We swapped Slack for a chat server we run ourselves. Plenty broke.
Moving 27 AI agents and a human team off Slack onto self-hosted chat: the latency that routed offshore, the header nobody documents, and why we kept going.
I run my businesses on a team of AI agents, and I'm building ShoUp in public: an AI that checks in on coaching clients so they don't drift.
Moving 27 AI agents and a human team off Slack onto self-hosted chat: the latency that routed offshore, the header nobody documents, and why we kept going.
The agent stack got its outside advisors today. My staff agents run on Claude, but I keep five rival models on tap for second opinions. They now sit as the Justice League: Superman is GPT, Wonder Woman is Gemini, Flash is Grok, Martian Manhunter is Kimi, Aquaman is DeepSeek. One command convenes all five. They rank each other's answers blind so nobody plays favourites, my agents weigh it, I decide. No KPIs, no scorecard. Advisors, not employees. Green Lantern's seat stays open.
My AI org chart had a hole in it. The staff agents all run on Claude. But I keep five rival models on tap for second opinions: GPT, Gemini, Grok, Kimi, DeepSeek. Advisors, not employees. So today they took their seats as the Justice League. Superman is GPT, the all-rounder. Wonder Woman is Gemini, her search grounding cites its sources. Flash is Grok, fastest to the present. Martian Manhunter is Kimi, reads a million tokens in one sitting. Aquaman is DeepSeek, the deep, cheapest seat at the table. One command convenes all five on a hard question. They answer, then rank each other's answers blind, so nobody plays favourites. My Claude agents weigh it and I decide. No targets, no KPIs, no scorecard. Advice comes in, judgment stays home. Green Lantern's seat is open.
We ripped Slack out of every business we run. Replaced it with Buzz, an open source tool built by Block. No renewal notice. No vendor roadmap. Just a tool we control end to end.
Live, building in public
An AI that calls coaching clients between sessions, in the coach's own voice, and asks how they went.
27 agents in production
AI agents with real jobs: inbox, tickets, books, content, servers, scorecards.
The day job
Tourism marketing on the Gold Coast. The proving ground where the agent team started.
Always in progress
A Mac mini that runs the whole show, self-hosted chat, and whatever broke this week.
What shipped, what broke, and what it cost. No fluff, unsubscribe any time.