# The Year Started With Loss. AI Helped Me Show Up Anyway > In January we were at the airport, about to leave for a holiday we'd booked, when we got the news. My dad had passed away. Source: https://pixelhop.io/writing/the-year-started-with-loss-ai-helped-me-show-up-anyway/ --- [Back to writing](https://pixelhop.io/writing/) # The Year Started With Loss. AI Helped Me Show Up Anyway. Gemma / 03 Mar 2026 [Business](https://pixelhop.io/writing/tags/business/) [AI](https://pixelhop.io/writing/tags/ai/) [Development](https://pixelhop.io/writing/tags/development/) In January we were at the airport, about to leave for a holiday we'd booked, when we got the news. My dad had passed away. When I finally got back to work, the last thing I wanted was to spend a day making slides. But the team were waiting. They needed to know what 2026 looked like for Pixelhop and Chat Thing. Coming back from a very weird holiday. Next to get Pixelhop's 2026 goals and presentation done. ## How we normally do it Every year, Zef and I regroup. We review the previous year: the good, the bad, the ugly. We write out everything we want and don't want. Rough notes at first, then something closer to a manifesto. Our north star. Then we bring it to the team. A proper presentation: here's what happened, here's where we're going. That presentation usually takes me a full day. Sometimes more. Finding the right structure, making it clear, making it _feel_ right. This year, I didn't have a day. I barely had a morning. ## What we did differently We still did our note taking: Pixelhop's annual planning notes We then wrote up our manifesto and north star. We still did all the real thinking. But turning 20 pages of notes into a presentation? That's where I usually lose time. So we asked Glitch to help. Conversation with Glitch in Telegram about Pixelhop and Chat Thing goals and presentation. Glitch is our AI assistant. It runs on [OpenClaw](https://openclaw.ai), an open-source framework that connects Claude (the AI model) to real tools: file access, web browsing, code execution, and more. Think of it as giving an AI hands, not just a voice. We gave Glitch our manifesto, our strategy and all the chats we had had, explained the context. We also asked Glitch to go and look at our website repo and extract all the branding from there. Giving Glitch all the information to do a good job on the Pixelhop presentation. We didn't know how it would turn out but asked Glitch to turn our ideas into a beautiful HTML presentation. And it delivered: Pixelhop branding, keyboard navigation, proper structure. The works. **20 minutes later: 18 slides, brand colours, smooth transitions. Ready to present.** The finished slides with Pixelhop branding. ## The result The team meeting happened on time. Chris and Ella got the full picture: where Pixelhop is heading, our Chat Thing goals, the rocks we're focused on. They left excited. Aligned. Ready. And I got to show up without burning out. Team meeting at Pixelhop and Chat Thing. ## What this taught me AI didn't replace the work. The manifesto took real conversations, real decisions, real clarity. But the execution, the part that drains me, AI handled that. It gave me space. Space to grieve. Space to breathe. And still show up when it mattered. 2026 the year of AI native development at Pixelhop. ## Try this if you're drowning in planning season - Do the thinking first. AI cannot replace clarity. Write down what you actually want to say. - Give it context. Share your notes, your brand guidelines, examples of what good looks like. - Be specific about format. "HTML presentation with keyboard navigation" beats "make me some slides." - Iterate fast. The first output is a starting point, not the final answer. You might be surprised how much time you get back. And sometimes, that's exactly what you need. --- _PS: We help teams build AI tools like Glitch. If you're curious, [say hi](https://pixelhop.io/contact)._ ### 0 Responses [Web Mentions?](#) Want to respond? [Tweet this post!](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?via=pixelhopio&text=The Year Started With Loss. 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Like what you’re reading? Sign up to receive our updates straight to your inbox. No spam, unsubscribe anytime! ### Related posts. [All writing](https://pixelhop.io/writing/) [AI](https://pixelhop.io/writing/tags/ai/) [AI agents](https://pixelhop.io/writing/tags/ai-agents/) [Business](https://pixelhop.io/writing/tags/business/) 09 Nov 2026 #### What we learned from 67 agent readiness audits We checked 67 websites for agent readiness: who has an llms.txt, who blocks AI crawlers, why Shopify stores do well, and how much traffic ChatGPT sends. 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