In January 2026 I started building AI workflows with Claude Code. What seemed impossible then — inbox triage, meeting capture, proposal drafting, project dashboards, trip planning — is running today. “Claude Blattman” isn’t real, but the tools are. I’ve never coded in my life, so if I can do this you can.
…Like most academics, the work that matters — the research, the writing, the thinking — gets buried under an avalanche of email, coordination, proposals, and administrative overhead. I manage a large portfolio of research projects simultaneously, each with distributed teams across multiple countries. I spend more time answering emails and writing grant reports than doing the science I was trained for.
For the past year I intensively used AI chatbots. They were invaluable — deep research, better drafts, faster brainstorming, decent writing feedback. But they were limited. The time savings were real but modest.