Forget the hype around those one-size-fits-all AI writing platforms. Their generic approach just doesn't capture the nuances of human language. But what if you could build a writing assistant tailored precisely to your voice? 

Introducing Claude 2.1 with MindStudio, a killer combo to build custom AI writers without code. Claude from Anthropic can outperform platforms like Jasper and Ryt when it comes to sounding human and generating captivating copy. 

And here's the kicker - you can build your own customized version of Claude for free without writing a single line of code. Imagine having an AI writer tailored specifically for your needs, interests, and writing style. One that helps you craft content that flows effortlessly with your tone of voice and following your rules.

In this guide, we'll give you everything you need to know to build your own Claude 2.1 Writer from scratch. Let’s dive in!

Create Your New AI

To get started, create a new AI app in your MindStudio account. If you don’t have one already, signing up is free and requires a few seconds of your time. You’ll unlock full access to all free models and a plethora of features to make your AIs truly personal.

Craft The Master Prompt

When inside the editor, MindStudio will help you craft a perfect master prompt. This prompt will appear in all future send message blocks you insert in the workflow. 

You should help the AI by providing an in-depth natural sounding description of what you expect the writer to do. In our example, we decided to build a blog writer with Claude 2.1, using the following inspiration prompt:

In this instance, “AI” is the LLM we’re using, and “Human” is the person interacting with the bot. Establishing clear language to reference the two can help you down the road.

When you’re ready, click on “Generate Prompt."

Here’s the result

Choose the Claude 2.1 Model

Right now, the AI is using the default model: GPT-3.5. While this is a great model for speedy answers and generic tasks, we want the most capable model for creative writing to make our blog generator unique. 

Navigate to “model settings” and select Claude 2.1 from the list of available models. This will ensure Claude 2.1 remains as default throughout the entire automation workflow. 

Then, set up the temperature and max response size:

• The temperature determines how creative the model can be. You shouldn’t set this higher than 0.66 for Claude, as it could become unstable. We suggest keeping it at 0.5 for creative copywriting and closer to 0 for factual copywriting; 
• The max response size determines how much Claude can output before stopping. Effectively, this determines the max length of your article. Given that we’re building a blog writer, we want this to be a very large limit, and we set it to 20,000 tokens in our example.

Feel free to tweak these details to your likings. After all, this is YOUR Claude 2.1 AI Writer. You can learn more about the model settings in our documentation.

Set Up the Automations

Automations are what make MindStudio 10x more powerful than your average custom GPT. Here, non-technical users can generate custom workflows and output the results wherever they want. 

For our Claude 2.1 AI Writer, we’ll need a few inputs to ensure a custom output. Let’s map out what we need to generate effective blog articles: 

• Tone of voice: the article should feel on-brand, not a generic regurgitation coming from the vast knowledge of LLMs;
• Name of the blog: this can help the AI feel more personal and output personalized messages.
• Topic: this is likely going to be a keyword you researched on Google Trends or dedicated SEO tools; 
• Reference URL #1: an article on the topic to teach the AI about the current best practices and trends in the niche; 
• Reference URL #2: a second article to provide more variety and information; 

This is all we need for a basic setup. You can collect as many inputs as you want and customize it to your needs. 

Setup the Onboarding Flow

You’re likely going to use this AI over and over again when generating blog articles. Your tone of voice and blog name won’t change each time. 

For this reason, you can add these inputs to the “Onboarding” sequence, a one-time setup that welcomes you to the AI the first time you use it. 

You can always edit the onboarding later on, and all values collected throughout the process are saved and passed down to all subsequent threads and interactions with the AI.

Input: Tone of Voice

Defining your tone of voice makes the AI sound more like you. Instead of sticking to broad, third-party guidelines, dedicate some time to detail your usual speaking style. The AI excels at adapting from that point on.

Input: Name of the Blog

Here, you’re simply asking the user to insert a name, so you can use the “Short Text” type. Remember, if you're writing for multiple blogs, you can always modify this choice during the onboarding process.

Setup the Onboarding Flow

Ensure both variables are now in the onboarding flow by navigating to your AI App name in the top left corner → Global Settings → Onboarding. 

Input: Topic

The second input will capture the topic. Here, you’ll detail what the post is about. This could be a transcript of a video that the AI will summarize and post on Twitter, a recent news you want to talk about to your audience, or a promotion for Christmas. 

It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, the AI will morph to your needs. This is the power of building it yourself versus having others decide what’s important to you.

Input: Reference URLs

Both reference URLs utilize the "Scrape URL" input feature, which is available for free across all accounts. 

This function navigates to the given URL, retrieves the HTML content, and extracts key elements such as the main body, headers, and footers. The information is then returned in text format. 

The process aids the AI in learning about the subject or in mimicking the writing style found in the URL. 

Using two references reduces the risk of the output closely mirroring the first reference, ensuring the AI draws from a broader range of sources for a more distinctive article.

Output: Generate the Outline

Now, let’s get to the core functionality and generate an outline. We mentioned Claude 2.1 is the best creative and human-sounding copywriter… but it’s not that good at following instructions.

For this reason, GPT-4 Turbo is typically the best choice when generating outlines, especially if you’re not writing in English.

It’s not mandatory, but we suggest selecting GPT-4 Turbo in the model settings for this send message block.

To generate the outline, we used this prompt:

As you can see, we’re passing all core variables: the output of scraping the two articles, plus the topic “Human” (that’s you!) wants to write about.

This outline isn’t for you. It’s for Claude 2.1! 

Let's change the "Response Behavior" setting to "variable." This way, the output from this step will be assigned to a variable, which we can then utilize for generating the article.

The outline will now reside in the {{articleOutline}} variable.

Output: Generate the Full Long-Form Article

The final step is simple: you'll instruct Claude 2.1, the default model, to create a long-form article based on the outline provided by GPT-4 Turbo and present it to the user.

Afterward, the user can interact with the article to modify sections, gain further insights on the topic, or ask for alternatives. All information will be stored in the thread, accessible through the "AI" memory.

That’s it! You now have your own, completely customizable Claude 2.1 AI Writer. 

Publish it, embed it in a custom app, and get writing. If you ever need to change prompts, add inputs, or tune your onboarding, remember this is YOUR AI writer, and you’re fully in control.

Bonus: Send the Article to Wordpress

Using Make.com integration, you can send the output to wherever you want, including a Wordpress or Webflow blog.

We have a full guide on how to set up the Make.com integration for an AI Post Generator.

For this one, we’ll use a webhook to capture the output from MindStudio and send it to a draft on a Wordpress demo website.

And here’s the result on Wordpress: 

What’s that? You just saved 3 subscriptions? That’s what we like to hear!

Conclusion

To recap, you successfully: 

• Created a completely custom AI, which will follow your commands to the T, to generate on-brand captivating long-form blog articles; 
• Collected all the information you need to generate the posts;
• Skipped through all the “prompt engineering” guides and “prompt packs” by simply describing what you need to a send message block;
• (bonus) Sent the post to Wordpress as a draft using our Make Integration.

This happened in about 10 minutes, zero lines of codes, and completely for free. Big kudos to everyone that went through this in full, and we hope you had fun building custom AI applications with MindStudio.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. If you’re interested in learning more, see our example applications, watch our professionally-crafted YouTube tutorials, or join our certification program. 

Don’t let the revolution slip by you: start 10x your productivity with AI solutions that speak like you today. 

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