015 AI for Operators

Scott Amenta, Co-Founder & Head of Product at Sylva; Review of Gamma 3.0, 8 links

Author

Tom Guthrie
September 17, 2025

Hi there, 

Welcome back to AI for Operators. Here’s what we’ve got for you this week:

  • The Operator: Scott Amenta, Co-Founder & Head of Product at Sylva (listen to the episode here)

  • The Review: Gamma (AI presentation builder) released big new features

  • The Links: 8 links, including how data on how people are actually using ChatGPT, the economic impact of Anthropic, and a study showing that AI-led voice interviews might be (a lot) better than human-led interviews.

The Operator

Scott Amenta, Co-Founder & Head of Product at Sylva

Scott Amenta, Founder of Chief of Staff Network and Co-Founder & Head of Product at Sylva talks with Tom about the two of them are using AI to reshape their company, communities, and their own work.

  • The importance of process mapping: before automating, identify repeatable steps and keep a human in the loop to gain some straightforward wins.

  • LLMs don’t replace the most talented people - they complement them: Scott is building Sylva’s systems to give leverage to community and corporate talent, helping them avoid repetitive drudgery and focus on the work only they can do.

  • Tactical early company wins: Scott and his team have built agents that draft newsletters, manage 90% of the event planning process, and automate sponsorship outreach.

  • Scott’s personal AI wins: AI drafts about 80% of emails, outlines newsletters, summarizes meetings via Fathom, and turns notes into goals and coaching prompts.

  • AI refocuses humans on the human: Automate ‘clicky’ workflows, prioritize human judgment, compress build cycles, and scale intimacy so communities can deliver the value that members really want: belonging and growth.

The Review

This is not a sponsored post.

What it Does

Gamma is an AI presentation tool that we’ve profiled before (in edition 002 of the newsletter). We’re re-profiling them because of their recent launch of “Gamma 3.0”.

Why Ops Leaders Should Care

Email, docs, spreadsheets, and presentations are the core digital communications tools of pretty much all ops leaders. ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini can help with email and docs. Gamma seems to be the leading tool for AI presentations, so if you’re constantly spending time creating board decks, all hands presentations, or project updates, Gamma could help you create more consistent, beautiful presentations in a fraction of the time.

Key Features of Gamma 3.0 (Pros & Cons)

Pros

  • AI Design Partner (Gamma Agent): Chat with Gamma to rebuild presentations on the fly, whether you need it to research and incorporate new data, change the entire look and feel of the presentation, or do something a bit more nebulous like “tighten up this slide.”

  • Automation API: The new Gamma API allows you to connect Gamma to platforms like Zapier and Make, or directly to other tools. This means that you can do everything from creating custom pitch decks for prospects that hit a certain stage in the sales process on your CRM to turning Zoom meeting transcripts into recap decks with ease.

  • Smart layouts and themes: A much larger repository of visual formats so that you can tweak the theme of your presentation or generate helpful diagrams much more easily.

  • Team collaboration and branding: Manage accounts and billing centrally, as well as set and enforce standards for your brand’s fonts, colors, etc.

  • Gamma Ultra: Gamma’s new highest tier of access unlocks the smartest models and early access to new features—for a higher price, of course.

Cons

  • No direct access to Slack or Teams to generate presentations.

  • Continued difficulties with deep customization of themes - if you’re a designer (or just very design-conscious), the lack of control over the small details may be a deal breaker.

  • Higher pricing: Some of the more advanced tiers come with higher prices attached.

Other Options

Bottom Line

If you or your team create a lot of decks, it’s worth testing out Gamma (and some of its competitors) to see if the output is good enough to save you a lot of time.

The Links

Practical

  • How do people use ChatGPT? You may have seen the new paper published by OpenAI researchers - here’s a more readable summary of the results. One key finding: demographic gaps in usage (male/female and by country) have rapidly closed. Here’s the original paper, if you want to go directly to the source.

  • AI-led interviews are better? A 70,000-applicant study showed that interviews led by Voice AI increased job offers by 12%, job starts by 18%, and 30-day retention by 17%. Plus, 78% of applicants chose the AI recruiter over human recruiters.

  • Fiverr goes AI-first: It’s not the first company to execute a big pivot, and it won’t be the last. It’s worth studying these big moves to a) understand how companies are evolving, and b) start generating ideas for how you would do it differently, since there’s a good chance that your company will have to pivot, as well.

Perspectives

News

Thanks for reading,

Tom Guthrie

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