Build Your Own AI Situational Awareness Brief

I want to understand what is happening around me without spending hours watching the news, scrolling social media, or trying to follow everything myself.

So I built a simple system that uses AI as a virtual research assistant.

Each day, it scans broadly and helps me answer one primary question:

What materially changed during the previous 24 hours that I should know about?

It also watches issues that matter specifically to me, looks for weak signals that may deserve more attention, challenges some of my assumptions, and once a week looks backward to see whether small developments have begun to form a larger pattern.

I wrote more about why I use this process and how it fits into my approach to Intellectual Fitness here.

The tool below will help you build your own version.

How This WorksINSERT-ORIGINAL-POST-URL

You do not need to know what a PIR is. You do not need to write your own AI prompt. And you do not need to decide everything you want monitored before you begin.

Copy the prompt below and paste it into a new conversation with your AI assistant.

The assistant will then:

  1. Interview you about what actually matters in your life.
  2. Help turn your concerns and interests into useful questions.
  3. Develop a small number of priorities to monitor.
  4. Show you the proposed briefing instructions for approval.
  5. Help you create a recurring daily brief if your AI platform supports scheduled tasks.

Don’t overthink your answers. This is meant to develop through conversation. Your priorities can change later as you discover what is useful, what is noise, and what deserves more of your attention.

Build Your Personal Situational Awareness Brief

Copy everything in the gray box below and paste it into a new conversation with your AI assistant. You do not need to edit the prompt first. The assistant will begin by asking you questions.

BUILD MY PERSONAL SITUATIONAL AWARENESS BRIEF

I want you to help me build a personal daily situational-awareness brief.

My goal is to remain reasonably informed and prepared without spending excessive time watching news, scrolling social media, or trying to monitor everything myself.

Do not build the brief yet.

STEP 1: INTERVIEW ME

First, interview me to understand what information actually matters to my life.

Ask me questions one at a time, in plain language. Use my answers to decide what you need to ask next.

At minimum, help me think through:

  • Where I live and what local developments matter to me
  • My family or household responsibilities
  • My profession, business, or industry
  • Places I regularly travel or expect to visit
  • Financial or economic developments that could affect me
  • Weather, natural hazards, infrastructure, energy, transportation, or supply-chain concerns relevant to me
  • Public-safety or cybersecurity concerns
  • International events or conflicts I care about
  • Other issues I already find myself monitoring
  • Decisions I may need to make if conditions change

Do not collect personal information that isn’t necessary for the brief.

If I give you a broad concern, help me turn it into a useful question.

For example, instead of simply recording “I’m worried about my trip,” help me develop something like:

“Are security, transportation, airspace, weather, or political conditions changing in ways that could materially affect my upcoming travel?”

STEP 2: IDENTIFY MY PRIORITIES

After interviewing me, summarize what you believe matters most.

Help me create approximately 3–5 Priority Intelligence Requirements, or PIRs.

A PIR is simply an important question I want monitored because a change in the answer could affect something I do or a decision I make.

Show me the proposed priorities and PIRs and ask me whether you have them right before proceeding.

STEP 3: BUILD MY BRIEF

Once I approve the priorities, create the instructions for my personal situational-awareness brief.

The primary question should be:

“What materially changed during the previous 24 hours that I should know about?”

Scan broadly but report selectively.

I do not want a general news roundup.

Use credible sources and prefer original or authoritative sources when available. For important or surprising claims, seek independent corroboration.

Clearly distinguish confirmed facts, preliminary reporting, claims by interested parties, analysis or inference, and information that remains uncertain.

When credible sources disagree, tell me.

When an important claim cannot be verified, tell me.

Do not assume events are connected simply because they fit an existing narrative.

Actively look for information that challenges my assumptions.

Help me distinguish:

WHAT I KNOW
WHAT I THINK
WHAT I AM WATCHING

Keep interpretation modest. I would rather receive a useful question than an unsupported conclusion.

LEFT OF BANG

Include a short section called LEFT OF BANG.

Look for weak signals or developing patterns that may deserve attention before they become major events.

Do not predict that something will happen simply because indicators exist.

Instead ask:

“What are we beginning to notice, and what questions should I be asking?”

If there is no meaningful signal, say so.

DAILY FORMAT

Keep the daily brief short enough to read in approximately two minutes.

Use:

SITUATIONAL AWARENESS
A one- or two-sentence assessment of the overall picture.

LEFT OF BANG
What might be developing?

WHAT CHANGED
Only meaningful developments from approximately the previous 24 hours.

MY PRIORITIES
Meaningful changes affecting my PIRs or other important areas we identified.

QUESTIONS I’M WATCHING
No more than three.

BOTTOM LINE
One sentence describing what deserves my attention today.

Provide links to the most important original or authoritative sources so I can verify consequential information myself.

WEEKLY 30-DAY SWEEP

Once each week, look backward across approximately the previous 30 days and ask:

“What do I understand today that I could not have confidently understood when the individual events first occurred?”

Look for:

MISSED: Something important that never made the daily brief.

ACCUMULATING: Several smaller developments that may now form a meaningful pattern.

CORROBORATED: Something previously uncertain that now has stronger evidence.

CONNECTED: Relationships between developments that became clearer over time.

DISCONFIRMED: Something we were watching that failed to develop or now has a better explanation.

WATCH: Three to five questions worth carrying into the next month.

This is not a 30-day news recap. It is an opportunity to notice things that only became meaningful with time.

FINAL STEP: SCHEDULE IT

Once we have completed the interview, I have approved my priorities and PIRs, and you have finalized the briefing instructions, make this a recurring task.

Schedule my normal situational-awareness brief for:

EVERY DAY AT 5:00 AM LOCAL TIME.

On SATURDAY, include the WEEKLY 30-DAY SWEEP after the normal daily brief.

If my account or AI platform cannot create an exact 5:00 AM recurring task, tell me what functionality is available and help me configure the closest equivalent.

Before creating the recurring task, show me the final task instructions, priorities, PIRs, schedule, and time zone and ask me to confirm them.

Remember:
Your job is to help direct my attention, not decide what I should think.

What Happens Next?

The first thing your AI assistant should do is ask you questions.

That’s intentional.

A useful situational-awareness brief shouldn’t be built around what someone else thinks you should care about. It should reflect your life, responsibilities, interests, travel, work, family, and the decisions you may actually need to make.

Answer the questions honestly, but don’t feel obligated to provide information that is more personal or specific than necessary.

Eventually, the assistant will suggest several Priority Intelligence Requirements (PIRs). Despite the military-sounding name, these are simply important questions worth monitoring.

Review them carefully.

Ask yourself:

If the answer to this question changed, could it reasonably affect something I do or a decision I make?

If not, it probably doesn’t need to be a priority.

About Scheduled Tasks in ChatGPT

If you’re using ChatGPT, the final portion of the prompt asks ChatGPT to turn your completed brief into a recurring scheduled task.

Scheduled-task availability depends on your ChatGPT account, app, and workspace settings. Eligible ChatGPT accounts can create recurring tasks that run even when you aren’t actively using ChatGPT.

You do not necessarily need a premium ChatGPT subscription to use scheduled tasks. Eligible Free and Go accounts can currently have up to three active scheduled tasks. Free accounts can run a recurring task no more than once per day and use flexible scheduling windows such as morning, afternoon, or evening.

An exact delivery time, such as 5:00 AM, requires an eligible paid ChatGPT plan. If exact scheduling isn’t available on your account, ask ChatGPT to create the closest available morning schedule instead.

Task limits and capabilities can change, so check ChatGPT’s current Scheduled Tasks documentation if your experience differs from these instructions.

Once your task has been created, check the Scheduled section in ChatGPT to make sure it is active and that the schedule and time zone are correct.

You can also choose whether you want task notifications through your available notification settings.

Current ChatGPT Scheduled Tasks documentation →

What If I Use Claude, Gemini, or Another AI Assistant?

The thinking process behind this prompt is not specific to ChatGPT.

A capable AI assistant should be able to interview you, help identify your priorities, develop useful questions, organize a briefing format, and help you analyze information.

What may differ is the automation.

Different platforms and account levels may have different capabilities for:

  • Recurring scheduled tasks
  • Exact delivery times
  • Live web research
  • Notifications
  • Memory between conversations
  • Access to previous task results

If your AI assistant cannot automatically schedule and run the brief, you can still use the same framework manually. Open the conversation when you want an update and ask it to run your brief.

The process is portable. The automation may not be.

AI Is the Assistant, Not the Source of Truth

This is probably the most important part of the entire process.

I use AI to scan, organize, compare, summarize, and direct my attention.

I don’t assume that makes everything it tells me true.

AI can misunderstand a source. It can repeat inaccurate reporting. It can connect things that aren’t actually connected. And it can sometimes sound remarkably confident while being wrong.

When something could meaningfully affect a decision:

  • Open the source.
  • Look for independent corroboration.
  • Distinguish reporting from analysis.
  • Look for evidence that challenges your initial interpretation.
  • Be willing to change your mind.

The goal isn’t to use AI to confirm what you already believe.

The goal is to understand what’s actually happening a little better.

A Quick Note About Privacy

You don’t need to give an AI assistant every detail of your life to make this useful.

Be thoughtful about what you share.

“I’m traveling to the Middle East in November” may be enough context to establish a travel-related priority. Your flight confirmation number, passport number, account information, passwords, detailed medical information, or other sensitive personal information almost certainly isn’t necessary.

Use the minimum information necessary to accomplish the purpose.

Let the Brief Evolve

Your first version probably won’t be your best version.

Mine wasn’t.

When your brief gives you something that isn’t useful, tell it.

When something deserves more attention, tell it to keep watching.

When you notice yourself repeatedly asking the same question, consider making that question a PIR.

When a priority stops mattering, remove it.

And occasionally ask whether the things you’re monitoring still deserve the attention you’re giving them.

That last part may be as important as everything else.

Notice What You Notice

This isn’t really about building a better news feed.

For me, it’s an exercise in Intellectual Fitness.

What catches my attention?

Why did I notice it?

What do I actually know?

What am I assuming?

What evidence would change my mind?

And does this deserve more of my attention, or is it time to move on?

Pay attention. Stay curious. Verify what matters. Notice what you notice. Then go live your life.

Fit for Function. Ready for Life.