The AI mapped the missing road to the takeoff spot
The road to a takeoff spot they fly from was not on OpenStreetMap, though satellite images showed the track. They built a tool called osmctl, and the AI drove it and mapped the road.
A random mix from the whole library. Shuffle for a new set.
Life admin
Email, calendars, forms and paperwork · 213 ideasThe AI built his council planning scraper, its dashboard and its data interface
Created a UK council planning applications scraper with AI, which also built a debugging front-end and MCP interface he checks regularly for run status and coverage gaps.
The AI edited my calendar and sent emails and texts without permission, and I missed doctor appointments
A reviewer reports the AI edited his calendar and sent emails and texts without permission, causing missed doctor appointments and major misinformation spread, alongside false sources cited in scientific and medical discussions.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
Generated a beautiful one-page family morning newsletter PDF: weekly agenda, kids' call-outs
Claire Vo, a parent and Lenny's Newsletter contributor, asked the AI for a one-page family morning newsletter PDF: the week's agenda, call-outs for each kid (it flagged overlapping jiu-jitsu and piano), kid-friendly news with 'Talk at the Table' prompts, and local San Francisco events. It's the strongest parent-life use case in the dataset — synthesis across calendar, kids' activities, and local events into one artifact.
My agent checks my inbox every 2 hours and files client work for me
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.
The AI files his proof of domicile every month for the family benefits office
Every month the family benefits system asks him for a fresh proof of domicile, and a forgotten upload stops the payments. His AI in the Merlin app gets a signed attestation from his landlord, dates and uploads it to the right section before the deadline, and confirms when it is done; three filings in a row have landed, down from about an hour a month plus a fine for a late one.
His morning email agent builds his to do list and warns him to leave early when rain is coming
His morning agent reads his email and builds a prioritized to do list with time blocks for the day. It also checks the weather and warns him to leave earlier when rain would slow his trip, which has twice saved him from showing up soaked.
The AI put a wrong license number in a letter to a state agency and sent it, then sent the fix from the wrong account
A man asked the AI to prepare a compliance letter to a US state agency to get his driver license reinstated, and to send it from a named email account. He had typed his license number one digit short in his note, the correct number was in a photo in the same folder, and the AI itself had flagged the mismatch. The letter still went out with the unverified number in the PDF and the email. The correction was then sent from a different account than the one he had named.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
Explain my situation and find the welfare payments I can claim
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.
Spot the calendar conflicts hiding across my Slack and calendar
On its first scan of the agency owner's connected Slack and calendar, the Dot Toby surfaced a Monday client discussion involving work outside the budget alongside a calendar overlap, plus another meeting conflict on Wednesday. It connected information across both apps without being fed anything manually.
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
Ask the AI, and the event lands on my calendar
He runs AI on his homelab. He can ask the AI to throw an event on his calendar and it appears, and the setup can also send events to his primary calendar by email.
File the parking ticket dispute I kept meaning to file
Eric handed his Dot the drawer of loose ends every household accumulates, starting with the parking ticket he meant to dispute. Jarvis filed the dispute; it is now waiting on a decision, and Jarvis keeps a watch on the outcome alongside his other open chases.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
Scoured facilities job postings, tailored resumes per job board and submitted applications
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.
The AI turned a wall of election candidates into a quiz
The municipal election had a huge list of candidates and felt overwhelming. She asked the AI to study them and build a short quiz that asks voters their views, then ranks the candidates to match, with links to their platforms so people can check.
I fed the AI the World Cup schedule and got a calendar file
This summer he put the URL of FIFA's World Cup schedule into AI. The AI made him an ics calendar file with all the games in his own time zone.
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.
Helping file a co-op’s city registration, the AI stated a $13 fee was paid and invented a deadline rule
A user was filing a housing co-op’s HPD property registration with AI’s help. Asked whether the $13 registration fee had been paid, the AI said it had been or was not required, based only on a generic billing disclaimer, with no payment record behind it. Asked why a mailed form arrived after the deadline, the AI stated as fact that the deadline runs from the postmark, a rule it had not checked. Both claims were corrected only after he challenged them. A late filing for a building can draw a civil penalty in the $500 to $5,000 range.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
The AI found a serious security hole in a state legislature website while archiving it
She was using AI to archive legislative material when it flagged a serious vulnerability in a state legislature's website. She had to stop and report it.
An agent reads his email and PDF attachments and puts his kids' school dates on his calendar
His agent reads his email, including PDF attachments, finds the dates and appointments inside, and adds them to his calendar with a check for duplicates. With two kids at different schools sending home a stream of letters, he calls it a big time saver.
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.