A materials scientist with a PhD and almost no coding background built and shipped a live stock portfolio tracker over about three months and 277 commits, pasting code blocks the AI gave him into a terminal and pasting the results back. The tracker is not about returns: it makes him write down why he bought a stock and what would prove him wrong, then pressure tests his reasoning and scores how well his past calls held up.
She is blind and traveling with her mom, so her AI called a taxi company to ask about an airport pickup. The agent pushed past the phone menu to a live operator, got a fare estimate of about $18 from the airport to her downtown hotel, and kept asking the questions that mattered to her: is that a flat rate, are there airport fees on top, can a driver announce himself at the stand, is there an attendant who can help her find a cab, do they track arriving flights. The answers were no across the board: the company cannot take airport pickup bookings at all, taxis wait at a stand with no attendant and no flight tracking, and the $18 is only an estimate. She shared the full transcript.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
One itemized line in Armand Ruiz's September 15 errands post credits the AI with recovering $836 of his unclaimed property during a background finance sweep. The sweep's $2,120.95 total is already recorded from press coverage; this record isolates the unclaimed-property component that coverage did not itemize.
X user someone had the AI file a compensation claim after a seven-hour flight delay. The agent secured a $250 airline credit and handled the rebooked flight itinerary completely on its own, with no manual steps from the user.
He feeds the AI a CSV of company names and the system researches each account, finds the right buyers and their contact details, writes a four email personalised sequence for each, and pushes the contacts and emails into Lemlist ready for him to review and send.
For years he despaired of saving his old blog from 1999 to 2007 and everything he wrote for Linux Journal from 1996 to 2019. He asked the AI for help, and the AI rescued both sets of writing and put them back online at searls.com, though some Linux Journal pieces are still missing.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
He has edited his podcast Rebuild by hand for years, and nearly everything after importing the recordings was manual. For the latest episode, the AI reverse engineered Logic Pro's ProjectData file so the editing could be automated, and the agent did most of the edit.
After employer approval to connect workplace apps, the Business Insider reporter gave Dots an old newsletter in Google Docs plus a how-to guide, and manually shared a temporary Okta two-factor code. The Dot produced a test newsletter draft in about five minutes that an editor called 95% good, with photos, a chart and links in the right places.