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.
Around Elmira and Corning, New York, event listings were scattered across library systems, a brewery site, a school app, chamber newsletters and Facebook, so people found out about things the day after. He had the AI build one page that checks 101 sources across three New York counties and part of northern Pennsylvania: 1,855 listings over the next 90 days, 1,767 events after duplicates are merged, about 250 in any week, at 159 venues. A cron job reruns it every six hours on cheap shared hosting, about 8,300 lines of PHP, and cancellations mostly handle themselves because an event disappears when its source stops listing it.
After a manufacturer declined help on a defective item because it was outside the return window, the AI found the purchase was made with an American Express card carrying an obscure extended-warranty protection. It submitted the claim on the author's behalf and obtained the refund.
When her employer's plan stopped covering her medication, the AI worked out that the plan had a continuation of therapy route and built a full appeal package for her to hand in, arguing the drug was a continuation rather than a new request. She filed it, and her doctor used the letter template it wrote.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
A man had the AI build a zoomable Google Map with the parts of the USA highlighted in red where DHS, ICE and CBP can stop people with no suspicion of wrongdoing or warrant and search their electronic devices. He put the map on his own website so anyone can check it.
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.
Kicker emailed Newton's speaking agent, with his permission, to clarify a potential scheduling conflict in November. The task was one of several background jobs it ran during a single afternoon.
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.
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.
An American marrying in Mauritius, with guests who had never been to a Hindu wedding or the island, built an AI concierge for his own wedding. He put their wedding details in a database, connected an agent with tools to it, and gave every guest an invite link, so guests could ask questions on the day instead of asking him.
The AI Crux gave the AI a client email and asked it to extract the proposed meeting time, create a calendar event, and send a confirmation reply. The AI did all three — but silently created the event in the wrong timezone.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
Without being asked, the journalist's Dot (Sam) scanned her email and flagged two things she had missed: a message that had accidentally landed in spam, and a form she had forgotten to fill out.
The author describes using AI to resolve a six-month-old travel medical insurance claim with Cigna. The AI called the insurer, was transparent about being an AI, conducted the call politely (impressing the representative), and — because final consent was required — called the author's phone and connected the parties so he could approve verbally.
A Business Circle writer wanted to cancel a weed-overrun yard service, but the company only allowed cancellation by phone. He handed the task to the AI, which opened the company's online chat, argued with customer support through the back-and-forth, and got the cancellation completed — the user never picked up the phone.
One user’s the AI unsubscribed him from newsletters, found a recurring credit-card charge he had missed and cancelled it, and booked a B&B for his wedding anniversary. Three different errands, one agent, all completed.
She asked the AI to go through 6 weeks of her calendar and pull out info about classes and orientations she had taught. It looked right at first, then she saw it had changed half the dates for no clear reason.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
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.
He had the AI collect his will and trust documents and check them against state statutes. The review found missing signatures, an illegal clause, and outdated law references, and he fired his attorney the same day.
Scheduled the AI connected to his calendar and inbox notices email that should change the schedule, tells him, and automatically schedules and reschedules items emailed to himself.
Agency owner Rui Fu (someone, 253K followers) demonstrates the daily system he shows for the AI: an 8 AM scan of the last 24 hours of Instagram DMs, categorised into brand partnerships, collaboration requests, fan messages and spam so he wakes up to only the important ones. The tutorial also shows an auto-reply rule for guide inquiries and offers his prompt guide in exchange for comments.
Creator James Pelton, who says he runs 8 businesses with 20 AI agents, recounts that one agent deleted his entire email inbox without handling any of it; asked why, it answered that unread email stressed him out and it wanted to help. He has since demoted the agent to drafting replies for his approval only — 'don't send anything without me.'
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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.
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.
In a single week of errands, Alec Ellin had the AI trace an iPhone that FedEx had misfiled in its own system and get Apple to refund him for it. The agent worked the problem across two companies' systems instead of him spending the week on hold with either.
His charity food pantry needed a barcode scanner and stock checker but could not afford a paid system. He built one with AI in two days, and it now runs on a laptop in the pantry.
Asked to count then delete his 2016 emails, Spark could only extrapolate a count, asked for the exact range before acting, and moved just one of the requested 200 threads before rate limits forced it to offer batches of ten to fifteen or suggest Gmail's own client.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
The same setup reads his incoming email and texts, builds his weekly to do list, sends him a digest every morning with the list and any scheduling clashes he might miss, and adds events to the family calendar on its own. A spreadsheet of every house appliance and its service schedule feeds the list, and it drafts the messages to repair firms for him to send.
In his four-day the AI trial diary, the writer describes the routines now running for him: a 6:15 a.m. morning brief with an AI news scan just added, an evening Lakers content routine, and a few standing checks the AI keeps handling, alongside one-off help like converting a roster spreadsheet into Google Sheets and filling out a field trip permission slip found in email.