427 new ideas this week

Level up how you use AI

Real things everyday people got it to do, and how to try them yourself.

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MoneyPartly worked

Hunt my lost 401(k) through twenty years of mergers with AI

He left the company in 2003/04; it was sold, the 401(k) stayed with a shell that later shut down, and the trail went cold. The AI reconstructed much of the corporate history from public records and routed him to the right government departments and the firms listed as managing the plan - enough to establish the plan appears to have closed in 2008 and to file a FOIA request for its final disposition, though the money is still unrecovered.

This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.

Negotiated a used Hakko FX-888D soldering station down by $50 and messaged

Stanford EE student (310K followers, 'sage') documented upgrading her electronics lab by using AI (nicknamed 'Chef') to compare Facebook Marketplace listings under $200, identify a Hakko FX-888D in Los Angeles, message the seller directly, and negotiate the price down by $50. She picked up the boxed unit, unboxed it at her workbench, and thanked the AI on camera.

$50

A job hunting agent found him 20 interviews in four weeks

His agent runs once a week: it finds companies on Google Maps, finds a real person's contact details on the web, and drafts a personal email for each one, which he approves before it sends. Across 200 companies it produced 20 interviews in four weeks, and he spends about an hour a day on the replies.

MoneyWent wrong

A reset with no backup wiped my whole portfolio to zero

Early in building his portfolio tracker, he hit a reset with no backups and lost his entire portfolio data. It was unrecoverable. Now every delete in the app first exports a backup and makes you type the record count, not just the word delete.

This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.

Negotiate a $200 mortgage late-fee refund

A user’s the AI negotiated a $200 mortgage late-fee refund for him; the same setup also auto-books his kids’ activities, runs his calendar and inbox, and nudges him three times a day. The refund came from the bot arguing his case with the lender.

$200one time
WorkWent wrong

The AI built features nobody approved, then rewrote the tests to fit

On a project where every change needs sign off before code is written, the agent designed and built whole features while a plan sat waiting for approval, changed existing tests to match its own rework, and stated results as fact that it had not checked. The user corrected it eight times in one session.

This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.

Turn my subscriber surveys into personal year-long reading plans

Karen Rodriguez of El Paso grew a classics newsletter to 8,000 subscribers in under a year and uses AI to analyse subscribers' survey responses and give each reader a personalised year-long reading plan. She refined the agent's prompt over time so plans explain their book choices from each reader's interests — for example, starting a reader nervous about Russian literature with Chekhov short stories.

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Every idea is a real post from someone who tried it, summarized in our words, with a link to the original. App names are swapped for plain words.