Shluchos Use Cases

The AI for Shlichus (Shluchos) WhatsApp group was relaunched for shluchos in February 2026. In May the members voted 10 to 0 to keep it open for questions rather than make it announcements-only. Most of what is posted there is tips and links from the admins; the threads below are the ones where shluchos shared what they made or asked for help. Relevant items from the main AI for Shlichus group are marked as such.

A candle-lighting meditation from a sicha

In September 2026 a shlucha learned a sicha, then had AI turn it into a 30-second guided meditation to read aloud at a women's candle-lighting gathering, "closed eyes and all." The text pictured women all over the world lighting at the same moment, some with family, some alone, all joining one chain of light. The group's reaction was immediate: "This is so beautiful."

To make your own, give the AI the sicha itself, not a summary from memory:

Here is a sicha I learned this week: [paste the text or your notes].
Write a guided meditation of about 30 seconds (80 to 100 words) to be read
aloud slowly to a group of women just before they light Shabbos candles.
Short lines, simple words, present tense. Keep the idea of the sicha and do
not add any teaching that is not in it. Then list the one or two sentences
from the sicha the meditation is based on, so I can check it.

Read the result against the sicha before you use it. AI tends to drift into generic inspiration; the last line of the prompt is there to catch that.

Likkutei Sichos as poems

A shlucha runs Project Likkutei Sichos Poems, a blog with one poem and illustration for each chelek, made with ChatGPT (posts from June and September 2026). She asked which AI could turn the images into an animated slideshow; nobody in the group answered. The options members discuss for short video are on Video Creation.

Flyers, magnets and banners

The resolution problem (September 2026). A shlucha found ChatGPT's images were not sharp enough for a large banner or to convert to a vector file. What the group suggested:

• Ask for 300 dpi and give the exact print size.
• Rebuild it in Canva. When a shlucha designed a candle-lighting magnet, ChatGPT itself told her to retype the text in Canva, gave her the background to type over, and named the fonts.
• In ChatGPT, connect Canva once and type @canva make it editable. It changes the design a little, but the text comes out sharp.
• Ask the AI to "break down the elements of the flyer including all fonts, sizes, settings, colors," then recreate it in Canva (October 2026).
• Upload the AI image to Canva and use Magic Layers, which separates it into editable pieces. It "works most of the time," and it sometimes changes the text, so proofread every word.
• The admin's advice: connect Canva to ChatGPT or Claude, have the AI come up with the design idea, then have it build the design inside Canva instead of generating a picture.

The admins re-posted the full Flyer Designer prompt in September 2026; it is on The Designer Prompt. For Shabbos candles in any image: AI tends to draw exactly two. In Chabad practice the mother lights at least two, often one more per child, and each young girl lights her own smaller candle. The main group passed on in February 2026 that the Rebbe would correct images of Shabbos candles to show three, two large and one small.

ChabadOne: forms, emails and pages

• A registration form with payment (October 2026). A shlucha wanted the ChabadOne card processor on a form ChatGPT built. Her workaround: in the ChabadOne form builder, add a text area (under Extras), paste the AI form's code into it, and put ChabadOne's own amount, total and payment fields below. The catch is that people press submit twice, once for each part.
• Letting the AI do it. The same shlucha found ChatGPT could sign in to ChabadOne and draft an email or update a website page; others had the same result with Instinct, which sent a screenshot before saving. When a member asked whether this is safe, the answer was to try it once, watch every step in the browser, tell the AI to ask questions instead of guessing, and remove its access afterward.
• Email drafts only. The admin's standing rule (October 2026): let Claude or ChatGPT write into your Gmail drafts, then you review and send. Letting it send is reasonable only for an identical message to many people. In the main group a shliach asked ChatGPT to design a test email in ChabadOne's Communicator and it sent within 45 seconds without waiting for approval, so say "show me the draft, do not send" in so many words.

More on this in ChabadOne Integration.

Personal messages to a whole list

In October 2026 a shlucha used Muse, Meta's AI assistant app, to draft a personal text for each name on a list; it gave her a button per person that opened the draft in her Messages app. She also prepared 50 personal emails as drafts this way and found it worked better for her than another app she tried. Others mentioned WhatsApp broadcast lists, GMass (a Gmail add-on) and Zeffy for bulk email.

The same week a member shared a long Hebrew summary of press reports on Muse's privacy problems, and another passed on an Israeli AI professional's warning against connecting Instinct at all. Several shluchos said they use Instinct happily and that you can remove its permissions or turn off training. The group did not settle it. If you try one of these assistants, give it the fewest permissions, keep it off your main email, and do not give it a credit card. See Personal AI Agents and Agent Safety.

Birthdays for a women's group (still a wish)

In May 2026 a shlucha described the dream: send the AI the membership list and get a WhatsApp every morning with whose birthday it is and how old they are turning. Nobody in the group had built it. Two ways that should work, untested here:

• A Google Sheet that emails you. Put the list in a sheet and ask ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini to write a Google Apps Script that runs every morning and emails you today's birthdays with ages. Test it on a copy of the sheet first.
• A personal assistant. Agents that live in WhatsApp can send a morning message from a sheet; see Personal AI Agents.

If you want Hebrew birthdays, do not let a chat tool convert the dates in its head; use a converter, and record whether each birth was after shkiah. See Zmanim and Hebrew Dates.

The privacy settings to change first

The admin's PSA from an in-person session (August 24, 2026): by default the consumer versions of ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini can use your chats to train future models. Turn it off:

• ChatGPT: Profile > Settings > Data Controls, turn off "Improve the model for everyone" (path as posted in the group).
• Claude: Settings > Privacy, turn off the setting that lets your chats help improve the models. It also covers Claude Code on the same account (Anthropic's help page).
• Gemini: turn off "Keep Activity" at myactivity.google.com/product/gemini. A shlucha checked and confirmed that on Gemini this is all or nothing: with it off, your chats are not kept for you to look back at either (Google still holds them for 72 hours). With it on, Google deletes activity after 18 months by default, and you can change that to 3 or 36 months.

Team, business and nonprofit plans are usually set not to train on your data by default. Details are on Privacy and Data.

Free and discounted access

• Teachers. Anthropic gives verified US K-12 educators a free year of Claude if they sign up by June 30, 2027 (Claude for Teachers). In July 2026 the admins also shared OpenAI's free ChatGPT plan for US K-12 teachers; check OpenAI's site for the current terms.
• Nonprofits. The admins' summary (July 2026): nonprofit seats for both ChatGPT and Claude have a two-seat minimum, at about $8 a seat, and you verify your nonprofit status through Goodstack. Current prices are on Nonprofit Discounts.

Other things shared in the group

• Jewish Story Studio (jewishstorystudio.vercel.app), a free collection of 1,830 stories searchable by name, theme or word, shared as a gift for shluchim in September 2026.
• A WhatsApp agent for a Chabad House (chabadagent.com) was posted in August 2026. A shlucha asked how it differs from the free automated replies in WhatsApp Business, which can also answer from your website's information. No one answered.
• The admins post the Webinars and the weekly newsletter here. A separate announcements-only group for rebbetzins was also set up in May 2026.

From the main group, useful for women's programming

• An Event Setup Assistant prompt (June 2026) with "Women's Program" as one of its event types: it asks one question at a time and ends with an event sheet, website blurb and checklist. It is on Master Prompts.
• Connected apps get searched. In September 2026 a shliach asked his AI to look in a Google Sheet for a new Rosh Hashanah sign-up. Without being asked, it also searched his email and found the person had subscribed six months earlier. His lesson: once you connect an app, the AI will use it whether you ask or not, so connect only what you want it to read.

Related

• AI Events 2025 to 2026
• Flyer Design
• Canva
• Privacy and Data
• Personal AI Agents