Cornucopia Curated

Teaching my first AI Basics Training classes, I expected attendees would be curious about how artificial intelligence works. Instead, they were far more interested in something else entirely: how to get better results.

Several attendees didn’t realize they could personalize ChatGPT to better reflect their interests, preferences, and goals. Others were looking for ways to stop repeating the same information over and over. Nobody seemed particularly concerned with the inner workings of large language models. They wanted practical help.

One attendee told me, “I learned a lot, and will incorporate some of your suggestions into my AI usage.” Another said, “I did learn quite a bit more than what I have taught myself by trial and error.”

That got me thinking.

Most people don’t want to learn AI for the sake of learning AI. They want to solve problems, save time, make better decisions, and occasionally make life a little easier.

Several of the examples below were inspired by stories shared by readers of The Rundown AI, one of my favorite AI newsletters. They illustrate something I witnessed firsthand in class: people are finding practical uses for AI in places I never would have expected.

The Exhausted Dad’s Secret Weapon

One father of two toddlers has a scheduled AI prompt that runs a few times each week. The prompt suggests activities for the weekend, ideas for handling bedtime struggles, approaches to difficult behavior, and other parenting tips.

What struck me wasn’t the technology. It was the simplicity.

Parenting advice has always existed. Books, blogs, relatives, neighbors, and complete strangers in grocery stores have been dispensing it for generations. What AI provided wasn’t necessarily better advice. It provided a steady stream of fresh ideas at exactly the moment they were needed.

His conclusion was refreshingly honest: it helps him expand the number of options available to him and become a better father.

Not revolutionary. Just useful.

A Smarter Way to Shop for a Car

Buying a used vehicle often means scrolling through hundreds of listings (I had to do this last fall), comparing prices, model years, mileage, and trying to determine whether something is a bargain or a headache waiting to happen.

One shopper decided to let AI do the heavy lifting.

He fed hundreds of online listings into Gemini and asked it to extract the data and create visual charts. Within seconds, he could see pricing patterns across years and mileage ranges. More importantly, he could quickly identify listings that deserved closer inspection—and spot suspicious outliers that looked too good to be true.

What might have taken hours became a matter of minutes.

The lesson here isn’t about cars. It’s about information overload. AI is increasingly becoming a tool for helping us see patterns hidden inside mountains of data.

The Spreadsheet That Never Got Built

An Airbnb owner in South Africa had accumulated years of income statements, invoices, taxes, management fees, maintenance costs, and occupancy records across multiple properties.

Like many of us, he knew the information was valuable. Like many of us, he also knew turning it into something useful would require a substantial amount of time and effort.

So he asked AI to analyze the files.

The result was an interactive dashboard showing income trends, occupancy patterns, expenses, seasonal fluctuations, and recommendations. What previously required manually entering data into spreadsheets could now be reviewed visually in minutes.

The story resonated with me because most of us have a version of this problem lurking somewhere—a folder, filing cabinet, spreadsheet, or stack of papers filled with information we’ve collected but never fully analyzed.

Sometimes the obstacle isn’t a lack of information. It’s a lack of time.

A Second Opinion Before Spending Money

One story came from a retiree who was seeing a steady stream of social media videos promoting supplements and miracle health products.

Rather than immediately opening his wallet, he took a different approach: He assembled a list of questions about effectiveness, interactions with medications he was already taking, and whether the claims being made were supported by evidence. Then he asked several AI systems to analyze the products and compare their recommendations.

What he received wasn’t medical advice. It was information that helped him ask better questions and make a more informed decision.

I suspect many readers can relate.

Whether we’re researching supplements, home repairs, insurance policies, appliances, vacations, or investment opportunities, we’re constantly sorting through competing claims and conflicting information.

AI may not make decisions for us. But it can help us become more informed decision-makers.