A man built a receipt store from his emails, and the AI uses it to predict what his household will run out of based on how often he buys each item and when he last bought it. Every week the AI logs into his supermarket site, books a delivery slot, and adds the items that need restocking. During the week he sends a photo of a barcode when something runs out and the AI adds it to the shop.
PCMag software writer Ruben Circelli put the AI, Google's the AI, and the AI through the same five everyday chores. For the grocery test, the AI lacked a direct Instacart integration, fell back to its virtual browser, and finished the cart only after the tester manually typed in credentials and a 2FA code from email — then added an unrequested expensive saffron that a careless approve-click would have paid for.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
Dylan Heagy photographed a fridge whiteboard and asked the AI to order the grocery list from Sam's Club. Photo-to-cart grocery ordering: the list never gets retyped, it just gets bought.
PCMag asked all three agents to find a named risotto recipe, match its ingredients to what a local Wegmans stocks, and load them into Instacart. Once the reviewer linked his Instacart account, the Dot found the recipe, matched the ingredients and filled the cart without a hitch, while the AI needed his password and a login code and added saffron nobody asked for.
Nutri is a Boston-area meal delivery service whose website and app are cumbersome with screen readers. The reviewer told the AI to delete all prefilled meals and give a numbered list of about 10 at a time; he replies with numbers like 'I want 5 and 8' and the AI updates and finalizes the order on the Nutri website.
A Chase Sapphire Reserve 'Exclusive Tables' screenshot accompanies a Korean caption: the user remembered the $300 annual dining credit, checked availability, and booked Bestia — a 'primetime reservation' for the following day.
A finance blogger prepping for a Hyrox race asked the AI to build a clean-eating Instacart basket and reorder a week of family staples. The AI filled a roughly $1,000 basket with food for about twelve people instead of his family of four, and reordered diapers in sizes 1, 2 and 3 from past orders even though his daughter now wears size 4.
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He gives the AI his shopping list and it compares prices at his two local supermarkets, which sit next to each other, then places a click and collect order with each one holding only the items that are cheapest there.
A 10-slide head-to-head test gave the AI and the AI the same job: a table for 4 in downtown Denver, Friday Oct 9 at 7pm, under $40 per person, good vegetarian options — verify availability without booking and draft an invite. The AI checked only OpenTable, declared no bookings and switched restaurants; the AI confirmed via City O' City's own Toast page that a 7pm table was bookable, which the tester verified manually (The AI took ~6 minutes vs the AI’s ~3).
He built a meal planning setup for his family around their tastes, his dietary needs and two picky kids. Once a month he counts the freezer, including the random leftovers from bulk meat buys, and the plan works like a factory parts list so shopping quantities come out right. The family wastes much less food, dinner is always ready to be made, and eating out because there is nothing at home has mostly stopped; he still shops by hand because his supermarket has no public way for a tool to fill a cart.
He is a software product manager who cannot code. His app GoodFinds turns restaurant recommendations from people you trust, chefs, publications, influencers and friends, into a live map, and it is out on the App Store. The AI wrote all the code. He also had it build the data pipeline behind the app, which pulls venues out of influencer posts and chef interviews and matches them against Google Places, and a monitor that watches food subreddits and pings him on Telegram when a thread is worth replying to.
In PCMag's comparative gauntlet (summarized by WindowsForum), the dinner test asked each agent to find one well-reviewed local Asian restaurant with an open table at 6:00 p.m. that evening. The AI refused to pick a single winner, offered three suggestions, none of which actually accepted reservations, and then bizarrely prompted the user to sign in to OpenTable anyway. Dots found a 6:15 p.m. slot and flagged it as the closest to the request.
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Laura Legge (32K followers) challenged herself to feed a family of four on $30/week using pantry items (salmon, frozen mixed veggies, turkey breast, oils, seasonings). The 'the AI Atlas' app returned a seven-dinner plan with recipes, a missing-items grocery list, and a browser price comparison across Walmart, Stater Bros., and ALDI for zip code 92880 — Walmart won at $29.66.
His AI Fred collects recipes from his Instagram Saves into the Kyle app and keeps the collection up to date; the reel shows the organized collection with named recipes.
Someone sent the AI two photos of the office fridge and had it figure out what needed restocking, comparing brands and items across the photos to build the shopping list.
Parker Pannell showed the AI booking a Thai restaurant via OpenTable alongside the $150 suit purchase, $295 in found subscriptions, and drafted email replies. He framed the day as checking off a completed goal with a companion at the restaurant, emphasizing the AI’s calendar and Instagram integration and its ability to act with or without approval.
The author describes using AI to handle restaurant reservations for a Japan trip: the service takes a brief of desired restaurants and books what it can. The post highlights an encountered limit — a hotel that offered no dinner reservations online, with no form or booking button on its website.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
Answering a what do you use it for thread, he says he had the AI take his grocery list and check the deals at his two stores. It worked through the trade offs: Kroger had a sale on ice cream but Sam's Club was far cheaper in bulk, while Kroger carried many more flavors. He had told it his rules on name brands versus generics, size variations, and coupons that stack with the sales. Result a few minutes before he posted: it saved a third of what the order would have cost at Kroger.
Amanda Robinson ('The Digital Gal', 3.5K followers) got a notification that the AI wanted to book 'Beeside Del Mar' for 5:30 PM for 3 via OpenTable. The chat showed detailed criteria — seafood-focused, mocktail/cocktail variety, ~$50 per person, cool vibe, Instagrammable but not trendy.
In 'Ways to Use the AI Episode 2', a creator demonstrates his grocery system: he keeps a list in Google Keep, then asks the AI to access his Walmart account, find his most recent milk purchase from his purchase history, and add it to the cart. He reports the AI completed the task, identifying three items in the cart including one he did not recognise.
Each week the system plans meals from his own recipe notes and what is left over, builds the shopping list, and adds it to his Aldi cart through the store's system, flagging anything out of stock. He schedules the pickup and pays in the app himself.
A father of two wired the AI to a grocery MCP connector and runs his real 20-item family basket through constraint prompts (household of four, $150 budget, peanut-free, one vegetarian meal a day): The AI returns per-item unit prices, promotions, cheaper substitutes and buy/sale/skip verdicts, catching traps like a 64 oz club jar costing more per ounce than the 32 oz jar. Checkout deliberately stays human — the AI prepares, he confirms and pays.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
He asked the AI to go through all of his saved Instagram videos and create a recipe book from the recipes in them. The AI built him a recipe app holding the recipes. It also tagged the videos that did not have full ingredients or instructions available, so he knows which ones are incomplete.
TheCleaningChannel's the AI 'Foodie' plans meals around her family's favorite foods and allergies and builds the grocery list in Instacart. The order is left ready for checkout with pickup or delivery options; nothing was purchased in the video.
Steve Caldwell built a weekly meal-planning system in Notion on the AI for his household. The roundup reports it saves his family about an hour each week.
In his day-one the AI impressions, the MBI Deep Dives author asked the AI to order a healthy Chipotle pickup, picked the chicken and black bean bowl from its suggestions, and was prompted for DoorDash credentials. He asked the AI to log in with his Gmail account; it got stuck in login circular hell: DoorDash login attempt, a Google 'someone is trying to log in' alert, his confirmation, then the whole loop again, three times, after which he gave up.
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A man's system reads his grocery receipts from email and predicts which items will need restocking, building his shopping list on its own. When he is ready, the AI logs into his online grocery shop, adds the items and books the delivery slot.
Miguel Sosa (32K followers), a busy student-athlete, created an AI named 'CR7' (cartoon avatar). After telling it he had soccer training the next day, he asked for dinner help; the AI suggested grilled honey chicken with pasta and marinara, produced the ingredients list, and gave step-by-step cooking instructions.
A CATCHTABLE reservation confirmation email for Eatanic Garden (party of 2, 6:00 PM KST) accompanies a Korean caption: the author successfully booked the notoriously difficult-to-reserve restaurant by Chef Son Jongwon, calling it the best birthday ever. Comments confirm a November 2026 birthday; demand spiked after the chef's Netflix cooking-show appearance.