How to connect ChatGPT or Claude to your business

You connect ChatGPT or Claude to your business in one of three ways. You paste things in. You switch on a ready-made connector to a tool you already use. Or you connect your own software so the AI can work in it. Most people are stuck on the first. The value is in the other two.

Level one: what is wrong with copy and paste?

Nothing, for a one-off. You paste in an email and ask for a reply. You upload a spreadsheet and ask what's wrong with it.

The problem is you. You are the cable. Every piece of information goes through your hands, in and out. It saves you thinking time and no admin time at all.

Level two: what are connectors?

Both Claude and ChatGPT now have a list of tools they can plug into: your email, your calendar, your documents, and a growing list of business software. You pick one, sign in, and approve what the AI is allowed to see.

After that you stop pasting. You ask: what did the surveyor say in his last email, and when am I free to meet him? It reads the email and checks the diary by itself.

Start here. It takes ten minutes and you can undo it.

Level three: what if my business runs on its own software?

Then that software needs its own connection. The standard for it is MCP, and I explained it in what an MCP server is.

If you bought the software, ask the supplier whether they have one. If you own the software, you get it built. Once it's there, the AI can do the real work: create the job, send the quote, chase the invoice.

That's what we did with Plan@Job. A contractor adds it to Claude like any other connector, signs in, and from then on the CRM answers to plain English.

What order should you do it in?

1. 01Write down the five tools your business actually runs on.
2. 02Check each one for a connector to Claude or ChatGPT. The supplier's help pages will say.
3. 03Connect one tool, read-only if you can. Email or documents is a good first.
4. 04Ask it ten real questions from your week. See what it gets right.
5. 05Only then allow it to do things, and only with a confirm step.

Don't connect everything on day one. You want to understand what it can see before it can act.

What should you be careful about?

Three things, and none of them are technical.

Use a business account, not a personal one. Business plans come with proper terms on what happens to your data. Read that page once.

Know whose login it is. The AI sees what the connected person sees. If you connect the owner's email, it reads the owner's email. Connect the narrowest account that does the job.

Keep a human on the send button. Reading is low risk. Sending, paying and deleting are not. Any decent connection asks before it does those.

What if a tool has no connector?

Then you have a choice. Wait for the supplier, switch to one that has it, or have a connection built if the tool has an API.

Don't let one closed tool hold the rest back. Connect what you can now.

What does it look like when it's working?

You stop opening five tabs to answer one question. You ask in one place and the answer comes back with the work half done.

That's the shift I keep writing about: the future is not software, it's a chat that can use your software. If yours can't be connected yet, that's what we build. Start a conversation.