Building a second brain in Claude Code, Anton Morrison | Evolve Digital Toronto 2026
Summary
Anton Morrison presented a live demonstration of his 'Artificial Brain' system, built using Claude Code to manage his entire consultancy business. The system represents an evolution of the 'second brain' concept - a knowledge management approach Morrison explored for six years using various note-taking apps like Rome Research, Notion, and others. Frustrated by the overhead of maintaining traditional second brain systems, he leveraged Claude Code's unique terminal-based interface and capabilities to create an autonomous AI assistant that integrates with his business operations.
The system uses Obsidian as a lightweight markdown-based vault for storing notes and knowledge, with Claude Code serving as the intelligent interface. Morrison demonstrated how his system handles daily operations including client research, project management, code development, email processing, and financial tasks. Key components include skills (specialized prompts for recurring tasks), commands (shortcuts for common operations), and integrations with external services like Gmail, Telegram, and financial software.
During the demo, he showed the system creating a complete World Cup travel website prototype from concept to code, processing client feedback for a Tahiti tourism project, generating content for LinkedIn, and creating educational activities for his daughter. The system costs approximately $200-400 monthly but has enabled Morrison to reduce his offshore team from 12 to 6 people while maintaining the same output. He emphasized that the approach treats AI as an extension of thinking rather than just a tool, enabling autonomous work across research, strategy, design, coding, and business operations.
Key Takeaways
- •Traditional second brain systems often fail due to the overhead required to maintain them, making AI-powered automation essential for adoption
- •Claude Code's terminal interface provides superior autonomy compared to SaaS AI tools that bolt AI features onto existing platforms
- •A lightweight markdown-based approach using Obsidian creates a more sustainable knowledge vault than complex proprietary systems
- •Skills in Claude Code should be loose and descriptive rather than overly prescriptive prompts, allowing for more flexible AI responses
- •The $200/month Claude Pro subscription can replace multiple specialized AI tools while providing comprehensive business automation
- •AI systems work best when they handle grunt work while humans focus on creative and strategic thinking
- •Building AI workflows incrementally through weekly experimentation allows for organic system evolution
- •AI can enable significant team downsizing (from 12 to 6 people) while maintaining equivalent output levels
- •Prototype development can be compressed from weeks to hours using AI for end-to-end project creation
- •Context window management through planning mode prevents conversation bloat during complex multi-step tasks
- •Integration with multiple communication channels (Telegram, iMessage) makes AI assistants accessible from anywhere
- •AI systems should be transparent and readable (using markdown files) rather than black-box solutions for better trust and control
Transcript
got a bit of a demo. Um, which is always nervous when you've got a free Wi-Fi and everything, but we'll see how it goes. But I've also got some slides. So, first thing here is like is who anybody in the room built a second brain? What we call a second brain or has one? Um, yep, you have. Okay, you know the concept. Um, the idea uh for a second brain was something I got into maybe about six or seven years ago. And it's this idea of building a system of notes for everything you read, everything th...
