We built a barcode stock app for our food pantry in two days
His charity food pantry needed a barcode scanner and stock checker but could not afford a paid system. He built one with AI in two days, and it now runs on a laptop in the pantry.
A random mix from the whole library. Shuffle for a new set.
His charity food pantry needed a barcode scanner and stock checker but could not afford a paid system. He built one with AI in two days, and it now runs on a laptop in the pantry.
Lixka, an accelerated nursing student at Mercy University, uploaded all six syllabi to her AI 'Mila'. Mila identified that Monday, September 28th was a 'triple-header' — two quizzes and a Pharm lab she hadn't noticed — then built a sustainable weekly rhythm around fixed classes, clinicals, and workouts, and asked permission before creating three tracked goals: quiz prep, reflection paper, and workouts/downtime.
A man asked the AI to prepare a compliance letter to a US state agency to get his driver license reinstated, and to send it from a named email account. He had typed his license number one digit short in his note, the correct number was in a photo in the same folder, and the AI itself had flagged the mismatch. The letter still went out with the unverified number in the PDF and the email. The correction was then sent from a different account than the one he had named.
The AI was fed government forms, UI design and legal requirements and produced the app in 1 hour; the team completed conversion of 150+ forms in 2 weeks with one person versus a year before.
A local model helped build a self-hosted services wiki and dataset in an Obsidian vault so his partner could keep systems running if he died, set up in a few hours.
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).
Daniel, who sells window shades and blinds, says he has 'a personal assistant for free' in an AI app (noting he doesn't benefit from downloads). Based on his prompt, AI messages him daily at 7 AM with a simple briefing compiled from emails, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, and reminders; he held up a printed example showing timed tasks like submitting orders, texting contacts, and appointments.
Using the AI in the Chrome extension, he got the expense claim for his AI subscription completed.
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.
Mufti Hassan had the AI clean up his full Gmail inbox. The chapter title gives the size of the job: 12,000 emails.
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.