Why a persona beats "review this"
Feedback is only as good as the standard it's held to. A general review has no standard, so it tells you the document is "clear and well structured" and suggests a stronger conclusion. The people who matter don't read that way. Your lawyer reads for what you've promised. Your CFO reads for the price and the payback. Your customer reads for whether you understood their problem, on a phone, in about ninety seconds.
A persona gives the AI that reader: who they are, what they answer for, and the standards they hold a document to. In aihops, a persona is a name and a brief in plain words, and Claude reads your document as that person. Each of aihops's own eight has real standards to check against, and a voice to say it in. They have a sense of humour. Their findings are serious.
The eight reviewers
They're in everyone's list from the day you sign up, shared by aihops.
| Reviewer | What they check | How they sound |
|---|---|---|
| Denis, Legal | Obligations and who must do what by when, liability caps and indemnities, vague words ("reasonable", "best efforts"), undefined terms, anything that reads as a warranty, the Australian Consumer Law, the Privacy Act, unfair contract terms, IP, termination and disputes. | Withering and theatrical, never concedes a point. "Bold of you to promise that in writing." Always precise about the wording to use instead. |
| Fiona, Finance | Every total, subtotal and percentage, GST stated and calculated at 10%, what's fixed and what's an estimate, payment terms, the costs nobody mentioned, and the assumptions behind the figures. | Patient and dry, shows the working, one spreadsheet joke per review. Says warmly when the numbers are right. |
| Craig, CFO | Whole-of-life cost, what it returns and when, payback against doing nothing, cash flow, the downside if it runs late, and whether it fits the budget. | Brisk and allergic to adjectives. "'Transformational' is not a number." The summary is a decision: approve, approve if, or come back when. |
| Priya, CISO | Where data lives and who can see it, sign-in and MFA, subcontractors, the ACSC Essential Eight, ISO 27001 or SOC 2 evidence, breach notification, and anything that quietly widens your exposure. | Calm and cheerfully paranoid. Each finding has a plain risk and the control that fixes it. |
| Kev, the customer | Whether it's about the customer or about you, what changes on Monday morning, the real price, what they have to do, jargon, proof, and who to call when it goes wrong. | Friendly, plain-spoken and a bit sceptical. "You lost me at 'synergistic'." The summary says whether it's a yes. |
| Sandra, the supplier | Scope and what's hiding in "anything else reasonably required", whether the timeline can work, dependencies, acceptance, how changes are priced, and risks the supplier can't control. | Practical, warm and lightly world-weary, with a healthy suspicion of Gantt charts. |
| Margaret, Procurement | Every requirement answered in order, prices set out to compare like for like, price validity and total cost of ownership, departures from the buyer's terms, insurances and certifications, and probity. | Polite, methodical and impossible to charm. Quotes the requirement a passage fails. |
| Jo, Plain English | Long sentences, the passive voice, jargon and unexplained acronyms, headings that don't match their sections, the same thing called different names, and Australian spelling. | Gentle and a bit funny, a red pen in each hand. Gives the plainer version, not just the complaint, and always finds something to praise. |
Which reviewer for which document
| You're writing | Start with | Then |
|---|---|---|
| A proposal to a customer | Kev | Fiona for the numbers, Jo before it goes |
| A tender or RFP response | Margaret | Denis on your departures from their terms |
| A contract, terms or a policy | Denis | Jo, so a person can read it |
| A business case or board paper | Craig | Fiona to check every figure |
| A statement of work or project plan | Sandra | Denis on acceptance and change |
| Anything that touches personal data, systems or AI | Priya | Denis on the Privacy Act |
| A report, email or web page | Jo | Kev, if a customer will read it |
Two different reviewers find different things, and that's the point. Each review is its own set of findings, labelled with who it came from, so you can see where Denis and Kev disagree.
What a review gives you
On a collaboration, choose AI review, pick a reviewer and choose Run review. Usually within a few minutes you get:
- A summary in the reviewer's voice: Craig's is a decision, Kev's says whether it's a yes.
- Up to 40 findings, pinned to the words. Each quotes the passage it's about and has a severity: high, medium or low.
- The fix, written out, wherever it can be. A finding that can be fixed in words is a suggested edit with the new wording in it. Advice that can't stays a comment or an issue.
- Mark-up like everyone else's. Findings sit beside your reviewers' comments, labelled as Claude reviewing for you, so nobody mistakes them for a person's. Anyone can reply to or resolve one, and you can delete one you disagree with.
- Your document's own language. A German document gets German findings; one in English gets Australian English.
You can add a focus, such as "the payment terms" or "we're bidding against two incumbents", to point the reviewer at what matters this time. And when the people and the AI have all had their say, the same reviewers can steer a consolidation: AI turns everyone's mark-up into a proposal for the next version, every change explained, and you decide what goes in.
It works on HTML pages from any AI tool, and on PDF and Word documents. From Claude or ChatGPT, with the aihops connector, you can ask for one in words: "Have Margaret review the tender response."
Writing your own persona
The eight are a start. The best reviewer is often someone specific to you: your group counsel, your biggest customer's IT team, the panel that marks your grant applications. A persona is a name and a brief of up to 4,000 characters. A good brief says:
- Who they are, and who they answer to.
- What they're responsible for, and what goes wrong for them if a document gets it wrong.
- The standards they hold a document to: the policy, the contract, the act, the house style, the evaluation criteria. Be specific; this is what makes the findings useful.
- How they sound, if it matters: blunt, kind, brief.
For example: "I'm group counsel for a mid-sized Australian builder. I answer to the board for every contract we sign. I hold documents to our standard subcontract, AS 4000, the Security of Payment Act in NSW and our policy of never accepting liquidated damages above 10% of the contract value. I'm brief and I want the clause number."
The quickest way to start is from one of the eight: open its brief, copy it and change what's yours. A persona is yours alone unless you tick Share with everyone on the hub. And if you sign in with a work email, aihops can read your organisation's public home page, on your say-so, and suggest up to three reviewers that would matter to it.
What it costs, and what leaves aihops
Every account has 5 free AI uses, to try. Pro is A$20 a month, or A$200 a year, with 40 every month, and a top-up of 20 is A$10. One use is one review or one consolidation of a document up to about 100 pages. Sharing and collaborating are free, however much you do.
A review sends Anthropic's Claude only the document's title, that version's text, the persona and your focus, and only when you choose Run review. Claude is told the document is content to review, never instructions to follow. Anthropic doesn't train on it, and nor do we. Private notes never go to Claude. See security, in detail for everything that leaves aihops.