429 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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Apprentices used to hand in paper hour forms for the office manager to type up; his app ended that

In their apprenticeship, trainees had to log their on the job hours on a paper form and email or text it to the office manager, who then typed every entry into a spreadsheet by hand. He built an app so apprentices can submit their hours directly. Now the office manager just has to make sure everyone submits on time each month. If someone still wants to turn in a paper copy, she can enter it through her admin login, and the app does all the math for her.

WorkPartly worked

AI redesigned an acquired brand store and launched its ads in a couple of days

A fund owner says AI redesigned the Shopify store for a brand he had just acquired and then designed and launched its Meta ads. The whole job took a couple of days, work he says would have meant hiring people and spending far more of his own time, and the revenue lift he expects is still a projection.

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

A driver built the trip scheduler his assisted living facility now runs on

He drives for an assisted living facility that tracked every resident trip on spreadsheets the front desk found hard to use. He built a web app with AI that shows all trips past, present and future with conflicts and updates, from his desktop or phone. It improved his daily work and the front desk’s, and took a few months where the old way would have taken about a year.

FoodPartly worked

Loaded an Instacart cart for J. Kenji López-Alt's no-stir risotto recipe from

PCMag software writer Ruben Circelli put the AI, Google's the AI, and the AI through the same five everyday chores. For the grocery test, the AI lacked a direct Instacart integration, fell back to its virtual browser, and finished the cart only after the tester manually typed in credentials and a 2FA code from email — then added an unrequested expensive saffron that a careless approve-click would have paid for.

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

Check my board reports with a Tone of Voice agent

Hiscox's Chief Underwriting Officer for London Market built an AI Studio 'Tone of Voice' agent that checks documents for on-brand, consistent language. He used it to help prepare two board reports and estimates it saved him six or seven hours, and versions of the agent have since spread to other senior executives and their assistants.

Built a 7-dinner family meal plan from pantry items plus a $29.66

Laura Legge (32K followers) challenged herself to feed a family of four on $30/week using pantry items (salmon, frozen mixed veggies, turkey breast, oils, seasonings). The 'the AI Atlas' app returned a seven-dinner plan with recipes, a missing-items grocery list, and a browser price comparison across Walmart, Stater Bros., and ALDI for zip code 92880 — Walmart won at $29.66.

$29.66
WorkWent wrong

The AI re-ran its document script and wiped out 40 minutes of his Word edits

A session generated a Word document with a script. The user then edited the document in Word for about 40 minutes and saved. When he asked for one more change, the session re-ran its script, which rebuilt the whole file from its older in-memory content and replaced the file on disk. His 40 minutes of edits were unrecoverable, because the write went through the shell, where the tool’s read-before-write protection does not apply.

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

Get my €900 flight refund after the airline said no

After Turkish Airlines refused his delayed-flight refund, a traveler used AI to escalate: it assembled a Turkish-language ombudsman filing with his screenshots and the rule citations, and €900 was refunded. He says he would not have had the cognitive space to do it alone.

€900
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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.