TL;DR: A simple account upgrade glitched and wiped the majority of my ChatGPT history. 2.5 years of training and context gone. It forced me to confront a hard truth: relying on one AI platform is a liability. Here is how I turned a disaster into a “Triple Threat” system across ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
Most people have a love-hate relationship with AI.
They know they “should” be using it. But when they finally log in, they are unsure of what to ask or how to get started.
Or worse, they copy-paste a generic prompt they found online, get a response that sounds like a robot swallowed a thesaurus, and post it anyway.
I call that “AI slop.”
It happens because AI doesn’t know them. It doesn’t know their voice, their business, or their values. So they spend more time editing and rewriting than they would have spent just writing it themselves, which defeats the entire purpose of leverage.
I have spent the last year obsessed with solving this problem.
It is literally my business. I teach mortgage professionals how to treat AI like a new hire, not a search enginge. I teach them that you have to train this smart tool on your personal brand, your specific voice, and your unique story.
The more AI knows about you, the faster it works.
For the last two and a half years, I have been building my own “perfect hire” inside ChatGPT.
It knew my frameworks and standards, the history of every strategy I’ve built since 2023, and was pretty much my second brain.
So, when a simple account upgrade glitched and wiped a substantial amount of my chat history, it wasn’t just frustrating, it was damaging.
In three seconds, my all-star ‘employee’ forgot everything about me. I was devastated. (And yes, I definitely ugly-cried out of frustration).
The Comfort Trap
The AI landscape is moving so fast that keeping up feels impossible. ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude are fighting to be the best, releasing updates so fast that keeping up feels like drinking from a fire hydrant.
So, most people find one tool (usually ChatGPT), get comfortable, and stick with it because it feels manageable.
But that comfort is a liability.
I realized I had treated my chosen platform like a vault. I dumped my best thinking, strategy, and voice into it.
But it isn’t a vault. It is a rented storage unit. And the landlord can change the locks, or lose the key, at any moment.
My data loss taught me that relying on a single platform is a gamble I can’t afford to take again.
If you are 100% dependent on ChatGPT, you are one glitch away from losing your competitive advantage.
The Social Experiment
Once the shock wore off, I realized I had been handed a rare opportunity.I had a clean slate. And instead of trying to recreate the past, I decided to build the future.
I decided to turn this glitch into a public experiment. The goal? To prove that your ‘superpower’ isn’t your chat history, it’s your process.
Rebuilding my AI brain in real-time became the priority. I wanted to show you exactly how a documented system beats a messy memory every time.
So, everything got an upgrade. Gemini moved to a Business Workspace. ChatGPT got a fresh start. And Claude finally became a daily essential.
With the tech stack ready, I resisted the urge to start prompting immediately.
Instead, I onboarded myself as a new client.
I refused to rely on ‘memory’ or ‘chat history’ this time. I needed to build a system that was portable, documented, and platform-agnostic.
Here is the exact process I used.
Step 1: The “Client” Interview
I sat down for 60 minutes and interviewed myself, asking the same hard questions I ask loan officers during my Brand Builder experience:
- Why do I do this work?
- Who do I actually serve?
- What makes me different from the generic business coaches?
- What are my non-negotiables?
Step 2: Rebuilding the Brand Book
I took that transcript and fed it into Claude.
Why Claude? Right now, I have found Claude to be the current winner for creative copywriting. It picks up on nuance and “voice” really well.
I used it to rebuild my Brand Book from the ground up. We defined my mission, standards, origin story, and ideal client personas. I spent lots of time on this because the quality of your outputs is directly tied to the quality of your inputs.
Let me be clear: If you are using AI and don’t have a brand book that clearly defines your messaging, you are working much harder for inferior outputs.
Step 3: The GEO Guide
Once the creative messaging was done, I needed to make sure the AI actually understood who I was as an entity.
This is where GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) comes in.
I built a new GEO Guide, which is a reference document specifically designed for Large Language Models (LLMs). I documented:
- My Core Entity Statement (who I am).
- My Entity Cluster (what topics I own).
- My Niche Keywords.
- Standardized Bios.
I wanted to create a source of truth that ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude could pull from quickly. If AI doesn’t know who you are, it can’t recommend you.
Step 4: The Triple-Threat Setup
Finally, I rebuilt my highest-performing custom AI assistants. But this time, I didn’t just build them in ChatGPT. I replicated them in Claude and Gemini, too.
I gave each platform the same instructions, the same knowledge files, and the same workflows.
Now, I am not pigeonholed. I can test an idea across all three and see which model handles a specific task better. And if one platform goes down (or glitches again), my business won’t stop.
The Bottom Line
I used to believe speed was the ultimate competitive advantage. I thought if I wasn’t moving fast, I was falling behind. But this experience taught me the opposite.
I got sloppy with my foundations because I was focused on speed. And when the glitch hit, I paid the price. Since I was starting over, I decided to do it right. I prioritized foundation over speed. Slowing down didn’t set me back, it set me up.
Rebuilding my Brand Book and GEO Guide forced me to clarify exactly who I am and what I offer. It stripped away the noise. And now, my AI outputs are exponentially better.
You don’t need a glitch to force this reset. You can choose it.
Ready to build the foundation before you need it?
I rebuilt my “AI brain” using the exact framework I teach in my Brand Builder experience. It is a system designed to extract your unique story, define your voice, and package it into a source of truth that AI can understand.
If you are tired of getting sloppy results and want to build an asset that you own forever, then get on the waitlist.
About Katie Shive Katie Shive is a personal branding strategist and creator of the Brand Builder framework and GEO Visibility Flywheel for mortgage professionals. With 8+ years in the mortgage industry and 15 years in marketing, she helps loan officers build authentic brands that show up in AI search. Katie is the founder of KS Marketing, host of AI After Hours podcast, and co-host of Redeeming Her podcast. Based in Kalispell, Montana.
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