😵‍💫 Overwhelmed? AI can help when you have no idea where to start on a big project. Here’s a prompt to get you thinking: “I have a 50th birthday party to organize, and it’s happening in two months. I need to find a venue for 75 people and cater the event. What tasks do I need to do, and how should I organize my time?”

AI note takers

Open/download audio

Artificial intelligence can take notes, assign tasks and organize your whole meeting. Here’s how to set it up.

🤖 CRM sentience: Salesforce’s Einstein Copilot just dropped for public beta, and it’s like Clippy got a PhD and an Adderall prescription. It reads your company data, automates tasks and generates content, all without leaking your Q1 projections to Skynet. Also, it’s now called Agentforce, which sounds less friendly and more … ready for war?  

17 

How many tasks a robot nailed, solo, during a gallbladder surgery. Johns Hopkins’ new AI-powered bot followed instructions, learned from voice commands, adapted mid-op and even corrected itself like a good surgical intern. Only it never gets tired, flustered, needs snacks or even requests a student loan deferment. 

Principle of least privilege: Business owners, ask your IT folks if your accounts are set up this way. It means users and systems only get access to what they need to get their tasks done. It’s a simple way to keep your info safe.

7 hours

How long Anthropic’s new AI model Claude Opus 4 can work without needing new prompts. It’s built to handle big tasks, kind of like giving a coworker a goal and letting them run with it. The twist? Anthropic says it’s not replacing jobs, just automating the boring stuff. Cool cool, tell that to the boss.

Byte-size help: Next time you’re overwhelmed, ask ChatGPT or your fave chatbot, “I want to [goal], but I’m not sure where to start. Can you break it into step-by-step tasks, starting with the easiest actions?” Should’ve tried this before I decided to sort my entire closet. Argh.

Overwhelmed by to-dos? Use ChatGPT to plan your day. Say something like, “Here’s a list of everything I need to do tomorrow. Can you break this down into an eight-hour day with breaks, meals and work blocks?” Bonus: If you’re more productive in the morning, ask for more tasks then.

🤖 Mixed signals: Watch what you type into ChatGPT or any AI. Asking for a “detailed” answer and a “summary” can confuse your bot. Stick to positive language like “do” instead of “don’t.” AI is built for specific tasks, so saying not to do something is only helpful if you explain why. Keep it simple.

😓 To-do list stress? Goblin.tools uses AI to estimate how long tasks take and breaks them into easy steps. Type in your to-do (like spring-cleaning the house) and hit Add (+). Rate how detailed you want the steps by clicking the 🌶 icon. Yup, it’s free.

Less than five years: That’s when Nvidia’s CEO says humanoid robots working 24/7 will be mainstream. They’ll show up in factories first, since the tasks are specific. Renting one could run you about $100,000 a year. So maybe don’t expect one folding your laundry just yet.

🐭 Coming to Disney next year: This is freakin’ awesome. Real Star Wars droids roaming around. They’re working with Google DeepMind and Nvidia’s new Newton model to bring them to life. This will help them walk around the parks, be more expressive and do tricky tasks on their own. What do you call a pirate droid? Arr-2 D2. (Good one, right?)

Zoom’s AI is getting smarter: By the end of the month, Zoom’s AI Companion will identify and perform tasks for you. Think scheduling follow-ups, generating documents from meetings and creating video clips. If you’re a Workplace user, you’ll find it under a new Tasks tab. Bonus: It won’t cost you extra, yet.

Want to improve Apple Maps? A new app called Maps Surveyor lets you take pictures of street signs and roadside details on assigned routes. But there’s a catch: You’ll need to have the Premise app installed first. That’s a platform that rewards people for completing small tasks. So yes, you might get paid!

Task, be done! Windows Task Scheduler automates tasks like weekly disk cleanups or sending an email. Type Task Scheduler into your Windows search bar to open the app. Click Create Basic Task and follow the prompts to name your task and define its trigger (like a time, day of the week or when your computer starts). Choose what the task should do and that’s it. Sweetness!

Up to $65 an hour

Wage for remote AI trainers. Can you code, research and write? Fact-checking AI data might be up your alley. Perfect for introverts, even if the repetitive tasks are “mind-numbing.” Links here if you want an AI gig.

Listen up, Workspace Teams: No more, “I didn’t know.” Your Google Meet AI notetaker is getting an upgrade. Now, meeting transcripts will include a checklist of suggested next steps, complete with tasks, due dates and assigned members. 

💻 The nerd in me loves this: The world’s fastest supercomputer just went online at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. The $600 million El Capitan is powered by 44,544 AMD chips. Its job is to secure the U.S. nuclear stockpile, run national security research and crunch other classified tasks. How fast is it? Its peak performance is 2.746 exaflops. That’s about 69 million times faster than a top-of-the-line MacBook.

Almost $1,600 a year

What Gen Z adults pay on average for basic DIY tasks. A survey of 2,000 18- to 27-year-olds showed they’d rather pay someone to clean their car or hang a picture frame. About 30% can’t even identify a flathead screwdriver. How many Gen Zers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Just one … to call the handyman.

Get what you want from AI

Open/download audio

ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini can be super useful for a bunch of tasks. Let me show you how to give them effective prompts.