My personal AI assistant

For a long time, a personal assistant on call sounded like a millionaire’s luxury.

Someone you could contact, hand a task to and ask to follow up.

Personal AI bots are making a version of that support accessible to many more people.

I use Dot in that role. I can reach my bot through iMessage or Slack, and even talk to it on the phone.

In my day-to-day setup, it helps with four things:

• Monitoring topics I’ve asked it to follow.

• Reminding me when something needs to come back to my attention.

• Helping me keep an overview of ongoing work.

• Being a point of contact where I can bring new tasks, ask questions and work out the next step.

If something comes to mind, I have somewhere to put it and continue the conversation later. I can return to an ongoing topic, ask a follow-up or hand over something new.

Making this useful takes some setup. I need to explain what matters to me, what should be monitored, when a reminder would help and which actions need my approval.

I’m learning to make those briefs clearer: what should happen, what the bot needs to know and when I want to hear back.

That is the shift I find interesting. Personal assistance is becoming something more people can shape around their own work and routines.

What would you hand over first if you had a personal AI assistant you could contact whenever a task came to mind?