BookNovi works inside the assistant you already use. Add it to Claude or ChatGPT once, sign in to BookNovi, and from then on you can ask "who is coming in tomorrow?", "book Zoe with Danielle on Friday at 10 for a medium cut" or "what is running low?" and get the answer from your own business.
The assistant works as you. It reaches what your own login reaches in the app, and nothing more: your switches under Settings, Logins, and your client book (a stylist who sees only their own clients sees only those through Claude too). Each person connects their own; nobody shares one.
The address
Open your own menu (the business's name at the top) and choose Assistants and voice. Under Connect an Assistant is the address to add, ending in /api/mcp, with Copy beside it. It is the same page as Settings, Assistants and voice.
In Claude
- In Claude, open Customize, then Connectors.
- Choose Add, then Add custom connector.
- Give it a name, such as BookNovi, and paste the address.
- Claude opens BookNovi's sign-in. Sign in, then choose what it may do (see below) and Allow.
Custom connectors are on every Claude plan; the Free plan allows one. On Team and Enterprise, an owner of your Claude organization adds BookNovi under Organization settings, Connectors first; then each person connects it and signs in as themselves.
In ChatGPT
- In ChatGPT, open its settings for apps and connectors and turn on developer mode.
- Add a connector, give it a name and paste the address.
- Sign in to BookNovi, choose what it may do and Allow.
A custom connector added with developer mode works in ChatGPT's text chat, changes included.
Signing in and choosing
BookNovi's own sign-in opens, with your second step if you set one up. Then one page shows who is asking and lets you choose:
- Who is asking, and where you go back to. Claude sends you back to claude.ai, ChatGPT to chatgpt.com. An app that sends you back to your own computer, or one that calls itself Claude or ChatGPT but sends you somewhere else, is marked with a warning: connect it only if you know who made it.
- Which business, when your login is on more than one.
- What it may read: the calendar, clients, sales and money, products and stock, the CRM, projects and meetings, marketing, memory and your own records, mail and files on the records, and how the business is set up. Only the parts your login reaches are offered. Forms and voice notes start off, and are never offered at a business that keeps health information.
- It may make changes: on, it may put changes forward; off, it only reads.
Choose Allow, or Cancel to connect nothing. What a new connection starts with is set under What a New Connection Starts With on the same page.
Talking to it
Ask in your own words. It reads the day and the week, finds clients, books, moves and cancels appointments, checks clients in and marks visits finished, adds clients, notes and tasks, logs calls and visits in the CRM, says what is running low and puts it on a draft purchase order, and texts or emails a client. Ask it what else it can do: it finds almost anything else your login can do in the app.
With the pay-as-you-go tools on, it can also search the web, read a page, find businesses on a map and read reviews, paid from the business's prepaid wallet. A tool's call past one of the business's spending thresholds waits for a sign-off under Settings, Approvals, as a change asked first does (see Pay-as-you-go tools and the wallet).
Nothing changes on the first ask. Every change is said back as a question, such as "Book Zoe Zimmer with Danielle on Friday at 10 AM for Medium Cut?", and made only when you say yes. An answer that is not a plain yes ("yes, but at 11") is asked once more, then let go. A question waits ten minutes.
- What your business allows. For each change, an owner chooses under Settings, Approvals whether AI may Do it, must Ask first, or Never. With Ask first, your yes through Claude or ChatGPT puts the change in Approvals for someone who can decide it, because BookNovi did not hear that yes itself. In BookNovi's own assistant, a yes from someone who may decide that change counts as the approval.
- Money and messages. A payment from a client's card on file, a refund and a missed visit's fee are said back with the amount and the card ("Charge $45 to Zoe Zimmer's Visa ending in 4242 for sale #1042?"). A text or an email to a client is said back word for word. Both start on Ask first. A demo business sends nothing and moves no money.
- What an assistant never does, whatever the business allows: change permissions, roles or logins; change security settings or the connections that hold sign-ins (webhooks, social accounts, connected assistants); change bank, payout or card details; export everything; close or delete the business; delete a record for good; or take the brake off spending, by starting a paused wallet again or changing when the pay-as-you-go tools need a sign-off. These are never offered; a person does them in the app.
Everything it does shows in the activity log under your name with the assistant beside it, such as "Dana Reyes through Claude".
Out loud
- In BookNovi: the assistant holds a voice conversation. Press Conversation in the assistant, talk, and it answers aloud; each change is read back and made when you say yes, or tap Yes, do it. The first time, the app says why it needs the microphone before your browser asks.
- Claude: a custom connector works in text chat on the web, the desktop and the phone, typed or dictated. Claude's voice mode, in beta since 07/23/2026, reaches Anthropic's own connectors (Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Slack); Anthropic has said voice runs on a separate path where custom connector tools are not supported yet, and people report mixed results.
- ChatGPT: its own voice mode does not use custom connectors; OpenAI closed that request in June 2026. ChatGPT's voice reaches BookNovi inside BookNovi instead (below).
When their voice modes take custom connectors, BookNovi works there with nothing to change.
Talk with ChatGPT's voice in BookNovi
When BookNovi has it set up, the assistant shows Talk with ChatGPT's voice above the message box, with the minutes left today. It is a spoken conversation with ChatGPT, run by OpenAI, that reads and changes your business through BookNovi as you.
- Press Talk with ChatGPT's voice. The first time on a device, the app says why it needs the microphone, and that what you say goes to OpenAI while you talk; then your browser asks.
- Talk. What you say and what ChatGPT says are written out in large type as you go, so you can follow along in a busy room.
- Every change is said back as a question and shown on the screen with Yes, do it and No. It is made only when your own last words to that question are a clear yes in your language, or when you tap Yes, do it. The yes that counts is the one BookNovi's screen heard, never ChatGPT's report of it; anything else ("yes, but at eleven") leaves the question waiting for a tap.
- Press Hang up when you are done. The screen says how long it lasted and what is left today. Talk again starts another; Back to typing returns to the assistant.
- It works as you, within your own settings under Assistants and voice, What a New Connection Starts With. If they let an assistant read nothing, it does not start. If they, or the business's rules under Settings, Approvals, let it make no changes, it only reads. A change on Ask first goes to Approvals unless you may decide it yourself.
- It never moves money, deletes anything or sends anything to a client, whatever the business allows, and it uses none of the pay-as-you-go tools, since they are paid from the wallet. Do those in BookNovi itself.
- It speaks your language: English, Spanish or French, as your login is set.
- It ends with the call. Hanging up, closing the page, or an owner ending it under Connected by the Team ends the conversation and its way into BookNovi at once.
- The activity log shows what it did under your name, through ChatGPT's voice.
- A demo business talks like any other, and sends nothing.
Minutes a day. An owner sets them under Assistants and voice, ChatGPT's voice at this business: Off, or from 15 minutes to 4 hours a day, shared by the whole team. Every business starts Off, since each minute costs: give it minutes when your team wants it (30 is a busy day of quick questions for a small team). If the business keeps health information, remember that what is said goes to OpenAI. One conversation lasts at most 10 minutes. In its last minute the time left turns red, and at the end ChatGPT says so aloud and hangs up. Once the day's minutes are used, the button says so; the assistant's own Conversation still works. The owner sees what the team used today and this month, by person, and the latest conversations.
Disconnecting
- From BookNovi: Assistants and voice, Your Assistants, Disconnect, then Disconnect it. It stops at once.
- From the assistant: remove BookNovi where you added it, in Claude's Connectors or ChatGPT's settings for apps and connectors. Its sign-in then runs out on its own; disconnect it here too to end it at once.
An owner sees everyone's under Connected by the Team and can disconnect any. Turning off The team may connect assistants disconnects every one at once, and nobody can connect another until it is on again. A connection not used for 30 days ends by itself.
Best practices
- Give an assistant only the parts it needs. Leave forms and voice notes off unless it truly needs them.
- Leave payments, refunds and messages to clients on Ask first under Settings, Approvals.
- Connect from your own login, never someone else's: the assistant is you, and the activity log says so.
- Disconnect an assistant you no longer use, and ask anyone who leaves the team to do the same (taking them off the team stops theirs at once).
The older private links under Settings, Connections, AI assistants still work and only read (see Connections, AI assistants and the API).