This month, we’re looking at how AI is shifting from assistant to operator. What used to be experimental, now sits inside workflows. From autonomous agents to operational playbooks, brands are moving past experimentation and into infrastructure. 

Here's what caught our eye. 

A Practical Guide: The AI Playbook Shopify Teams Actually Need

Before we talk about where AI is going, let’s talk about where most teams are stuck.

Most Shopify brands aren’t blocked by growth.
They’re blocked by operations that can’t keep up.

We’ve spoken to many teams who are still running serious revenue through spreadsheets and Slack threads. Layering AI tools on top of messy systems only creates more complexity.

So we built a practical AI Playbook with our friends at Streamline Connector, a guide to turning everyday ecommerce chaos into structured, automated workflows.

Inside, you’ll find:

• What leading brands are building with n8n

• How to apply these workflows to your own operations

• The most useful AI features across tools like Siena, Gorgias, WEVO, and more

• How to build your own internal automation engine

• A team exercise to uncover your highest-impact automation opportunities
  

  👉 Download the AI Playbook

AI Gets a Job

Tools like Clawdbot are designed to execute real operational tasks: scheduling meetings, managing inboxes, triggering workflows, and integrating directly into platforms like Slack and Discord. Instead of waiting for prompts, these agents live inside the systems teams already use.

We’ve been experimenting with our own version.

Meet Mama Rhe

An AI agent with a VAAN email address. She’s currently helping with finance onboarding (sending W9s and company docs) and supporting content workflows for our CEO. 

Next up: becoming project-aware and assisting with onboarding and internal ops.

A small glimpse at a bigger shift. Software -> teammate

ChatGPT Health

We’ve all been asking chat about our symptoms for years. Now, OpenAI is leaning into that behavior with a dedicated, private health experience. 

Now more structured and private, designed to help people understand their health information and prepare for conversations with doctors.

Just like AI is becoming embedded in company operations, it’s also becoming embedded in personal ones.

AI Is Your Friend

Or at least that was the sentiment nearly every AI Super Bowl ad was sending.

Anthropic positioned itself as the ad-free adult in the room.
OpenAI defended trust at scale.
And Ring showed neighbors using AI-powered surveillance to reunite a family with their lost dog.

The Super Bowl felt less like a product demo and more like a coordinated PR campaign to soften public anxiety and accelerate adoption.

Siena AI Lab: Los Angeles

The VAAN team is heading to LA next week for the Siena AI Lab where we will dive deeper with Hexclad on how they are pushing the boundaries of AI-driven CX.

Hope to see you there!

Thanks for tuning in!
We’d love to hear from you → [email protected]