An AI spy that finds dozens of ideas for posts, ads, funnels and sales

Section 01Why other people's chats are gold

Short version – because in chats people tell the truth. On their own channel an expert shows you a picture, on a landing page an offer, in an interview a position. But in a chat they tell a peer: "here's what isn't working for us right now," "an ad spend of $400 brought in 500," "those rushed warm-ups don't convert anymore."

That's the layer marketers spend years crawling toward through dozens of studies and interviews. And it's sitting right there in the open – in chats you've already been let into, or that are public.

What monitoring private chats actually gives you

• Real audience pains – not from your hypotheses, but from the live complaints of experts and owners. The things they write in the moment, when something has gone wrong
• Plays that work – the numbers nobody names openly in public posts and case studies, because the play hasn't burned out yet and people are still using it
• Trends before the market – when ten specialists start pitching a new format at the same time, that's a signal demand is building. In a month people will be writing about it publicly, in three they'll make a course out of it. You know a month early
• Voice of the audience – the word-for-word phrasing of pains and desires. You can drop it straight into your ads and sales copy, no copywriter needed
• Content ideas – every hot, much-discussed question automatically turns into a post, a reel or an article with demand already there

Section 02What the AI spy is made of

Let's get the big picture clear before diving into the steps. The AI spy is four components that work together on a single server.

That's ~$25–27 a month total. One ad case from a chat that you see first and adapt will pay for the subscription a year in advance.

How it works in one sentence

Every morning at 7:00, Claude on the server fires up, logs into Telegram through Telethon under the second account, grabs all the messages from the last 24 hours across your list of chats, filters out spam and sales pitches, pulls out what's useful, writes a report – and delivers it to your DMs via the bot before you've even opened your eyes.

Section 03Sign up and pay for Claude

If you already have a working Claude Pro or Max and you've used Claude Code – skip this section and jump to the fourth.

If not – here's a short rundown. The full guide to signing up and paying is in the Threads article – it's covered in more detail there, I won't repeat it.

Section 04A second Telegram account – why and how

A second account is the same move as a separate card for subscriptions: not critical, but it saves you from sudden losses.

What to know before signing up

One number, one account. Telegram ties an account firmly to a phone number. One number, one account. If you want a second one – you need a second number.

A virtual number works too. Telegram accepts numbers from any normal carrier. Virtual numbers from services like 5sim, SMS-activate or OnlineSim are fine. The price is around 30–60 cents for a number that gets one SMS code and is never needed again.

Don't use stolen or dead numbers. Telegram occasionally asks you to re-validate an account. If the number was temporary and is no longer yours, you'll lose the account. Better to get a number for a decent period (for example, a 30-day rental for a few dollars) or a second real number from another carrier.

Section 05Telegram API keys (api_id and api_hash)

For Claude to log into Telegram through Telethon under your second account, you need two keys: api_id and api_hash. It's free, done on Telegram's official site, and takes 5 minutes.

Section 06Create a bot for the reports

You need a bot to send you the report in your DMs every morning – more convenient than reading off the server. The bot is made for free in Telegram through a special bot called @BotFather. A minute of your time.

Section 07Get a VPS

A VPS is a rented computer in a data center that runs 24/7 without you. It's the heart of the system: while you sleep it reads chats, while you have lunch it writes the report.

Why a VPS and not a laptop

On a laptop the script only runs while the laptop is open and connected to the internet. Close the lid and monitoring stops. If you're doing this for serious work, not a test, you need a server.

Plus a VPS sits in a stable data center. Telethon runs cleanly on a proper server, and the connection stays solid – no flaky home Wi-Fi to worry about.

Where to get a server

Any inexpensive VPS works for our task. The easiest to work with is Hetzner Cloud – cheap, reliable, with data centers in the US and EU.

Which server to order

After it's created, save the server's IP address and root password – you'll need them on the next step, when we move Claude in.

Section 08Install Claude Code on the VPS

Here's the fun part. Instead of typing a dozen commands into a terminal, you'll open Claude Code on your computer and just tell it in words what needs doing. It connects to the server and installs everything itself.

If you don't have Claude Code on your computer yet, download it from claude.com/claude-code, install it, and log into your Anthropic account. After that you're ready.

I have a VPS on Hetzner Cloud:

IP: 185.12.45.67
User: root
Password: MyPassword123

Connect over SSH and prep the server for an AI spy.

Plan:
1) Update the system, install python3, pip, screen.
2) Install Claude Code on the server and authorize
   it under my account (I'll enter the code via the link).
3) Install the telethon and python-telegram-bot libraries.
4) Create a folder /root/spy and prepare an empty
   config.env file there – I'll drop the keys in.
5) Check that everything works: run a short
   ping in Telethon with my api_id / api_hash.

Write these variables into /root/spy/config.env
(in KEY=VALUE format, one per line, no spaces):

TG_API_ID=12345678
TG_API_HASH=string-from-my-telegram-keys
TG_PHONE=+1XXXXXXXXXX  (the second account's number)
BOT_TOKEN=bot-token-from-BotFather
MY_CHAT_ID=my-id-from-userinfobot

Section 09Build the AI spy with Claude's hands

The AI spy script itself is a Python file, ~150 lines, that runs once a day and does three things: reads the chats, hands the messages to Claude, sends the answer to the bot. Claude writes this file for you. Your job is to phrase the task well.

In the folder /root/spy, build an AI spy.

Files to create:

1) spy.py – the main script. It does the following:
   - Reads config.env
   - Authenticates to Telegram via Telethon
     with TG_API_ID, TG_API_HASH, TG_PHONE
     (the session must persist, not ask for an
     SMS every time)
   - Takes the chat list from chats.txt
   - Collects all messages from the last 24 hours
     across those chats
   - Cleans out obvious spam and lone "+++" / stickers
   - Saves everything into one big text
     file /root/spy/messages_today.txt

2) summarize.py – passes messages_today.txt to Claude
   via the Claude Code SDK / API and asks it to build a report
   in this structure:
   - DATA QUALITY (how many chats read,
     how many real messages)
   - PLAYS THAT WORK (specific cases with numbers,
     if mentioned)
   - TRENDS (what's discussed more than usual)
   - AUDIENCE PAINS (what isn't working, what
     people complain about)
   - CASES (if anyone openly named result
     numbers)
   - IDEAS FOR CONTENT AND ADS
   Saves the result to /root/spy/report.md

3) deliver.py – takes report.md and sends it
   via the Telegram bot to MY_CHAT_ID. If the
   report is longer than 4000 characters, it splits it
   into parts and sends several messages.

4) chats.txt – an empty file, I'll fill it in
   myself with a list of chat links.

5) run_daily.sh – a bash script that runs
   spy.py → summarize.py → deliver.py in order.

6) A cron job: run run_daily.sh every
   day at 7:00 in my time zone
   (America/New_York). Save logs to
   /root/spy/log_YYYY-MM-DD.txt.

Handle everything – install what's missing,
test each stage, all as root, in /root/spy.
When it's ready, tell me what to check, and
let's run a test right now on a single chat.

Section 10The chat list and how to get in

The spy is only as good as the chats it watches. A graveyard of dead links – and every morning you'll get an empty report. So build the list with care.

Where to find chats

• Chats from big schools and communities in your niche – usually you get in through a bot, after buying a course or registering for a free event. Some are public, some semi-private
• Networking chats – "Top 100 Experts," "Info-business club," niche masterminds. These often let you in on request
• Event-driven chats – conferences, forums, webinars: after the event the chat stays alive for months
• Open chats attached to Telegram channels – many experts have a chat of 5–20 thousand people under their channel that you can join with no moderation

How to behave in them

The main rule – don't blow your cover. Don't write anything in the chat from this account at all. Don't like, don't react. A passive reader who occasionally drops by. That's the basic behavior of an "ordinary subscriber" that doesn't draw admin attention.

If some chat asks you to verify (send a video selfie, answer a question) – do that step deliberately: answer once and then live quietly. It's worth 5 minutes – weigh it against the value of a month of reports.

How many chats is optimal

15–25 live chats is the sweet spot. Fewer – not enough material, the report will be thin. More – Claude starts to tire, miss important things, and your request costs balloon.

Better to have 15 concentrated chats full of experts than 50 chats full of spam and course pitches. Review the list regularly (once a month): which chats give signal, which have turned into a dumpster – delete the dead ones, add new ones.

Section 11How to use the daily report

Getting the report is half the job. The other half is actually working with it. Otherwise an expensive subscription turns into one more email you scroll past.

A simple "10 minutes in the morning" system

Open the report over coffee, before the workday starts. Don't read it straight through from top to bottom – go through the sections with a highlighter:

• PLAYS THAT WORK – is there something I can adapt for my project this week? If so, drop it into your to-do list as a one-liner
• AUDIENCE PAINS – is there a pain my product already solves? Then it's material for the next post / landing page / ad. The word-for-word phrasing – into the swipe file
• TRENDS – is there a trend worth testing? If so, set a hypothesis for this week or next
• CONTENT IDEAS – take one or two into work for real. Don't grab them all – you'll drown

From 7 morning reports a week you get 3–5 clearly adaptable elements. Over a month – 12–20 ready marketing moves, none of which you had to invent "out of your head."

How to turn reports into sales copy

The most powerful thing – take the word-for-word pains from chats and drop them into your sales copy: into lead magnets, warm-ups and offers from the 5-stage expert auto-funnel. When an ad says "you know how frustrating it is: subscribers like your stuff but there's no money," that works ten times harder than "we boost sales." Because the person recognizes their own phrase.

Once a week, go through your report archive and build a "phrase swipe file" – the stickiest lines that come up again and again from different people. They'll become headlines, leads and objection-handlers in your offers.

Section 12Account safety and risks

Telegram doesn't forbid monitoring – you only read what the admins allowed you to read. But Telegram has anti-spam mechanics that can catch any "too automated" account. To avoid trouble, stick to three simple rules.

Rule 1: don't read too fast

If the script tries to "grab the entire history of all chats in one pass," Telegram may temporarily limit the account. The fix – Telethon adds pauses between requests on its own. Don't remove them in an attempt to speed things up – you'll save nothing and just lose the account.

Rule 2: one account, one server

Once you log into Telethon on the VPS, Telegram remembers that server. If you open the same account on three other devices in parallel, Telegram gets suspicious. Logged in on the server – don't use that account from other devices.

Rule 3: don't read chats you're not in

Telethon can technically only read chats your account has already joined. No "sneaking in without an invite" – it doesn't work and it isn't needed. Read only what you're legitimately registered in.

Section 13What's next: upgrades and extensions

Once the basic spy is working and you've gotten used to the morning reports, the extensions suggest themselves. Here are the directions people move in once they've used the system for 2–3 months.

Real-time reaction, not once a day

The basic spy makes one report a day. You can set up a second, instant loop: the moment a message appears in any chat where someone openly names a result number (for example, "did a million in a month") – Claude immediately parses the context and sends you the clip. Within 30 seconds you know about a fresh case ahead of the whole market.

A link to a content generator

On top of the report you can hook up a second agent that automatically turns the "content ideas" from the daily digest into three post variations. A ready prompt for this kind of auto-generation is in the 10 prompts for experts collection. You attach ready drafts to your morning read – all that's left is to pick one, polish it and publish.

Segmenting by specific projects / niches

If you have several directions, keep several chat lists and several reports: one for the main business, another for the new niche, a third for experiments. Claude builds each report toward its own goal – the task phrasing is different.

A link to your CRM

The word-for-word pains from other people's chats are perfect material for the first level of the "hook" in the Meaning Pyramid that a sales post is built on. The pains the spy catches regularly can be auto-filed into a separate collector table – a "phrase bank." When a copywriter / media buyer writes an ad, they look in the bank, not in their own head. That's already a systemic shift for the team, not just for you.