How I collaborate on aihops

I collaborate when I want one copy with everyone on it: a proposal going round the bid team, a contract going past legal and finance, a board paper before the meeting. Everyone sees everyone's mark-up, AI can weigh all of it, and I end up with a better next version and a record of how it got there.

Here's how a review runs, start to finish. (If you just want people to read something and tell you what they think, each on their own, share it instead.)

1. Start a collaboration

I upload the document (HTML, PDF or Word) and choose Collaborate under How will you use it? If I shared it first and want everyone on one copy after all, I can switch it to a collaboration at any time.

Then I add people: up to 50 at once, typed, pasted or copied straight from Outlook. Each is a Reviewer or an Owner. Owners can share, upload new versions, consolidate and see the history; reviewers mark up and finish. They need only an email address. aihops sends them a link, and the document is waiting the first time they sign in.

2. Say how soon

Beside the title I set a priority (urgent, high, normal or low) and, if there's a deadline, a review-by date. Everyone sees both, and once the date passes, the document shows as overdue on the home page of anyone who hasn't finished.

3. Mark up the page itself

Everyone works on the document as it really looks. To mark something up, select the words and choose Add mark-up, then pick what it is:

• Comment: a thought about these words.
• Edit: suggested new wording, shown beside the original.
• Question, Issue or Price: so the owners can find every open question, problem or pricing note at a glance.

In a slide deck, where every click moves to the next slide, right-click a line, bullet or table cell and choose Add mark-up there. For something about the whole document, use General comment.

Each piece of mark-up is pinned to its words and carries its author's name. The panel refreshes every 15 seconds, so people see each other's mark-up as they go, and reply, resolve and reopen threads the way they would in Word.

When others have it open at the same time, I see them: their icons sit beside the version, each one the person chose, and a mark beside the document shows where each is reading. Hovering says what they're doing, reading or writing a comment, and clicking takes me to where they are. It's the closest thing to sitting around the same printout.

4. Keep some thoughts private

Not everything is ready for everyone. Under Who sees this, I can choose Only me, or a private group of a few people already on the document, say the commercial team. Nobody outside it sees that mark-up, owners included, until its author chooses Share with everyone, when it becomes ordinary mark-up.

5. Ask for an AI review

Before people spend their time on a draft, I often ask for an AI review. I pick a persona: who they are, what they're responsible for and the standards they hold documents to. Group counsel, a CFO, a sceptical customer. Claude reads the version as that person and, usually within a few minutes, adds a summary and findings to the panel.

The findings are labelled AI and say "from Claude as counsel, requested by me", so nobody mistakes them for my own review. People reply to them and resolve them like any other thread. Each review uses one of my AI uses.

6. Know who's done

When reviewers have said their piece, they choose Finish review. Under Activity I see where everyone is: invited, not opened, only seen an earlier version, reviewing or finished, with how often each person has opened it and how long they've read it. I can download that, and the full history, as CSV.

7. Make the next version

There are two ways to get to the next version, and I use both.

Upload it myself

If I've reworked it elsewhere, I upload the new version. Every thread is kept: mark-up on text that moved follows it, and mark-up on text that was removed is marked so. Anyone who finished the old version shows as not finished until they've looked at the new one.

Consolidate

Or I choose Consolidate. Claude weighs every thread everyone can see, with the document's history, and proposes the changes that would make the next version. Each change says what it replaces, why, and which threads it answers. Private mark-up is never included.

Only the owners see the proposal. I keep or decline each change, preview the result and, when it's right, implement it. That makes the next version from exactly the changes I kept, and adds a note to each thread a kept change answers. Everyone then sees which changes were made and why, so a reviewer can see what happened to their comment.

8. See what changed

Compare puts any two versions side by side, with what changed marked and prices, dates and commitments flagged, which is usually the first thing anyone asks.

9. Take it further with Claude or ChatGPT

Export for Claude, under More, downloads the comments, the activity, the history and the current version in a form any AI tool can read. Or, with aihops connected to Claude or ChatGPT, I just ask: "Who hasn't finished the pricing proposal?" or "Work through the comments and make v3." See installing the MCP.

What makes a collaboration work

• Run the AI review first, so people spend their time on judgement, not typos.
• Set a review-by date. Overdue markers do the chasing for you.
• Make the people who'll approve it owners, so they can see the history and the proposals.
• Resolve as you go. A consolidation weighs what's open, so a tidy panel gets a sharper proposal.