How to Create AI Agent: From Zero to Fully Automated Freelancer (Step-by-Step)

You are a creative. You got into this to shoot an edit, not to chase invoices at midnight, copy paste client details between five different apps and wonder which client you forgot to follow up last Tuesday. I used to be that guy. I was a videographer/editor/acountant/ project manager. And most days the business side ate more hours than the actual creative work. I built an autonomous AI agent that runs my entire production business while I'm on set or editing my videos. By the end, you'll have a fully functioning system, portfolio landing page, sales pipeline, an automated workflow that handles contracts, invoices, follow-ups, and an AI chatbot that talks to potential clients on your site, even when you're in the middle of a shoot. Here's the kicker. Once it's all set up, you can save the entire thing as a snapshot and sell it to other freelance editors. So, you're not just building a system, you are building a product. So, let's go. Now, look, there are dozens of tools out there. You could try to duct tape a similar system together using NAN plus three different apps and it might work for a while. But today, I chose GoHigh

Level as the foundation for my agent for one simple reason, the native ecosystem. Here, my AI agent has direct built-in access to the calendar, contact database, and payment gateways. We aren't relying on third-party apps or brittle integrations that break in the middle of the night. So, let's jump into the dashboard. I'm going to walk you through exactly how I set up mine for freelance video editing business. I'm using the starter plan. You can grab an extended trial through the link in the description below. Gohighlevel. com/aamaster. Follow along. First things first, we need a place where clients actually find

us and leave a request. We're not building a full website here. We're building a single page funnel. Portfolio, services, contact form, done. And here's where it gets fun. We're not going to drag and drop anything from scratch. Go Highle has a funnel AI feature that builds the whole page for you based on a text description. Let me show you how fast this is. Go to sites, then funnels, then click create new funnel. You'll see three options. Start from blank, use a template, or use funnel AI. Hit funnel AI. Now, it asks you to describe your business. This is where you be specific. I'm typing something like video editing services. I am looking for a funnel for my video editing service business to showcase my services and content should feel professional. Hit generate. Give it 30 seconds. And look at that. It built a full landing page, hero section with a headline, a services breakdown, a portfolio grid, a testimonials block, and a contact form at the bottom in 30 seconds. No templates, no dragging, no design decisions. The AI just did 80% of the work. Now, is it perfect? No, it never is. But the structure is solid, and we just need to polish it. Let me make a few quick tweaks. I'm updating the headline to something more direct. freelance video production, reels, edits, color, swapping the placeholder images for actual frames from my portfolio and adjusting services. Tier one, social media reels, short form content for Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube shorts starting at $500. Tier 2, full edit, complete post-prouction, assembly, sound design, motion graphics starting at $1,500. Tier three, color correction. Professional color grading for features, commercials, music videos, starting at $800. Now, the contact form. This is the most important element on the page because it's the trigger for everything we automate later. The funnel AI already

placed a form element here, but I need to make sure it's connected to an actual form in the system. Here's the key step most tutorials skip. Before this form works with our workflow, we need to make sure it exists in the form section. Click into the form element and either select an existing form from the drop-down or create a new one. Right here, I'm adding four fields: name, email, phone, and a drop down for which service are you interested in with our three tiers as options. That drop-down is going to be incredibly useful later when our workflow sends the right pricing info automatically. Save the form, save the funnel, hit publish. That's it. We now have a live portfolio page with a working contact form. The whole thing took about 5 minutes and the AI did the heavy lifting. Every submission from this form is about to trigger an automated workflow that handles everything. CRM, pipeline

messages, the whole chain. But first, we need to set up where those deals actually live. Now, let's set up how you track projects. Go to opportunities, then pipelines, and create a new pipeline. I'm calling mine video projects. Here are my stages, and these mirror how a real editing project actually flows. Stage one, new inquiry. Someone just filled out the form. You haven't spoken to them yet. Stage two, discovery call booked. They've scheduled a 15-minute call to talk. Scope and budget. Stage three, brief agreed. You've aligned on deliverables, timeline, and revisions included. Stage four, prepayment received, contract signed, deposit in the bank. This is your green light to start work. Stage five, in production. You're shooting, editing, or both. The project is active. Stage six, revisions. First cut delivered, client feedback incoming. Depending on your contract, maybe you've got two rounds of revisions baked in. Stage seven, final delivery. Approved, cut exported, files transferred, project done. Stage eight, closing docks. Final invoice sent, payment received, closing paperwork complete. That's eight stages, and each one represents a real moment in your process. You can drag and drop contacts between stages as projects progress. You can also assign monetary values to each opportunity. So your pipeline dashboard shows you exactly how much revenue is in progress and where it's sitting. This alone is a gamecher. Instead of keeping project status in your head or in a messy spreadsheet, you have a visual board that shows every client, every project, every stage at a

glance. Now we connect everything with automation. This is where go highlevel turns from a collection of tools into an actual system. Go to automations in the sidebar. Click create workflow. Then start from scratch. Name it new video lead auto sequence. First the trigger. Click the trigger box and select form submitted. Choose the form we built earlier. Video project brief. Every time someone fills that out on your portfolio page, this entire workflow fires automatically. Now we stack actions. Click the plus icon below the trigger. Action one, create or update contact. This takes the name, email, phone, and project details from the form and creates a contact record in your CRM. Save. Action two, create opportunity. This drops the lead into the pipeline we just built. Select your video production pipeline and set the stage to new inquiry. Now they show up as a card on your board. Save. Action three, send confirmation email. Subject line. Got your brief contact first name. Here's what happens next. In the body, lay out your process. You'll review the brief, send a quote within 24 hours, and include the calendar link again for anyone who prefers to hop on a call right away. Keep it warm, keep it short, save. Action four, wait. Set a 1-day delay. This gives the lead time to book a call or reply on their own before you follow up manually. Action five, internal notification. After the 24-hour delay, send yourself a notification via email, SMS, or Slack if you've connected it, saying, "Follow up with your contact and project name submitted 24 hours ago. " This is your safety net. Even if the lead didn't book a call, you're reminded to reach out personally. That's five actions stacked in sequence. Your workflow canvas now looks like a vertical flowchart trigger at the top, five nodes flowing down. Every new lead that fills out your form triggers this entire chain automatically. You never

touch it. Now, here's where it gets interesting and very 2026. Go High Level has builtin AI agents, not third-party integrations, not Zapier hacks, native conversational AI that lives right inside the platform. Let me be upfront about cost first because I don't want to create the wrong impression. Conversation AI is not included in your base GHL subscription. It's an add-on roughly $49 a month for the unlimited plan or you can pay per conversation on the starter plan at 97 a month. Your total with AI comes to about 150. Is it worth it for me? Absolutely. It paid for itself the first week when it booked two discovery calls while I was on a shoot. But you should know the real number going in, not find out after. Here's how to set it up. Go to AI agents in the sidebar. Then click on conversation AI. First, you need to create a knowledge base. Click create knowledge base. Give it a name. I called mine video production FAQ. And add your sources. You can paste in web links or manually add FAQs. I added things like my pricing tiers, turnaround times, what formats I deliver, revision policy, and what I need from clients before a project starts. Once your knowledge base is saved, create a new conversational AI agent. Choose blank. We want full control. I went with studio assistant because it sounds professional without being corny. Set the initial greeting message, something like, "Hey, thanks for stopping by. I can answer questions about pricing, turnaround times, or help you book a discovery call. What can I help with? Attach the knowledge base you just built. Then set the prompt. This tells the AI how to behave. " I wrote something like, "You are a friendly assistant for a video production freelancer. Answer questions about services, pricing, and process based on the knowledge base. If the visitor seems interested, suggest they book a discovery call and provide the calendar link. Never make a pricing or deadlines. If unsure, say the founder will follow up personally. Deploy it as a chat widget on your portfolio funnel page. There's a toggle right in the deployment settings. Select website chat and paste your funnel URL. Save. Now, the powerful move. Switch the bot to autopilot mode. This means it responds automatically to incoming messages, live chat, SMS, even Instagram and Facebook DMS if you've connected those channels. When a potential client lands on your portfolio page at 2 in the morning because they're panic searching for an editor before a deadline, your AI is there. It answers their questions, qualifies the lead, and nudges them to book a call. And all of this flows back into your CRM. The AI creates contact records, logs conversations, and can even trigger workflows based on the chat. Think about what that means. You're on set, your phone is on silent. A potential client visits your page, chats with your AI, gets their questions answered, books a call on your calendar, and you see a notification when you wrap for the day. That's the setup. All

right, we've built the landing page, the pipeline, the workflow, and the AI agent. Now, let's make sure this whole machine actually works before we go live. Open your portfolio page in a new browser tab, ideally incognito, so go highle treats you like a fresh visitor. First thing you'll see is the chatbot bubble in the corner. Click it. Ask something like, "Hey, I need a real edited for my brand launch next month. " Watch how the AI responds. It should pull from your knowledge base, ask about format and timeline, and push toward booking a discovery call or filling out the brief form. Now fill out the brief form yourself. Use a test email and your real phone number so you can see every notification come through. Hit submit. Go back to go high level. Open the contacts tab. Your test contact should already be there tagged new lead source marked as your portfolio page. Now check opportunities. You should see a new card sitting in the new inquiry stage of your video production pipeline. Check your email inbox. The confirmation email with your rate card PDF should be there too. If everything fired, congratulations. You just watched your entire client intake process run itself in about 15 seconds. No copy pasting, no switching tabs, no I'll get back to them tomorrow. That turns into next week. One quick tip before we move on. If you set any delays to test faster, like changing that one day weight to 1 minute, go back and reset them to real values. Now, toggle the workflow to published. And from this moment on, every real lead that hits your portfolio page flows through this system automatically. All right, here's

the part that turns this from a productivity hack into a business opportunity. Everything you just built, the portfolio funnel, the intake form, the calendar, the pipeline stages, the sixstep workflow, the AI chatbot with its knowledge base, all of that can be saved as one package called a snapshot. Go to agency view, then scroll side panel to account snapshot section. Click create snapshot. Give it a name. I called mine freelance video production starter kit. GHL packages your entire account setup. Funnels, forms, workflows, pipelines, calendars, email templates, even your AI agent configuration. Everything, one file. On the starter plan at 97 a month, you can create snapshots and share them with anyone via share link. They click the link, import it into their own GHL account, and get your entire setup instantly. You can absolutely sell this. Set up a Gumroad page, a Stripe checkout, or even a simple PayPal link. Charge $150, $200 for a video production business in a box, and deliver the snapshot link after purchase. That works. But if you want to go bigger, we're talking automated delivery, your own branded marketplace, creating sub accounts for clients, and billing them monthly through GHL's built-in system. That requires the pro plan at $4. 97 a month, which has the full SAS mode. That's the tier where people build actual agencies. They sell white labeled GHL access to clients with their custom snapshots preloaded. In one session, you

build complete freelance business system inside go highlevel portfolio page that captures leads, a calendar that books discovery calls, a pipeline that tracks every project from first inquiry to final delivery. a workflow that handles the admin automatically. Welcome messages, emails, follow-up reminders, an AI chatbot that works while you are on set, and the whole thing packaged as a snapshot you can share or sell. If you want to try this yourself, I've got an extended trial link for GoHighle in the description below. Gohighlevel. com/imaster. Build this exact setup. Test it with a real lead. See how it feels when the system handles the busy work and you just create. Subscribe if you haven't. I'll see you in the next one.