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.
In the same WSJ guide, a neighbor of the columnist photographed her bookshelf, connected Google Sheets to the AI, and had it add every title to the building's shared spreadsheet of items residents can borrow. The columnist then did the same with her own shelf.
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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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.
The AI prepared and filed Australian visitor visas for a couple travelling to Brisbane, and caught a placeholder birthdate in the details before submission, confirming the correction over WhatsApp.
Peter Yang ran a learn how I write skill in an AI app Duet. It read 33 of his sent emails, 89 Slack messages, 47 DMs and 11 docs, then saved a writing guide as a skill that Duet now uses to draft his email replies in his own style for him to check before sending.
Kndarp sent the AI a photo of a broken IKEA cupboard door with its article number. The AI searched his emails for the original order number, reached out to customer support on chat, and arranged a replacement parcel arriving next week at no cost — 'No £ spent.'
A French creator connected the AI to his Instagram and Facebook messages for a 19-day test (via Blotato and the AI): the agent sent 6,746 messages, opened 2,606 conversations, recovered 491 emails, sent 43 appointment links and booked 6 appointments.
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 The review found missing signatures, an illegal clause, and outdated law references, and he fired his attorney the same day.
Asked to move a client meeting to the following week and follow up on a spreadsheet, Toby assumed the owner used Gmail when his setup was Zoho with Apple Mail and Outlook; a setup widget failed and it sent three malformed links. Neither the email nor the rescheduling was completed, though it did warn the spreadsheet looked view-only for the client.
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