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.
A random mix from the whole library. Shuffle for a new set.
Life admin
Email, calendars, forms and paperwork · 213 ideasSweep 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.
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.
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.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
The AI filled out his car insurance application and asked him what it could not answer
The AI filled out his car insurance application for him. Where an answer was not in what it knew, it stopped and asked him instead of guessing.
His EU events calendar runs itself. The AI Haiku decides what gets in.
He built geo-v.eu, a live calendar of EU political and economic events that runs to 2028. The AI Haiku judges each candidate event against his written editorial standard, the pipeline hunts for the outcome for five days after each event, and the site rebuilds daily from static files.
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.
Recovered $60 owed by Google by having the AI submit a claim
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.
$60
My bot drafts Community Notes on election rumors, and I approve each one
She built an AI notewriter that watches for note requests about US elections, looks for evidence and drafts corrections, with several models that triage, draft and check each other's work. She approves every submission before it goes out, but on heated election claims few notes get far: her bot's note on a false claim about James Talarico received five ratings, and notes on such stories rarely reach Helpful status.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
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.
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.