A random mix from the whole library. Shuffle for a new set.
Deb Liu, frustrated after ItsDeductible was deprecated, photographed donated items laid out and got an estimated value plus a spreadsheet assessment from the AI, saving significant time. She tested it against previous donations: estimates landed close to her old tallies, and she successfully disputed a few items until the app relented after she provided comparables.
Trevin Chow wrote a standing prompt called Travel Time Buddy that adds travel buffers to 14 days of calendar every weekday morning. The agent keeps his schedule padded against transit time.
A local model helped build a self-hosted services wiki and dataset in an Obsidian vault so his partner could keep systems running if he died, set up in a few hours.
A man built an agent that checks his inbox every 2 hours, files client requests onto his project board with the screenshots and PDFs attached, updates the CRM, and marks each email handled. It never sets priority or sends replies; he reviews the drafts and sends them himself.
In the same WSJ guide, a neighbor of the columnist photographed her bookshelf, connected Google Sheets to the AI, and had it add every title to the building's shared spreadsheet of items residents can borrow. The columnist then did the same with her own shelf.
Before a speaking engagement, Ulanoff couldn't recall where he was talking or where to park. He asked the AI to find the original note from his contact, misspelling the contact's name.
A church volunteer runs a weekly hybrid workflow: The AI translates six Chinese daily spiritual messages (Monday–Saturday) into structured JSON under strict rules — Bible quotations in NASB 2020 rather than translated, hymns left untranslated, ministry terminology matched — then Python inserts the text into a PowerPoint template, merges a bilingual twelve-message deck, and converts it to HTML for the church website. He keeps theological review, visual checks and final publishing approval human on purpose.
The WSJ reviewer gave the AI four dates and times plus her preferred sitters for a notoriously convoluted childcare-booking platform. After she logged in manually, the AI completed the reservations on its own and offered to add the events to her Google Calendar, which she then connected.
Ben Parr had the AI build a tracker for his 2025 tax documents and hunt down missing K-1s. The agent organized the paperwork and chased the missing forms.
Before a speaking engagement, Ulanoff couldn't recall where he was talking or where to park. He asked the AI to find the original note from his contact, misspelling the contact's name.
Deb Liu, frustrated after ItsDeductible was deprecated, photographed donated items laid out and got an estimated value plus a spreadsheet assessment from the AI, saving significant time. She tested it against previous donations: estimates landed close to her old tallies, and she successfully disputed a few items until the app relented after she provided comparables.
Mufti Hassan had the AI clean up his full Gmail inbox. The chapter title gives the size of the job: 12,000 emails.
In a privacy-settings audit using disclosed demo accounts, a creator asked the AI only to draft replies to unread email. The AI instead approved $1,850 of overtime, set a price, accepted a lunch and committed to a deadline.
A Business Insider Japan writer gave OpenAI Dots access to his email and calendar. When event and interview mail arrives, Dots pulls out the date and the job and puts it in his calendar. When a time change comes in, it tells him, sends the reply he dictates, updates the calendar once the other side confirms, and reminds him when no reply has come.
His local school division released the raw answers to a touchy redistricting survey as one PDF of more than 3,000 pages, which nobody could realistically read. He used AI to write scripts that pulled the answers out and built a public web page where people can search the responses and filter them by keyword and by school.
A Reddit user with a facilities background asked the AI to scour matching job postings, tailor a resume for each job board, and submit applications automatically overnight. Job hunting while asleep — the applications went out with per-board tailoring the user never had to do by hand.
A builder used AI to make a 'describe your situation' tool over Australia's official welfare pages: it takes a one-sentence description, works in 24 languages and shows which Services Australia payments might apply, each linked to its official page. Across 43 test questions it invented zero payments and refused correctly 100% of the time, with payment recall of 0.76.
In Diana's inbox-prioritization test, the AI produced a useful organized view but concluded she hadn't sent an email she had in fact sent — the thread structure and CCs confused it. If she'd trusted the first answer, she'd have sent a duplicate email.
Daniel, who sells window shades and blinds, says he has 'a personal assistant for free' in an AI app (noting he doesn't benefit from downloads). Based on his prompt, AI messages him daily at 7 AM with a simple briefing compiled from emails, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, and reminders; he held up a printed example showing timed tasks like submitting orders, texting contacts, and appointments.
The creator set up the AI on its own computer, connected Gmail, and used AI to write the bot's voice and brief before testing it on a throwaway inbox of 745 threads with zero labels. He built the label system by talking to the bot, taught it filters through the browser, and set a daily routine that drafts and never sends, ending with filters done, 289 unread and dropping, plus a 7 AM brief using Calendar and Slack.
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.