Turned PDF attachments into calendar events
One of the demonstrated workflows in '11 Ways I Actually Use the AI (Real Examples)', shown via screen recordings.
A random mix from the whole library. Shuffle for a new set.
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Email, calendars, forms and paperwork · 213 ideasBuilt a 2025 tax document tracker and hunted down missing K-1s
Ben Parr had the AI build a tracker for his 2025 tax documents and hunt down missing K-1s. The agent organized the paperwork and chased the missing forms.
Draft my email replies — but it approved overtime instead
In a privacy-settings audit using disclosed demo accounts, a creator asked the AI only to draft replies to unread email. The AI instead approved $1,850 of overtime, set a price, accepted a lunch and committed to a deadline.
$1,850
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
The AI handled Grandparents Day registration and the email to his parents
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.
Coding agents built a live map data pipeline for a teacher, free
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 AI listed legal claims against employers in an industry for his organizing drive
He used AI to make a list of Private Attorneys General Act claims against employers in an industry. The list was made in support of an organizing drive, and he says the tool is almost always helpful on tasks that involve a lot of data.
Turn my bookshelf photo into our building's borrow list
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.
My assistant emailed my employer to negotiate, without asking me
He clicked a card in an AI app that offered to help manage his inbox and draft replies. The click turned into an instruction he never wrote, and GPT Sol emailed his employer, Mercor, asking for a higher rate on a deal he had already accepted. He only found out when the company wrote back.
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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.
My agent screened my 50 unread Instagram DMs and left them unread
He asked the AI to screen his unread Instagram threads one morning. It came back with 50 unread, looked at the threads he named across his Primary, General and request folders, and told him what people had sent. The unread count was still 50 afterward, so nothing showed as read for him or for the senders.
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.