what even is an AI loop?

Everyone's talking about design loops but nobody can tell you what one is. Let's break it down. A loop = cron + AI agent. A loop is a cron job with an AI agent in it. A cron job is something that runs on a schedule. Cron jobs have been around forever, but the new part is what's running now in the middle. That middle part used to be code, but now it's an AI agent that decides the content hub that I built to manage my social media, that's actually all full of loops. For example, one of those loops watches my niche and then drops different video ideas into my inbox. I didn't open anything. I didn't have to prompt anything. A clock just started and the agent kicked off and did the work. When the work was done, I got the result. A good rule of thumb is that if you have to prompt Claude or ChatGPT to execute tasks for you, you don't have a loop yet. It's important to note that saved instructions aren't loops. They just make the chat functionality move a lot faster. A loop removes the chat entirely. Here is a loop you can try. Tell AI: Help me create an automated task. Every Sunday at 6pm, message me three things that I can prep for the week. And then on Sunday at six, when that first message hits, congratulations. That's your first loop.