The 3 levels of AI: chatting, agent, agentic (the Claude climb)
Hey, it's Cindy 🌱 All three levels of AI, what each looks like day to day, and the exact setup to reach levels two and three.
btw the waitlist for AI System Club is now open! If you're keen on using AI to automate your content, video editing, job search, business or build AI agents, feel free to sign up (only if you want to hehe). Ps. the waitlist gets first dibs:)
the ladder
The 3 levels, in one glance
🗨️ Level 1, chat. You open Claude, ask, it answers, then it waits. Brilliant for thinking, useless for doing. This is where most people live.
🔌 Level 2, agent. You connect Claude to your real tools (Notion, Gmail, Drive, your calendar) so it can read and act on your stuff, not just talk about it.
🤖 Level 3, agentic. You hand Claude a goal, and it plans the steps, does the work, checks its own output, and keeps going until the job is done. No babysitting.
The jump between each level is the difference between saving minutes and saving your whole week. Here's exactly how to climb.
where most people live
Level 1: chatting (where 8 in 10 people are)
Level one is the large language model on its own: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini. It's trained on a huge amount of text, which is why it's so good at writing, summarizing, and helping you think through a problem. But it's reactive. It only responds to what you type, and it can't touch anything outside the chat window.
What it's great at
✍️ Drafting, rewriting, and summarizing.
🧠 Thinking through a decision or plan with you.
❓ Answering questions and explaining things.
The ceiling: you're still the one doing every click. Claude can write the email, but you copy, paste, and send it. It can plan your week, but you type it into your calendar. That copy-paste tax is exactly what levels two and three remove.
plug it in
Level 2: agents (connect Claude to your tools)
An agent is that same model connected to real tools through a connector, built on MCP (Model Context Protocol), the open standard Anthropic created for AI apps to talk to your data. Once connected, Claude can read data from your apps, and create, modify, or delete things on your behalf. Source: Anthropic connectors and MCP help.
How to turn it on (5 minutes)
🔧 In the Claude app or on claude.ai, go to Settings, then Connectors (Customize, then Connectors on Pro and Max).
➕ Pick a ready-made connector from the directory (Notion, Google Workspace, Slack, and more) and click Connect, or click Add custom connector to paste your own MCP server URL.
🔑 Sign in to the tool and grant Claude access to only the pages or accounts you choose.
💬 Back in a normal chat, just ask Claude to use it. Connectors only work inside a conversation you start, so nothing runs behind your back.
What each connector can actually do (verified July 2026)
📄 Notion read AND update pages and databases, so Claude can pull a doc into the chat as context, then edit it or add a new row on your say-so. Source: Notion MCP help.
📧 Gmail search and read your mail, and draft replies with full context, but it cannot send. Every email still goes out from your own hands. Source: Claude Google Workspace connectors.
📁 Google Drive and Docs search and read your Docs, Sheets, Slides, and PDFs, pull them into a chat, create folders, and save generated files back to Drive. It reads text only, so images inside a doc are skipped. Source: Claude Google Workspace connectors.
Using my Notion connector, read my content calendar database, find every post still marked "idea", and turn the three strongest into filled-out rows with a hook, a caption, and a suggested post date. Show me the rows before you save anything.
Heads-up: an agent still waits for you to start the conversation. There are no automatic triggers here, and some connectors are read-only (Gmail can draft but not send, Drive won't rewrite an existing doc's formatting for you). Knowing each tool's real limit saves you from expecting magic it can't do.
hand over the job
Level 3: agentic (hand over the whole job)
Level three is where Claude stops waiting for your next instruction. You give it a goal, and it plans the steps, does the work, checks its own output for errors, and iterates until the task actually meets the goal. It handles multi-step work start to finish without you standing over it.
The clearest place to see this is Claude Code, Anthropic's agentic tool that reads your files, edits them, runs commands, and works through multi-step tasks autonomously. Describe what you want in plain language, and it plans the approach, writes the work across multiple files, and verifies it works, then fixes what broke. Source: Claude Code overview.
What makes it agentic, not just automated
🧭 It plans. Plan mode lets Claude map out the steps before touching anything, so you approve the approach first.
🔁 It self-checks. It runs its own work, spots errors or failed tests, and loops back to fix them before reporting done.
👥 It can split up. You can spawn multiple agents (subagents) that each take part of a job while a lead agent coordinates and merges the results. Source: Claude Code subagents.
⏰ It can run on a schedule. Routines run on Anthropic's infrastructure so tasks like a morning review keep running even when your computer is off. Source: Claude Code overview.
Getting started with Claude Code
Claude Code runs in your terminal, VS Code, the desktop app, or your browser at claude.ai/code. On Mac, Linux, or WSL you install it with:
💻 The one-line install
curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash
Then run claude inside any project folder. It needs a Claude Pro or Max plan, or a Team or Enterprise seat. Source: Claude Code overview.
You don't need to be a developer to feel it. Point it at a folder of messy files, a spreadsheet, or a repetitive weekly task, give it the goal, and watch it work the list while you go make a coffee.
go further
3 bonus prompts to run next
1 · Spot the copy-paste tax
Find your level-two win: Look at everything I did on my computer this week. List the five tasks where I was just moving information between apps (copy here, paste there), and tell me which Claude connector would remove each one.
2 · Scope your first handoff
Design your first agentic task: I want to hand off one repetitive weekly job completely. Interview me with five questions to understand it, then write the exact goal and step list I'd give an agent so it can run the whole thing and check its own work.
3 · Choose your connect order
Pick the right connectors: Here's my tool stack: [list your apps]. Tell me which ones Claude has a connector for today, what each connector can and can't do, and the order I should connect them in for the biggest time saved.
use it well
How to get the most out of it
🌱 If you're just starting don't try to jump straight to level three. Connect one tool you use every day (Notion or Gmail is a soft landing) and let Claude read and draft for a week before you trust it to act. The confidence compounds fast.
⚡ If you're already comfortable the real leverage is chaining levels. Let an agentic session read your connected tools (level two) as part of a bigger goal (level three), so it gathers its own context instead of you feeding it. That's when one prompt replaces an afternoon.
match the stakes
An honest note
More autonomy is not always better. For anything high-stakes or irreversible (sending money, emailing a client, deleting records) keep Claude at level one or two and stay in the loop. Agentic shines on repetitive, low-risk, multi-step work where a small mistake is cheap to catch. Match the level to the stakes, not to the hype.
the waitlist is now open
AI System Club is launching soon
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btw this list gets first dibs the moment doors open :)