ChatGPT Has Its Own App Store and You Probably Didn't Know

January 7, 2026

Welcome to the 10th edition of Smarter Living! With the new website finally up and running, we're making 2026 the best year ever for learning AI.

If you're new here, Smarter Living is a free newsletter teaching you the proper way to use AI in your life. From meal planning, to booking vacations, to sending work emails -- we've got something in here for everybody.

The AI Karate Belt System

We created an "AI Belt System" that lets you quickly determine if an AI tip or tool is aligned with your experience and skills. It's a great way to see where you are in your learning journey and figure out what to tackle next.

No Belt means you've never used AI but you're excited to learn. White Belt means you've tried AI a few times. Yellow Belt means you use AI tools a few times a week. Green Belt means you're a daily power user of different AI tools. Purple Belt means you've built AI agents, automations, or other no-code tools. Black Belt means you're a programmer creating AI software using engineering principles and frameworks.

Ready to find your rank? The White Belt AI Certification (free) is the best place to start. Already past the basics? The Yellow Belt Certification takes your skills to the next level.

ChatGPT Has Its Own App Store?

AI Belt Rank: White Belt, Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Purple Belt, Black Belt

Who this is for: Anyone who wants to save time on their phone and use ChatGPT to perform actions inside their apps.

Did you know ChatGPT has its own "app store"? It's built right into the ChatGPT mobile app. Connecting AI to the apps you use most often allows you to have an AI assistant that performs specific tasks. Check out this tutorial by Stephen Robles. This video will teach you how to use ChatGPT to control your phone and perform unique tasks inside of apps like Apple Music, Spotify, Instacart, DoorDash, Figma, Canva, Photoshop, OpenTable, Expedia, and Uber -- just to name a few.

Now instead of jumping from app to app, you can use ChatGPT to book reservations and hotels, order groceries, create custom music playlists, and a whole bunch more.

The OpenAI Cookbook: Prompting Guides

AI Belt Rank: Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Purple Belt, Black Belt

Who this is for: Anyone who wants to improve their prompting skills and get better responses from their AI chat tools.

A lot of the "prompt engineering guides" out there on the internet are BS. This one isn't. Why? Because it comes directly from OpenAI's internal teams on how to best use their models. Most people don't even know this exists. The OpenAI Cookbook is a collection of best practices that they use for various models, scenarios, and how-to's. It's a forum written by the engineers working at OpenAI, and updated whenever a new model comes out.

If you're a Yellow Belt, some of the instructions might feel a bit too "techy." Here's a tip: simply ask ChatGPT to scrape the cookbook URL (or just copy and paste the website text) and ask it to "Explain this tutorial to me like I'm a brand new beginner trying to learn. Keep all prompts and instructions exactly as they're written in the article. Use analogies to help me draw connections and learn the material faster."

The "Claude-Father" Just Gave Us His Claude Code Setup

AI Belt Rank: Purple Belt, Black Belt

Who this is for: Programmers, vibe coders, and other tech-savvy individuals who use Claude Code to create things.

The principal engineer behind Claude Code, Boris Cherny, just put out a tweet that you need to read -- then re-read again. You mean to tell me that the guy who created the world's most insane AI coding assistant gave you the secret sauce behind his own best practices? I suggest you spin up a new instance and implement some of these Claude programming tips. Boris is a great follow for anyone trying to get the most out of their Claude programming assistants.

Community Highlights

Our AI Product Lead, Max Bernstein, has been on an absolute tear lately -- pumping out value, courses, and content for our community members every day.

One highlight was a lesson on how to get your AI tools to learn your "voice." Max brought in Zain Haseeb to demo a really cool free AI tool called Spokenly. In that session, Max covered why having an authentic "voice" is becoming the new trust filter (everyone can sound "smart" now, so the question is whether you sound like you), the difference between shallow voice profiles and deep voice capture, how to build both a personal voice and a professional/brand voice, and the prompt they use to capture all of it. Zain also did a full demo of Spokenly, showing how he's stacked his voice guide into custom modes for emails, social posts, and meeting notes.

Other highlights from the community: Napkin.ai for turning text into visuals, a custom framework for building "no-brainer" sales proposals, why ChatGPT forgets your rules, the "3 universe" expertise extractor prompt, training on how to stop re-explaining yourself to AI, and mastering Claude artifacts.

AI Tools We Love

Ultra AI -- The best way to organize, save, and chain your best ChatGPT prompts together.

Wispr Flow -- A voice dictation tool that doesn't require any "do-overs." I use it to text people all day long.

Claude Code -- The only programming assistant you need to build literally anything online. Just say what you want and AI creates it for you.

New YouTube Channel

Back in October I decided to start filming myself around the homestead. I wanted to show people the reality of how I use AI tools on the fly, to do things other than the typical AI for work tips.

I'm trying to move away from the "how to" style videos (there's plenty of them on the internet), and keep it entertaining. Grab your favorite drink, settle in on the couch, and enjoy the latest episode here. It's a fun glimpse into my life as an entrepreneur + homesteader.

Past Newsletters

You can read all of our previous newsletters and deep dives in the AI Tips section of our website. We're also building a database of AI tools to give you a no-nonsense description of what each tool does, who it's for, and how to best use it. Each week we'll be updating the website with fresh new content.

Our mission is to help you level up your AI belt rank, improve your work + life balance, and give you the skills to become the person you want to be.

That's all for this week.

See you next Tuesday.

Live Smarter.

Ryan Hutchinson Founder, SmarterLiving.ai