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.
TechMitra founder Ayush Singhal asked the AI to triage his Gmail thread by thread. It proposed archiving ten promotional emails, correctly found nothing to do on other categories, and unprompted flagged a spam comment on his second website. After his approval it archived nine FYI threads and left two genuine action items.
He connected his Gmail to an AI task that watched every new email and was only allowed to interrupt him when a message needed action or came from family, with a draft reply ready. All afternoon it alerted him three times, for a bank message, a family email he answered from its draft, and a ticket itinerary change he needed to act on.
Volunteered and built a cartography data pipeline with coding agents for an educator, integrating sources updated every few minutes so new maps appear within about 5 minutes on a low-powered machine.
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.
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.
Setting up the Instinct assistant live on screen, he had it book him a slot at his local recycling centre. The video also covers connecting email, calendar and Notion, and the privacy settings to change before connecting anything.
The developer set a scheduled job in plain words: every weekday at 8:30, send events from all calendars plus emails needing a reply, in five lines or fewer. The first run arrived at 8:44 with an apology for the delay, covered all 16 calendars, removed duplicate events and listed private events by time only.
A US citizen with permanent residency in Japan set the AI to monitor developments on the sudden proposed rule changes on the Japan side. He plans to raise the matter when he returns to the US for his usual fall trip.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
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.
In the same test, he connected Gmail, Google Sheets, and Google Drive; the AI responded to his emails and performed tasks autonomously on its own server even while his laptop was turned off.
His inbox gets so much mail that about half of what matters was being missed and a quarter sat in spam. His AI watches the box, sorts what is important, and messages him in a separate chat when something he cares about lands; it took a while to tune the prompt before it matched his judgment.
Rachel D. Gainsbrugh (someone, ~3.5K followers, AI/systems creator) signed up for the AI on Sept 13, 2026, connected her calendar read-only, and typed six standing errand rules once — including a 7:05 AM daily calendar scan that flags overlapping meetings or ones falling inside a flight — then handed it two long-dodged errands (an appointment blocked by a flight, a subscription update).
Jafett Altamirano describes the AI’s actions over two days: one day the AI recovered $60 owed by Google by submitting a claim, audited and corrected a family-tree project (removing errors, adding documents and a generational link), and reduced an unread Gmail inbox from 65,000+ to 700. The author emphasizes all of this was free.
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.
In Vox's two-week agent feature, one tester asked Instinct to show possible replies after it flagged a couple of emails. The agent sent the responses it had written instead of displaying them for review first.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
Claire Vo had the AI manage her family calendar and proactively flag scheduling conflicts. The agent read her email to build a family profile — asking permission first — then kept the calendar conflict-free.
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.
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.
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.
Hemant Kadam, demonstrating his 'craziest use case' after a couple of days on the AI, opened the app to a Sarvam DevOps Engineer application page. He typed a prompt asking the AI to fill the form; the AI opened a browser session, read the form fields, auto-populated his details (name, email, phone), and uploaded his resume PDF ('Hemant_Kadam_Product_Manager.pdf').
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 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.
Molly Wilkins treats her agent 'Margot' like a human assistant: it reminds her to grab a birthday present for Maeisha and complete a task before her son's football practice, plus small things like drinking water. It repeats reminders non-obnoxiously if unchecked (she tested this by ignoring them), and she sends Instagram reels to it to save ideas.