🪄Cancel 5 meetings a week with AI

🎒There was a time when humans gathered around a fire to share stories. Now we gather in Slack to say 👍.

Let’s face it: some meetings could be an email. Some emails could be a Loom. And some decisions? They could be settled with a single well-placed emoji and a gentle nod to the abyss. This week’s focus: Replacing meetings with smarter signals: AI tools that update, reply, and clarify, so you can stay in flow, and skip the calendar chaos. (3-minute read)

🔦 Week’s highlights

• Tool Spotlight: Read AI shows up as your proxy in Zoom meetings. Bubbles replaces “quick syncs” with smarter screen talk.

• Sherpa’s Shortcuts: Text Blaze sends your “Can we async?” replies. Klu records Zoom calls and pulls out action items.

• The Ridgeline news: Turn PDFs into videos like magic.

• Sherpa’s Pack (freebie!): Grab the cold pitch email template to snag new clients

• 😝Tools Gone Wild: Klarna and Zoom CEOs skipped their own earnings meetings with digital avatars.

🪓 Sherpa’s shortcuts

Sherpa-approved hacks to multiply your output without multiplying your effort.

⚡ Hack #1: “Can we async?” in one click

Problem: A client drops the ol’ “Got time to chat?” and now the burden of logistics is yours. Again.
Solution: Use Text Blaze (or other snippet tool) to toss the ball back gently in their court, with a pre-written, perfectly polite “Can we async?” response. You look helpful. They do the typing.

How to set it up:

1. Install Text Blaze  browser extension for Chrome.

2. Create a reusable snippet like:
   “Hey! I’m trying to limit meetings this week so I can focus. Would you mind sending your Qs or a Loom?”

3. Save it with a short trigger (like /async)

4. Reply in seconds (simply type /async and hit send) then move on—with your focus (and boundaries) intact.

💡 Sherpa tip: You’re not being evasive, you’re encouraging clarity. Most clinets will thank you for it.

👉 Try Text Blaze for free

⚡ Hack #2: Summarize live calls effortlessly

Problem: You still attend the occasional Zoom—whether you want to or not—and now they want meeting notes, too.
Solution: Use Klu.so to auto-join, record, and summarize your meetings with clean recaps, action items, and timestamps. You stay focused, and skip the dreaded follow-up doc.

How to use it:
Install the Klu Meet extension, (Chrome) connect your calendar, and let it join your Zoom, Meet, or Teams calls automatically. Set up in 10 minutes, and receive summaries in you inbox.

💡 Sherpa tip: Use the summary as your follow-up email. One click and you look like the world’s most organized human.

👉 Try Klu.so for free

AI Tool Spotlight

Tool Sherpa explores the flood of new AI apps and carefully selects only proven tools.

🔍 Read AI: Let someone else take the Zoom

Why it matters:
Read AI is the freelancer’s dream assistant: it joins your Zoom, Meet, or Teams calls for you, and sends back a shockingly good summary with action items, key questions, sentiment analysis, and timestamps. No need to attend. No need to pretend. Setup in under 5 minutes.

Who should use this:

• Freelancers with calendar fatigue and multiple clients

• Small teams needing clean post-call notes without effort

• Introverts who believe most meetings could be a well-organized paragraph

Best use case:
Client schedules a 9am “brief update” that’s never brief. Forward the link to Read AI, let it attend the meeting, and review the highlights over coffee. Add a quick Loom reply, and you’ve handled the whole thing in 10 minutes.

Pros:
Organized, human-sounding summaries across Zoom, Meet, and Teams. Saves hours of note taking and awkward small talk.

Cons:
Not for high-emotion or high-stakes meetings, complex negotiations, client onboarding, or when human reaction matters more than a recap.

Pricing:
Free plan (limited meetings). Paid plans ($19/month).

👉 Try Read AI for free

🔍 Bubbles: Kill the “quick sync” with one link

Why it matters:
Bubbles lets you skip the calendar entirely by recording a quick video (with screen sharing, if needed) and sending a link. It’s asynchronous, so you talk once and they respond when ready. Everyone stays focused, while avoiding Zoom. If Loom is a polished monologue, Bubbles is a video group chat—minus the meeting.

Setup in 2 minutes, and easily save 30–60 minutes per meeting by replacing “Can we chat about this?” calls with something smarter and more respectful.

Who should use this:

• Freelancers tired of repeating themselves on calls

• Designers, devs, writers, or anyone giving visual or verbal feedback

• Client-facing folks who want to sound personal, without being always available

Best use case:
Instead of calling to explain a doc or design, hit record, walk clients through your screen, and send the link. Your client watches it after lunch, leaves a comment, and no one had to pretend “4:30 works great.”

Pros:
Bubbles makes async updates feel human. Record your screen and face together (or skip the face), leave timestamped comments, and receive inline responses.

Cons:
Not for sensitive feedback or high-stakes conversations where tone really matters.

Pricing:
Free plan (5 weekly meetings). Paid $10/month.

👉 Try Bubbles for free

🎒Sherpa’s Pack

Freebies to help freelancers gain an edge

Struggling to find the right words for a cold pitch? These free, well-crafted templates help you break the ice, sound confident, and get noticed, without sounding desperate or robotic. Copy, tweak, and send. (Thank you Peter!)

👉 Download the free template here. 

The Ridgeline 🏔️

News on how AI is rewriting the rules for solopreneurs and small teams.

Let’s trek:

Google goes full Marie Kondo: New Gmail and Calendar features let you ghost promotions and declutter without lifting a finger. Inbox joy, inner peace.
🔗 Grab the zen

Skill-hungry, not title-hungry: More employers now skip résumés and look for proven skills instead. AI isn’t replacing you. Lack of adaptability might.

Read more on USA Today → usatoday.comLinkedIn told you lies: Still starting posts with “I’m humbled”? Still ending with “Thoughts?” Delete and repent. These 12 myths are killing your profile.
🔗 Fix it fast

Turn your PDF into a hype video: Upload. Wait 5 minutes. Boom: your doc is now a sleek promo video. Your pitch deck just got a glow-up.
🔗 Watch the magic

AI joins Team Freelancer: Seven AI tricks making it way easier to run a business without interns, sleep, or therapy. Just add robots.
🔗 Meet your new staff

Trash talk gets literal: One U.S. city gave garbage trucks AI—and now they scold residents for bad recycling. Even your bins have feedback now.
🔗 Get judged

Final sip:
AI’s canceling spam, fixing your pitch, and turning your PDFs into party tricks. Slightly terrifying. Incredibly useful. We’ll take it.

###

Tools gone wild! 😜

Let’s end with a laugh — when AI tools take a detour off the happy path.

CEO clones crash the earnings call
Klarna (the “buy now, pay later” app) and Zoom both showed off their AI swagger this quarter by sending AI-generated clones of their CEOs to deliver official earnings presentations. Instead of logging on live, the real execs’s avatars walked through slides, explained profits, and nodded convincingly while sipping coffee in the background. The clones even mimicked their voices, gestures, and “off-script” charm.
Read the full story

Lesson learned:
If a Fortune 500 CEO can skip Wall Street Q&A with a polished avatar, you can skip Monday’s stand-up with a sharp async update. AI isn’t fakery when it carries your voice—and clients know it’s still you behind the message.

🧭 What’s Next?

You canceled the meeting, sent the update, and gave your calendar the afternoon off. That’s the climb we like to see. 📬 Like this edition? 👉 Send fellow freelancers this link for a saner, smarter path up the mountain:
—Your Sherpa team 🏔️