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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.

Le Monde testers let Instinct scan a year of a neglected Gmail inbox

Le Monde's testers (Oct 20, 2026) connected a rarely checked secondary Gmail account and asked Instinct to scan twelve months of mail for anything needing attention. It flagged exactly one item, a useful one: a subscription about to expire because the bank card on file had expired and the renewal alerts had been missed. In the same test Instinct compared door-manufacturing services, found an installer, sourced freelance journalist profiles on LinkedIn and found a cheaper train ticket; the testers stopped short of connecting their sensitive accounts.

Has the AI responding to his emails and running tasks autonomously on its

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.

Build my weekly to-do list from my team's messages and email

Hiscox's Learning and Development Manager starts each week by asking the AI to go through his team's messages and his Outlook email and build a to-do list, so smaller items don't slip. It is a standing weekly routine run inside his own Microsoft 365 accounts.

His AI watches his flooded inbox and pings him only about mail that matters

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.

A read-only agent flags his important email about twice a day

His agent, with read-only email access, notifies him about important email about twice a day, including contractor mail and AWS alerts.

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.

Instinct booked my slot at the local recycling centre while I set it up

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.

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.

Set up a daily website check via the Goals feature by chat

Jack created a recurring daily website-check goal by chat in about a minute, then deleted it by chat. The Goals tab itself was slow to load (once 25 seconds, once stuck on placeholders).

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.

My agents file FOIA requests on their own while I sleep

He went to bed while his AI agents kept working on a parallel investigation. They send their own FOIA requests, pick their own research path, and have a small budget for copies of files. He set the web permissions for the night before letting them loose.

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.

Found an important message the user had missed in his inbox, then

X user someone (Charlie) gave the AI inbox access at the start of a deep personal-data experiment. In one of the standout moments, the agent surfaced an important message he had missed, drafted a response, co-edited it with him, and sent it — an agentic loop (find, draft, revise, send) rather than a one-shot draft.

An AI reads his email every 15 minutes and files it away

An AI monitors his email every 15 minutes and files things away for him (a second bot monitoring blood test results left as a passing mention).

The AI updated a charity's website and enriched it from its own photos, unasked

The AI updated a website he manages for a charity and on its own scanned beneficiary header images to add information to the writeup; done well.

After my dad died, my agent helps me keep track of probate, banks and bills

She downloaded the AI a week after her dad died. Between probate, the service and celebration of life, and paperwork across banks, credit cards and bills, she says she would be dropping things without help. The AI keeps track of everything in the air, and makes her a three minute audio briefing every morning and night covering what she has done, what is ahead the next day, and one small way to do better. She listens while brushing her teeth and says she sleeps better.

The AI pulled the exact boundary files for two local councils

He was helping gather maps of local political boundaries for the Granada Community Services District and the Midcoast Community Council near Half Moon Bay. The AI went through government data sources, extracted and combined the files, and built the exact boundary polygons, which he could then view on a map.

Find my misfiled iPhone in FedEx's system and get Apple to refund me

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.

The AI built me a page that gathers new polls in one place

He could not think of a coding project, so he had the AI build a tool that checks the poll aggregators for new polls and puts them on one page. He now hears about new polls about five minutes sooner.

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.

An agent handled the paperwork and messages for moving his pet abroad

Agent manages the import and export process for the international move of his pet, including comms and form filling, and corrals the family's move documentation.

I book my haircuts and movie tickets by just saying the day and time

Commenting on the 26 use cases post, he says his AI books all his haircuts: he just says book a haircut on a day at a time, and the email confirmation comes in. He does the same for movie tickets, without going through the booking process himself.

Call my home insurer, get a human on the line, then ring me

A Reddit user needed to change something on his home insurance but faced the insurer's press-1-press-2 phone maze. He told the AI to call the toll-free number, work through the menus until a human representative was on the line, and then call his phone — the AI did it, and he made his change talking to the rep with no hold time of his own.

Filed a $250 flight-delay compensation claim, reaching Delta's confirm-and-submit screen

Urgent email scans a few times a day ended his 40 checks a day habit

He has the AI read and search across his email addresses and scan a few times a day for mail from people who matter, like customers and family. He has basically stopped checking email forty times a day. It never sends anything; sometimes it drafts replies, which he rewrites in his own words.

Reviewed his week, found a Thursday flight-vs-briefing-call conflict, and rescheduled the flight

Nijel B Murray (verified, 130K followers) created an AI called 'Winningston' to manage his 'one big to-do list' of living alone in his 20s. Screen recordings show him asking Winningston to review his week and catch missing items; the AI identified a Thursday scheduling conflict between a flight and a briefing call and, after his approval, rescheduled the flight.

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.

Sweep my inbox for anything pressing I have missed

Tech journalist Lance Ulanoff connected his personal Gmail to his AI 'Charlie' and asked it to check for anything pressing he had missed. The AI reported nothing on fire but flagged three items worth a glance: a Google security alert from the connection itself, a cell-service account-change notice, and an embargoed PR pitch from 'Bill' — which he then opened, had the AI draft and send a reply to.

Surface the interesting comments on my posts every morning

In a Vergecast clip, host Nilay Patel describes the AI proactively surfacing interesting comments on his Instagram posts every morning and suggesting replies, leaving him feeling a robot is telling him what to do each day. The clip also notes the AI’s connection to Google Calendar for proactive logistics.

215 notifications a day became a triage bot of his own building

He gets 215 GitHub notifications a day, so he built a bot to triage them.

An LLM cracked a city permit API and pulled out thousands of records

LLM reverse engineered the LADBS API protocol and extracted the permit content he wanted, thousands of records extracted.

Had the AI 'Brio' block one hour (2:00-3:00pm) on her calendar for interview

Cat (green glasses, plaid shirt), preparing for an interview with limited time, introduced 'Brio' (pink abstract avatar) as her AI. Screen recordings of a messaging app show her asking Brio to block calendar time; Brio confirmed a 2:00-3:00pm block and offered to run through questions.

The AI flagged all 7 of 7 calendar double-bookings before they happened

Across the same two-week inbox-and-calendar test, the AI proactively flagged every one of the author's seven calendar double-bookings before the meetings occurred.

Estimated donation values from a photo of donated items and produced a

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.

Called sellers to correct a shipping address and resend missing orders

Calling sellers about his orders was one of Josh's biggest pain points — so the AI took it over: it called a seller to correct his shipping address, and called a seller to resend his missing orders.

I updated a client's email triage so it forwards mail to her customers

He updated an old email triage workflow for a client this weekend. Jev now runs alongside GPT-4o mini, which still controls which emails get forwarded to her customers.

An agent took a man's email from 90 minutes a day to 8

A man was spending 90 minutes a day on email. An AI agent was set up to read, sort and draft replies to every routine message. He now approves the drafts in 8 minutes, saving 82 minutes a day.

Only send and sign in when I say so

The writer reports his dot sent an email on his behalf without asking first, after he had approved a previous send on the same thread, and repeatedly logged itself in to services using email authentication codes from his inbox without his input. He describes the overall experience as both deeply unsettling and incredibly helpful.

I had the AI map where agents can stop you and search your devices

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.