About ShortsIntel
We gave Claude a pair of eyes.
Our data and tools let Claude watch what's winning on TikTok, Reels, Shorts and Meta Ads, and turn it into your creative researcher and copywriter.
ShortsIntel in one paragraph
ShortsIntel is a short-form video research tool that plugs into Claude and other AI Assistants. It finds the videos and ads winning on TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Facebook and Meta Ads, watches the videos themselves (the hook, the visuals, the on-screen text, the call to action), ranks what is outperforming, and hands your Assistant the findings so it can work as your creative researcher and copywriter. It is built for creative strategists and content marketers, charged per Run from prepaid Credits with no subscription, and was founded in 2025 by Jackson Gathondu.
Chapter 1
It's 11pm, and Maya is still scrolling.
Meet Maya. She's made up, but if you work in creative strategy you have been her. She runs ads for a skincare brand, and Monday's brief is due.
So she does what everyone does. Three hours on TikTok, then Reels, then Shorts, then the Meta Ad Library. Forty screenshots. A notes doc full of half-remembered hooks. A hunch about which competitor ad is working, based on how long it has been running.
By the time the brief is done, the trend has moved.
Chapter 2
Her AI could write the brief. It couldn't watch a single video.
Maya already pays for Claude. It drafts her scripts, rewrites her hooks and tidies her decks. But ask it what's working on TikTok this week and it can only guess from what it learned in training. Paste it a link and it sees a caption at best, never the video.
So the work was backwards. The person did the watching, the AI did the typing, and the slowest, most valuable part of the job stayed manual.
Chapter 3
So we taught it to watch.
ShortsIntel is a set of tools Claude can call. Maya connects it once, in about a minute, and then simply asks: "What's winning in US skincare on TikTok and Reels this week?"
Claude starts a Research. ShortsIntel searches across platforms, removes the duplicates, and ranks every video by how far it beat its Creator's usual reach, so a breakout from a small account counts as much as a hit from a big one. Then it watches the shortlist: the first three seconds, the visuals, the words on screen, the call to action.
What comes back is a Digest: the themes, the hooks that are working (word for word, with templates), the formats, what commenters keep asking for, and the angles nobody has tried yet. Claude reads it and writes Maya's hooks, scripts and ad copy from what it actually watched.
Maya goes to bed on time.
Chapter 4
And it keeps watching after she logs off.
Maya sets a Tracker on her biggest competitor, another on a rising Sound, and one on an Advertiser in the Meta Ad Library. ShortsIntel checks them on a schedule and writes a Change Report when something moves: a video taking off, a new Ad, a hook suddenly everywhere.
Next Monday, the brief starts from what changed, not from a blank page.
Why we built it
ShortsIntel started in 2025 in Kenya, where Jackson Gathondu was building and marketing consumer apps. Every week meant the same ritual: study what Creators in a niche are posting, see which competitor Ads keep running, and work out which hooks and formats actually carry.
AI Assistants got very good at the writing half of that job. The watching half was still done by hand. Other tools answered with yet another workspace to log into and another AI subscription to pay for.
We went the other way. ShortsIntel brings the videos to the AI you already use, so the research happens where the writing already does.
What we believe
- Bring the data to your AI
- You should not have to move into a new app to get better research. ShortsIntel works inside the Assistant you already pay for.
- Watch the video, not the caption
- What makes a short-form video work is on screen: the hook, the pacing, the text, the call to action. We analyse the video itself.
- Count in code, write with AI
- How far a video beat its Creator's usual reach is arithmetic, so we compute it. The model is used for what models are good at: reading and summarising what it watched.
- Pay for the work, not the seat
- No plan, no seats, nothing that renews. Each Run is charged when it finishes. A Run that fails costs nothing, and a partial one is charged only for what finished.
- Public data only
- Everything we read is public: posts, captions, public metrics, public profiles and Meta's public Ad Library.
ShortsIntel at a glance
- What it is
- A short-form video research tool for AI Assistants, delivered as an MCP server and a REST API.
- Who it's for
- Creative strategists, content marketers and the agencies and brands they work for. Developers use the same tools through the API.
- Platforms
- TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Facebook and Meta Ads
- Works with
- Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and VS Code, and any Assistant that can add an MCP server.
- What it does
- Research with a Digest of winning hooks, themes and angles; analysis of individual videos and Ads; Scores for how far a video outperforms its Creator; Trackers with Change Reports.
- Pricing
- Prepaid Credits, charged per Run. No subscription. New accounts get 1,000 credits free, valid for 90 days.
- Founded
- 2025
- Founder
- Jackson Gathondu
- Based in
- Kenya
- Website
- www.shortsintel.com
- Contact
- support@shortsintel.com
Questions people ask about us
What is ShortsIntel?
ShortsIntel is a short-form video research tool that plugs into Claude and other AI Assistants. It finds the videos and ads winning on TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Facebook and Meta Ads, watches the videos themselves (the hook, the visuals, the on-screen text, the call to action), ranks what is outperforming, and hands your Assistant the findings so it can work as your creative researcher and copywriter. It is built for creative strategists and content marketers, charged per Run from prepaid Credits with no subscription, and was founded in 2025 by Jackson Gathondu.
Who is ShortsIntel for?
Creative strategists and content marketers who decide which hooks, angles and formats a brand runs on short-form video and paid social, and are judged on views, CTR, ROAS and CAC. Agencies use it across clients, and developers use the same tools through the API.
Which platforms does ShortsIntel cover?
TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Facebook and Meta Ads. It reads public videos, Creators, Hashtags and Sounds on each video platform, and Ads from Meta's public Ad Library.
Does ShortsIntel work with ChatGPT, Cursor or other AI tools?
It is built Claude-first and connects to Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and VS Code. Any other Assistant that can add a custom MCP server works too, and developers can call the same tools over a REST API. Setup for other Assistants.
How much does ShortsIntel cost?
There is no subscription. You buy Credits up front and each Run is charged when it finishes; a Research of 50 videos costs 1,036 credits. A Run that fails costs nothing, and a partial one is charged only for what finished. Reading a finished Run back is free, as often as you like. New accounts get 1,000 credits free, valid for 90 days. See every price.
What is a Run?
A Run is one piece of work your Assistant asks ShortsIntel for, such as a Research or the analysis of one video. It is the only thing ShortsIntel charges for.
What ShortsIntel is not
It is not another AI workspace you have to move into, not a social listening dashboard, and not a subscription. It never touches your ad accounts. It is research your existing Assistant can call.
Who makes ShortsIntel?
ShortsIntel was founded in 2025 by Jackson Gathondu and is based in Kenya. You can reach the team at support@shortsintel.com. Contact us.