How we actually use AI with our VAs.
Not theory. Twelve working playbooks from running an Australian VA agency on Claude Code and ChatGPT. Each piece written from lived experience inside DotVA.
By Jenn Yang and the DotVA team. Updated continuously as the tools change.
- 01
Why we don't replace VAs with AI (and probably never will)
The contrarian take. AI is brilliant at outputs and bad at judgement. The seven tasks where AI consistently loses to a competent VA.
Read the playbook → - 02
How we run our VA team on Claude Code (a working playbook)
Claude Code is usually pitched as a developer tool. We use it as a VA productivity layer instead. Five daily workflows, the failure modes, and what we would change in 2026.
Read the playbook → - 03
Claude vs ChatGPT for virtual assistants — which one wins in 2026
Side-by-side, 14 real tasks. What each is good at, what they break on, what we actually pay for.
Read the playbook → - 04
Building a Telegram briefing bot for your VA in 30 minutes
A free morning briefing bot that wakes your VA up with the metrics that matter. No code required.
Read the playbook → - 05
The AI-augmented VA stack — what to pay for in 2026
Claude Pro vs ChatGPT Plus vs Perplexity vs your VA. Where the marginal dollar wins.
Read the playbook → - 06
Shopify automation for VAs — 12 tasks your VA can hand to Claude (with prompts)
The exact prompts our team uses to run e-commerce operations with VAs + Claude Code.
Read the playbook → - 07
Writing SOPs your VA AND Claude can both follow
A 5-step template for SOPs that work for humans and AI. Examples included.
Read the playbook → - 08
Training a new VA on AI in their first week — the DotVA checklist
Our actual onboarding doc, redacted and shared. Every AI workflow your VA needs in week 1.
Read the playbook → - 09
The ROI of an AI-augmented VA — real numbers from a Melbourne agency
What 12 months of Claude Pro + ChatGPT Plus actually saves a VA in hours. Spreadsheet downloadable.
Read the playbook → - 10
Claude Code for non-developers — 5 commands every founder’s VA should know
Five Claude Code commands that work for non-coders. Each with a real use case from our team.
Read the playbook → - 11
Prompt library for Australian VAs — 40 ready-to-use prompts
Admin, content, research, customer support. Australian English, AU context, drop-in ready.
Read the playbook → - 12
AI hallucination guardrails — what we built into our VA workflow
The four guardrails we put around every AI-augmented task to stop a VA from shipping a hallucination.
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