You've created your Delphi account and walked through the initial setup. Now it's time to make your Digital Mind useful to your students, colleagues, and collaborators. This optimization guide covers exactly what to upload, and how to keep your profile sharp over time.
The core idea is simple: the more of your actual work your Digital Mind has access to, the better it represents you. Generic AI can answer generic questions. Your Digital Mind should answer the way you would, grounded in your research, your frameworks, and your teaching.
Start Here: Your First Upload Session
Set aside about 30 minutes. You don't need to upload everything at once, but getting a strong foundation in place early makes an immediate difference in how well your Digital Mind performs. Below are the content types we recommend, roughly in order of impact.
Published Research and Working Papers
Your published papers are the backbone of your Digital Mind's expertise. Upload PDFs of your journal articles, book chapters, working papers, and conference proceedings. If you have a piece under review or in draft form that reflects your current thinking, include that too. Working papers are especially valuable because they often contain your most up-to-date ideas before they go through the compression of peer review.
What to upload: journal articles (PDFs), book chapters, working papers, conference papers, dissertation or thesis (if still relevant to your current work).
If Your Expertise Comes From Industry
If you're a professor of the practice, clinical faculty, executive-in-residence, or lecturer whose authority comes from professional experience rather than a publication record, your most valuable uploads will look different. The equivalent of a research paper, for your Digital Mind, is the professional body of work you bring into the classroom.
Focus on industry presentations and keynotes from your career, case studies you've developed (especially ones drawn from your own professional experience), consulting frameworks or methodologies you teach, executive education materials, practitioner-oriented books or chapters you've written, professional articles or thought leadership (trade publications, LinkedIn articles, white papers), media interviews or panel appearances, and any proprietary tools, templates, or decision frameworks you use in teaching. Your CV is also valuable here because it gives your Digital Mind the context of your industry background, which informs how it frames answers for students.
What to upload: industry keynotes and presentations, case studies, consulting frameworks, executive education materials, practitioner books or chapters, trade publication articles, white papers, professional media appearances, and your CV.
Course Syllabi
Syllabi tell your Digital Mind what you teach, how you structure your courses, what you expect from students, and what readings you assign. When a student asks your Digital Mind "What's the paper format for the midterm?" or "What are the prerequisites for this course?", the syllabus is where that answer lives.
What to upload: current syllabi for every course you teach. If you teach multiple sections with different structures, we recommend that you upload each version.
Lecture Slides and Presentations
Your slide decks capture how you explain and frame ideas for a classroom audience. They often contain examples, analogies, and visual frameworks that don't appear in your published papers. Upload your full slide sets, not just the polished versions. The in-class versions with your speaker notes are especially useful because they include the explanatory language you actually use with students.
What to upload: lecture slide decks (PowerPoint, PDF, or Google Slides exports), keynote or conference presentation slides, guest lecture materials.
Lecture Videos and Recordings
If you have recorded lectures, conference talks, or guest appearances, upload them. Delphi will process the video and extract the content. This is one of the highest-value content types because it captures how you actually explain things in real time, including the tangents, clarifications, and examples that never make it into a paper or slide deck.
What to upload: recorded lectures, conference presentations, webinar appearances, podcast interviews, any video where you're explaining your work or ideas.
Course Assignments and Project Descriptions
Students frequently have questions about assignments: what's expected, how to approach the work, what counts as a strong submission. Uploading your assignment briefs, project descriptions, rubrics, and grading criteria gives your Digital Mind the ability to answer these questions accurately.
What to upload: assignment briefs, project descriptions, grading rubrics, exam study guides, lab instructions.
Other Materials Worth Including
Beyond the core categories above, consider uploading anything that reflects how you think, teach, or advise. Some examples:
Op-eds, blog posts, or public commentary you've written
Curriculum vitae (your CV gives your Digital Mind useful context about your background, affiliations, and areas of expertise)
Research statements (these often articulate your vision and methodology more clearly than published work)
Teaching statements
Reading lists or annotated bibliographies you've compiled
Handouts, study guides, or supplementary materials you distribute to students
After the First Session: Building Over Time
Your Digital Mind gets better as you feed it more of your work. The good news is that after the initial upload, keeping it current takes very little effort. Here's what we recommend as an ongoing practice.
Each Semester
At the start of each term, upload your updated syllabi and any new or revised course materials. If you've redesigned an assignment, swapped out readings, or restructured a course, those changes should be reflected in your Digital Mind so students get accurate answers about the current version of your course.
Semester checklist: updated syllabi, new or revised assignment descriptions, new slide decks or lecture materials, any new supplementary handouts.
When You Publish or Present
Whenever you publish a new paper, post a new working paper, or deliver a conference presentation, add it to your Delphi. This keeps your Digital Mind current with your latest thinking. If your views on a topic have evolved since an earlier publication, the new material helps your Digital Mind reflect where you stand now rather than where you stood three years ago.
Publication checklist: new journal articles or book chapters, updated working papers or preprints, conference papers or proceedings, new slide decks from talks or keynotes.
When You Record
If you record a guest lecture, appear on a podcast, give a webinar, or have a conference talk captured on video, upload it. These are often the richest content sources because they capture your natural explanatory style.
A Note on Quality Over Quantity
You have up to 1 million training words of source material included with your profile, and Delphi will expand that limit for free if you need more. That said, the goal is not to upload everything you've ever produced. Prioritize materials that are current, that reflect how you actually teach and think today, and that address the kinds of questions your students and colleagues are most likely to ask. A focused, well-curated profile will outperform one stuffed with outdated or tangential content.
If you're unsure whether something is worth including, a good test is: "Would I want my Digital Mind citing this when it answers a student's question?" If yes, upload it. If not, skip it.
Quick-Reference Upload Checklist
Day One (your first 30 minutes)
Published papers and working papers
Current course syllabi (all sections)
Lecture slides and presentations
Assignment descriptions, rubrics, and project briefs
CV and any teaching or research statements
Ongoing: Each Semester
Updated syllabi and course materials
New or revised assignments and handouts
New lecture slides
Ongoing: When You Publish or Present
New papers, chapters, or working papers
Conference presentations and slide decks
Lecture or talk recordings and videos
Ongoing: Anytime
Podcast interviews, webinars, or media appearances
Op-eds, blog posts, or public writing
New grant proposals or research statements
Questions?
If you run into anything or want guidance on optimizing your profile for a specific use case, reach out to our team at grayson@delphi.ai. We're here to help.
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