Okay, confession: my staff group chat is mostly people asking each other where things are in Planning Center. So when Ask AI showed up in every product this week (it's the little sparkle icon in the sidebar), I got excited.
It answers how-to questions from Planning Center's own help docs, and it can look things up in your account, like whether every volunteer is confirmed for Sunday. It only sees what you have permission to see, and Planning Center says it doesn't train AI on your church's data. You don't have to use it at all.
The bigger news for tech nerds is the Planning Center MCP, which came out in August. It lets ChatGPT, Claude and similar tools read your Services, Giving, People, Groups, Check-Ins and other data. The only thing it can change is People, where it can add notes and fill out forms. One word of caution, pastor to pastor: Planning Center recommends turning off model training in your ChatGPT or Claude settings first. Do that before anyone on staff connects it.