Canva says the site generation is 75% faster than before, and the time from prompt to a published site is 30% faster. Whatever it builds adjusts to a phone screen on its own, and you can publish to a free web address or buy a custom one without leaving Canva. Under the hood it runs on Anthropic's Claude, the tool you may already be using.
It runs on credits. Free accounts get fewer AI credits, and the paid tiers get more, so heavier use may mean upgrading.
Open Canva, start a Canva Code project, and describe one simple page for your business. A booking page, a lead magnet sign-up, a landing page. See how close it gets before you change a thing.
Free is what changes my answer here. Most tools like this want your money before you find out whether the output is any good.
You can test this one over a weekend and spend nothing. That is a much easier yes.
4. The Claude Team Plan Now Starts at 2 People Instead of 5
Anthropic dropped the minimum on the Claude Team plan from five people to two.
Claude Team is the shared plan for small groups. It gives you shared projects, admin controls, one central bill, and search across the tools you connect. Until now you had to buy at least five seats to get any of it. Standard seats run $25 per person per month, or $20 per person per month if you pay for the year.
One thing to know before you consider it. If you move a personal account into a team, your chats, projects, and files move into the shared workspace, so think about what you are bringing along.
If you have not paid for Claude yet and there are two of you working together, maybe this is your sign.
Five seats was an easy no for a small business. Two is a much smaller ask.
PROMPT OF THE WEEK
Build an Accountability System You Will Actually Stick With
Most follow-through advice tells you to try harder. This one does something more useful. It looks at why your current approach keeps falling apart, then designs a system built around how you actually work instead of how you wish you worked.
What it is for: fixing the gap between deciding to do something and still doing it eight weeks later. It diagnoses where your follow-through breaks down first, then builds a system light enough that you keep using it.
When to use it: when you have started the same goal three times and stalled at the same spot each time. Also good for a goal you are about to start, so you build the structure before the motivation wears off.
What you get back: a list of where your accountability is failing, a recommended system, a weekly check-in format you can run in a few minutes, and a recovery plan for the weeks you miss. That last piece is the one most systems leave out, and it is the reason most of them collapse after one bad week.
Before you paste it: fill in the five blanks. Be honest on the failure section, because vague answers get you vague advice. And "cadence" just means how often you want to sit down and review, like weekly or every other Friday.
You are designing an accountability system for sustained follow-through.
Use the context below.
Context:
- Goal type: [goal type]
- Personality or work style: [style]
- Current follow-through issues: [issues]
- Tools already used: [tools]
- Preferred review cadence: [cadence]
Instructions:
1. Diagnose why the current accountability approach is failing.
2. Recommend a simple system the person is likely to keep using.
3. Include check-ins, commitments, review triggers, and consequence or recovery mechanisms.
4. Reduce unnecessary friction and tracking overhead.
5. Explain how the system should evolve if consistency improves
or drops.
Output format:
- Main accountability failure points
- Recommended system
- Weekly check-in format
- Recovery plan for missed commitments
Missing information policy:
Proceed with assumptions unless the goal type or main failure pattern is unclear.
Quality bar:
- Lightweight enough to use.
- Strong enough to matter.
- Not built on guilt alone.
One tip that matters: the "tools already used" line is where this earns its keep. Name the tools you genuinely open every day. If you say Notion and you have not opened Notion since March, it will build you a system you abandon in a week.
If any of this made you think differently about how you want to work with AI, hit reply and let me know. I read every message. Your questions shape what I cover next.
Have a great weekend,
Founder, Front Row AI Club PS. Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up to get it in your inbox.
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