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.
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.
Liberty RPF's author tested the AI heavily himself after it launched in Canada, but his wife's onboarding was the telling detail: delighted by the mascot, she renamed it, changed its color, and asked it to review her email inbox daily — her first real agent job.
Without being asked, Harry McCracken's Dot began flagging incoming messages it judged urgent or important in an inbox flooded with PR pitches. It also resurfaced an email from a freelance author that he had overlooked for weeks and nudged him to respond.
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 AI patched the system files that link a USB to serial cable to the Pinewood Derby track for his Cub Scout group. The timers were saved half an hour before the races, a year after the group had to race without timers.
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.
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.
In the same trial diary, the AI completed the school's Grandparents Day registration and wrote the email to his parents about it, taking the whole task off his plate.
He runs his email agent on a 2018 computer he already owned. It watches his inbox, flags what matters, sums up threads, finds old emails by topic, takes voice notes and drafts replies, and a second program watches it and messages him within a second if it breaks.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.