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Kids, parents, partners and friends · 72 ideas

Find and request chess books for my 6-year-old at the library

Eleanor Konik writes that she hates requesting books through the county library website, so she told the AI to find books about chess aimed at a bright 6-year-old; the AI picked titles and requested them using her library account. A few days later the county emailed that the books were available, and she picked them up (her post also shares an AI invite code).

My agent watches my kids' classes in Canvas and built a dashboard of missing work

He has the AI logged into the Canvas parent app. It tracks each class and lists any missing assignments. He told it to ignore work missing for less than 3 days, so he does not get noise about things that are not due yet. The first version was all text, so he asked the AI to build a nicer dashboard, and it did. He says it is far better than using the Canvas app himself.

FamilyWent wrong

Book a karaoke room — the venue refused to talk to an AI

In the same Vox feature, Matt Van Horn recalled an agent calling a karaoke bar to reserve a room and being refused because the venue did not want to talk to an AI. He completed the reservation through Fo, a service that adds human help.

This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.

Turn my kids' old Yoto players into audiobook players

A parent had the AI write firmware that turns his children's unsupported second-generation Yoto players into Audiobookshelf clients. The AI handled flashing, log reading, and fixes while he did the physical button presses, and the firmware is public on GitHub.

FamilyPartly worked

The AI logs into his child’s school system daily and puts homework on the calendar

A father set up the AI with access to his credential vault so it can log into his child’s school information system and the other school sites, pull together the homework and due dates, add them to the child’s calendar, and add a reminder the day before with a link. He modelled the workflow out formally and set it running daily.

This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
FamilyPartly worked

Check in with my dad weekly about selling his business and report back to me

Simmons asked László to check in with his father once a week about the business sale and report back, judging his father more likely to talk it through with an AI checking in than to raise it with his son. The article records the arrangement being set up, not its later results.

This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.

My agent runs our family points store where the kids scan a card to spend points

Replying in the prompt thread, he says the AI hosts and updates their family dashboard on its own. Attached to it is a store: he set up a Bluetooth NFC reader beside it that works like a card scanner. The kids scan a card to see their point totals, and when they buy something the points come off their total. They can check a balance, move points between them, and take points out as cash. He says it has been a huge hit.

Build my wife an app for her 100-day painting challenge

Amar Ghose, the non-technical CEO of ZenMaid, had the AI interview him with about 20 questions, draft product, technical and design documents, then build 'Fran's Peak' — a live app where his wife logs her 100-day painting challenge, watches her streak climb a visual mountain and shares progress with followers. It took roughly 7–8 hours on a Saturday, went live Sunday morning, and she uses it every day.

8 hourssaved

Design and order wristbands for our meetup

Host Alex reported that his AI designed and ordered the wristbands for the show's AI Engineer sauna meetup. The design-to-purchase loop was completed by the agent alongside his other travel tasks.

The AI runs the school admin for my four kids

A mom of four school age kids started using AI last week and it already watches her school email, the grades site, Google Classroom and the ClassDojo app. It adds events and tests to the family calendar, sends a weekly report on missing assignments, reminded her about a field trip permission slip today, and drafts the email when a kid is out sick.

Track my Thanksgiving RSVPs for me

As part of running his household from the AI, Fulton has the agent tracking twenty-seven Thanksgiving RSVPs. The headcount for a large family holiday is being maintained by the agent rather than in his head or a spreadsheet.

FamilyWent wrong

Keep my household AI workflows running as sites block agents

Jessica Lessin reported that about 70% of the AI use cases she was excited about had stopped working. Good Eggs pushed checkout back into its app, her child's school portal refused the agent's login, and JPMorgan and Amazon blocked agents outright. Segment starts at 15:16.

This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.

Send my husband a full run-of-week household brief while I travel

While Sarah Dooley traveled for a week, her Dot cross-checked her calendar, email, and the previous Sunday's grocery receipt, then sent her husband a brief with a dinner plan for every night built from ingredients already on hand, plus pickups and evening plans for their three daughters. It also flagged a school day she had wrongly assumed was a day off.

Build a bedtime-story shelf because the AI chats kept losing my daughter's favorites

A father of a 5-year-old used AI to generate a fresh bedtime story every night, sometimes with audio mode reading aloud - until his daughter started asking for 'that story we listened to before' and the favorites were buried across scattered chat threads. He built a small website, FifiStory, as a persistent shelf: the stories live in one collection that can be read or listened to, and he keeps adding to it as they use it. He made it free and public, no account or paywall.

He asked an agent what beeped in his house, and it found the smoke alarm

Someone in the house heard a beep a little before 12:13 AM. He handed the question to an agent with access to the camera recorder. It came back with the sound, the source and a short list of reasons: a smoke alarm that sounded once, at 3417 Hz for 0.87 seconds, about two metres from one camera. It was not a fire, not carbon monoxide and not a dying battery.

His tool reads the school emails and tells them what to pack the night before

He built a tool that reads the emails from his kid school and activities, swimming, music classes and scouts. It adds everything to their shared calendar, sends a WhatsApp message the day before reminding them what to pack in his school bag, and tells them what is on the lunch menu so they do not cook the same thing for dinner. He says the morning scramble is gone and the head space is back.

Turn a classroom review game into a personal study game for my son

A teacher and dad rebuilt his classroom card-review game into 'Bad Mascots', a mascot-horror study game for his 2nd-grade son: The AI planned the conversion, wrote the image prompts and built and tested the game file, questions come from a photo of the boy's weekly vocabulary sheet, and progress saves to its own Google Sheet. Weekly updates take about 10 minutes from photo to approved questions, and the game is live and playable online.

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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.