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News 2026-04-23 No tokens. No ongoing costs. Just results❗

Howdy %Name%,

For the past couple of years we’ve been slowly shifting the focus from teaching how to program in AutoHotkey to how to use AI to program AutoHotkey.

Last week I made it official.

Now our focus is to teach how to use AI to automate the mundane (mainly with AutoHotkey)

The truth is, AI is surpassing most people’s programming abilities.

I think, in 6 months , AI will have surpassed even the best programmers (in all programming languages).

This is the main reason why we’re now focused on helping people use AI more effectively.

We still focus on AutoHotkey because AutoHotkey is phenomenal at automating Windows programs.

Most people teaching AI automation rely on AI to run the automation.
That works… but it also means you’re always paying every time it runs.

When we use AutoHotkey, we might use AI to build the solution but, once it’s done, it runs for free.

No tokens. No ongoing costs. Just results❗

And results that you don’t have to worry they were hallucinated !

Now on with the show…

Access all our Courses; Quit when you want

How the-Automator is “better” than other people teaching AI

During a hero call Kenneth mentioned he liked the change in our focus (to teaching how to use AI to use AHK) and how most other channels teach AI to “do the work”.

In this short excerpt we talk a bit how AutoHotkey still has a very important place in Desktop Automation / Robotics Process Automation (RPA) but how most people working in AI don’t know what they don’t know.

How our AI Automation Channel is different than other AI channels Hero Extract

Giving AI Eyes 👀

As I’ve repeatedly said, AI is getting insanely good at programming in AutoHotkey!

Having said that sometimes it “struggles” with simple things like moving an element in a GUI.

I realized if we could let AI “see” the actual X/Y locations of the Win32 controls, it would not have to guess by looking at screen shots.

In this short video I walk through a quick approach I took for working with AutoHotkey GUIs.

Stop Claude From Guessing Pixels 🔧 This Scanning Tool Changes Everything

Zoom Glance Bar is a surprise hit!

Irfan and I spend most of the day in Zoom together. Often one of us will be either sharing our screens or muted.

Unfortunately Zoom doesn’t make it super easy to detect if you’ve muted or are sharing your screens.

So we created a simple “Always on top” notification that let’s me both glance at it (so I know if I’m muted, if my webcam is on, and if I am sharing) but I can also click them to toggle each of those things.

You can check it out in this video.

We haven’t released it yet but, from the reaction to people at the meeting, it is bound to be a hit for Zoom users!

🎯 The Zoom Tool That’s Changing How We Work All Day | Hero Extract

Claude Profile Manager

Speaking of big hits, this one is no surprise!

Like every other LLM on the planet, Claude has a given context window length.

Keeping your system settings concise & free of bloat can help Claude focus and extend your conversations. Like Claude.md, Skills, Agents, and MCP Servers.

Check out our Claude Profile Manager that will let you easily switch between different setups.

Session and profile manager for Claude Hero Extract

Improving People’s Lives: Story #92

Earlier this morning I had a call with a new developer that is creating software for Radiologists. We had a two hour call discussing the best secrets I know about creating software, tracking licensing, marketing, etc.

He’ll be able to avoid a lot of the mistakes I’ve made over the past 15 years of running my own business.

📚 What we’re reading

You’ll love Ryobi’s new DIY workbench
Stop trusting flash drives for long-term backup
Android Auto settings you should change on your phone
Stop using Run as Administrator: Windows now has sudo, and it’s safer

🤖 AI News that you Need to Know

Introducing ChatGPT Images 2.0
Claude Code killed my need for an IDE
Don’t risk your company’s data. Use these safe ways to use AI at work

⚡️Productivity tips: In Chrome:

Control+Shift+Tab Reopens last Tab
Control+Tab Shifts to next tab
Control+T Opens new tab
Control + W Closes Current tab

🤣 A spot of Humor: Every dentist on the planet❗

What we 🅰utomated this week with AutoHotkey #130

In this week’s video I walk you through a whole pile of AI-assisted tools we built with Claude and AutoHotkey.

Think notification systems, a NotebookLM wrapper, an Excel CLI, registry and WMI explorers, plus some slick Zoom controls.

It’s wild how fast you can crank out genuinely useful stuff when AI does the heavy lifting, and I show off a bunch of them in action.

What we Automated with AI and AutoHotkey #130

Clients say…

I love your scripts because I don’t have to focus on so many things. I just look at the image and rely on muscle-memory. — Michael N. (Radiologist)

AHK Hero 🦸

Consider joining the 🦸Hero club! Members receive 25% off courses, consultations, tutoring, done for you project work, etc. Currently we have over 551 hours of recordings teaching AutoHotkey that is exclusive to Hero members❗

During this Friday’s call we’re planning to discuss:

Help Hero Members with their Questions & Code
AHK Script Maker: Fixed tooltips
Scintilla Editor AHK v2 Modernization
Fast C++ & AHK Windows XP Style Search tool
Updates to AHK HotkeyString Lookup
Giving eyes to AI
Updates to UIA Inspector (now with AI assist)
Demonstrating XL.exe (an Excel CLI we made for interacting with Excel)
Using Agents in Claude Code
Claude Scheduler (maybe not needed because of Claude Routines?)
Creating your own Claude Code Commands
Using Try/Catch in your code
Setting default values in an ini file

They also have access to exclusive & pre-released content and 3 hours a week where we help people with their automation issues (the Saturday calls are geared towards people new to Automation with AI)

🗣️ 💭 Quotable quotes

The more perfect a person is on the outside, the more demons they have on the inside — Sigmund Freud
Curiosity can empower or impede you — James Cleary
Your strength is measured by what you’ve overcome, not what you’ve avoided — Joe Glines

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the-Automator Dedicated to Multiplying your Income

Joe, Isaias, Irfan and staff

P.S. You may think AI is not up to the task but I 💯% guarantee you that it is! We’re getting Amazing AutoHotkey code from Claude Opus 4.7.🔥

Granted we have 38 very well developed Claude skills specifically for building AutoHotkey code!

Join our Hero club and you can check them out!

News 2026-04-16 AI Makes me feel like I’m a kid in a Candy store🍭

Howdy %Name%,

The last month has been a 💯% game changer for me!

While I’ve been using AI to assist me for nearly 4 years now I hadn’t completely embraced it in my workflow.

But now I can tell you this.

Claude code is insanely good❗

But don’t let the name scare you.

I’m using Claude Code via the VS Code Extension and I’m almost never looking at the CLI (Command Line Interface). And you can set up the extension in about 1 minute.

But don’t stop there. Learn how to create your own Claude commands and then create skills.

Both are game changers!

After that MCPs and Agents will blow your mind!

Now on with the show…

Help Your Wife Get You Something YOU Want

This summer will mark our 19th anniversary.

That means it will be 19 years of my wife guessing what she should get me for birthdays, Christmas, Father’s Day, etc.

I thought this was a very fun opportunity for me to use AI and help her have a better idea of what I would love to get.

Check out how I fed AI what I’d like and then sent to my wife (Buttercup)

Why Every Husband Needs This AI Gift List Strategy 💪

Help Preserve your Digital Whiteboard

Are you burning through your tokens faster than you need to be?

This video helps walk through some of the best quick lessons in how to get far more out of your subscription than you currently are.

I’ll bet you you get at least 10X more prompt time if you follow half of these.

💸 Why Your AI Chatbot Hits Daily Limits So Fast (Hidden Costs Revealed)

Discussing How to Access Claude Code

I’ve been using the Claude model for quite a while now. Both Opus and Sonnett are insanely good at programming in AutoHotkey.

About 2 months ago I stopped accessing Claude from Chrome and switched to the Claude VS Code extension. This was a complete game changer! You can hear more about my decision in this video.

⚡ Why I DITCHED Claude Desktop for This VS Code Setup (Mind-Blown!) | AHK Hero Extract

If you are intimidated by VS Code don’t worry we got you covered! Check out our Intro to VS Code course that walks you through setting up and using VS Code with AutoHotkey. If you purchase by next Tuesday April 21st you can use VSCode50P during checkout you’ll get 50% off

Don’t forget all of our courses come with a Double your Money back guarnatee!

Steal other people’s GUIs in Seconds

Borrowing other people’s GUIs may feel wrong (at first) but, as long as your changing it (and give attribution) most programmers accept it as a compliment.

Using Canva’s new Magic Layers it makes it super easy to borrow any GUI and isolate the elements.

Check out how easy it is to do in this video.

This AI Tool Turns ANY Screenshot Into Editable Layers 📸 | AHK Hero Extract

Improving People’s Lives: Story #91

Last week I called a good friend of mine, Bob, on his birthday.

During the call I mentioned he was using AI to help his work at a casino where he oversees 604 employees.

I of course gave him some simple to use ideas how he can make his usage of AI 10X more productive (mainly by using projects but I did mention how easy it is to create custom tools)

To show him the power of Notebook LM I asked him for a topic he wanted to learn to which he chose Romans 9 from the bible.

I then recorded this video walkthrough how I used it to generate a custom video, infographic, Podcast, Slide deck, etc.

🤖 I Asked AI to Study Romans 9 – The Results Will SHOCK You!