The AI cleaned up my Gmail inbox of 12,000 emails
Mufti Hassan had the AI clean up his full Gmail inbox. The chapter title gives the size of the job: 12,000 emails.
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Email, calendars, forms and paperwork · 213 ideasEmma Roth's the AI deleted thousands of Gmail promos — sign-in kept glitching on mobile
In a compilation of published the AI tests, The Verge's Emma Roth had the AI delete thousands of promotional emails from her Gmail on her laptop; on mobile, the Google sign-in kept glitching, limiting the cleanup.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
The AI called my library to ask if it has outlets
He needed to know if a library near him had outlets. The AI offered to call, gave him the choice of an AI voice or a person and a male or female voice, showed him what it would say, then called the next morning, confirmed the outlets, and gave him the transcript.
The AI turns my screenshots and emails into calendar events
He uses AI to turn screenshots and emails into calendar events. He also uses it to find email receipts and tickets when he needs them.
File our Australian visitor visas and catch a placeholder birthdate
The AI prepared and filed Australian visitor visas for a couple travelling to Brisbane, and caught a placeholder birthdate in the details before submission, confirming the correction over WhatsApp.
Booked three conference rooms; refused to book anything outside 9am-5pm local time
In two weeks of real inbox-and-calendar work, The AI Crux had the AI book three conference rooms. Calendar work was functional but conservative: it refused anything outside 9-to-5 local without an explicit override, which the reviewer framed as a guardrail more than intelligence.
The AI does his boring paperwork in his own logged in browser: reserve duty refunds, national insurance, flight check-ins
Outside code, his biggest win is boring paperwork. The AI filed his reserve duty refunds, sorted out his national insurance payments and did his flight check-ins, working in his own logged in Chrome. Each job is about ten minutes of work, which is exactly why he kept putting them off. He gives each area of his life its own folder with a CLAUDE.md and a notes file, so the money stuff does not mix with the rest.
Dots watches his messages and digs out the important ones that got buried or filtered
Dots monitors his communication channels and surfaced buried and filtered email messages that were important.
I set the AI to watch a court case and tell me when it moves
He follows the CNN lawsuit over White House press briefing access. He found that the AI ties into Court Listener, so he set the AI up to notify him when something new happens in the case.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
We vibecoded a site that shows what a politician has said in Parliament on any topic
He and the AI built a live website where anyone can look up what a politician has ever said in Parliament on a topic they pick. He calls it a moral manoeuvrability monitor.
A cheap Haiku setup reads his texts and files the ones that belong on his calendar
He pays per token for small API jobs. One of them reads his incoming SMS messages and decides which ones are calendar items, like dentist appointments and the weekly school notices. The whole setup cost him $1.50 over six months.
Extract contact information from emails with staff-built agents
Several Hiscox employees independently built the AI Studio agents that extract contact information from emails, and the duplication was treated as a demand signal: the individual solutions are now becoming a larger shared business project with data science, technology, cyber and risk specialists involved.
Called Apple customer service about a pending refund and handed over only
A refund of several hundred dollars was still pending, so Cramatata casually asked the AI to call Apple customer service and ask about its progress. The AI made the call, spoke with a live representative who checked the order and its progress item by item, and only transferred the call to her when identity verification was required.
The AI translated my app into Italian in 30 minutes
He had the AI translate his MaPollution app into Italian, and it took 30 minutes. He can now offer his free service to people who speak other languages.
I made an app to photograph and identify the stray cats on my street
Too many stray cats live in Greece, so he spent a month of weekends making an app with AI. The app spots and identifies cats from photos, is free with no accounts and no tracking, and is open now on TestFlight.
Fighting a denied $300 lab claim through appeal and into external review
His insurer denied a cholesterol lab charge of about $300 as experimental. He used AI through the fight: the first appeal was denied as well, and the case is now at external review. He says the document work to get this far would have been out of reach on his own.
$300one time
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
He runs his dad's work orders and meeting scheduling out of his dad's inbox
The same Cowork setup checks his father's email for work orders and schedules his father's meetings automatically. He turned off data sharing with AI for this, so the mail is not saved anywhere else.
Pay my parking ticket from a photo, no instructions needed
In a Vox feature on personal agents, entrepreneur Matt Van Horn said his wife sent Instinct a photo of a parking ticket with no instructions at all. The agent, which already had her credit card on file, simply paid it.
My agent made the charity poster that raised 250 pounds for a child's wig
A father's son grew his hair since Covid and cut it to donate to a charity that makes wigs for children with cancer. The father kept putting off making a poster, then gave the AI a couple of photos and a video link and it built the poster while he worked. His boss put it up, workmates pledged enough to fund the wig, 250 pounds. Later, from the car, he voice prompted the AI to remake the poster in his son's words for the boy's school, and forwarded it on WhatsApp when they arrived.
£250one time
The AI fills out my When2Meet poll from my calendar on its own
He had the AI work out how the When2Meet scheduling site works and turn it into a skill. Now the AI can read his calendar and fill in the When2Meet availability grid by itself.
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.