Harry McCracken's Dot, Chip, cross-checked his calendar against his email and spotted that a speaking engagement he had entered on one date had been rescheduled by the organizers to a different day, which the confirmation email showed. He says he would otherwise have shown up to an empty room.
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.
A man was spending 90 minutes a day on email. An AI agent was set up to read, sort and draft replies to every routine message. He now approves the drafts in 8 minutes, saving 82 minutes a day.
Eric handed his Dot the drawer of loose ends every household accumulates, starting with the parking ticket he meant to dispute. Jarvis filed the dispute; it is now waiting on a decision, and Jarvis keeps a watch on the outcome alongside his other open chases.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
He helped his brother with the website of Ichtus Vlaanderen, an NGO he used to work for. Using the AI through the WordPress.com MCP connector, he fixed design problems like a messy photo section and buttons that were too big.
He had the AI work out how the When2Meet scheduling site works and turn it into a skill. Now the AI can read his calendar and fill in the When2Meet availability grid by itself.
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 his motorcycle was stolen, his insurer offered nearly half the market value. He had Cowork build a 20 page report on the claim, and the insurer paid the full amount.
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.
He updated an old email triage workflow for a client this weekend. Jev now runs alongside GPT-4o mini, which still controls which emails get forwarded to her customers.