I make it a habit of examining every part of my debit and credit card expenses, which entails constantly being paranoid and opening my banking apps every hour.

By the time every month wraps up, I take note of all the recurring costs that hit me. The recent increases in prices for streaming service subscriptions have caused me to take a step back and ask myself, “Do I really need to stay on my current plan? Or should I just move over to a cheaper one?” I figured I’d step on over to ChatGPT and see if it could help me break down the intricacies of my financial inner thoughts and lay out some answers on how I should proceed.

Not only did I ask ChatGPT to drum up a list of inquiries I could present to it that could help me and anyone else save a few bucks, but I also used its combined feedback and my own research to make some beneficial financial decisions.

Here are the seven best prompts that turn ChatGPT into your expert spending detective. One of them certainly accomplished that on my end, as it inspired me to cut three of my monthly subscription costs.

Prompts meant to help you improve your spending habits

With different approaches to lessening the monthly hits to your bank account, these ChatGPT-generated prompts could help you achieve that goal:

• The Subscription Killer: Here is a list of everything I pay for each month: [paste subscriptions and recurring expenses]. Find anything I could cancel, downgrade, replace with a cheaper alternative, share, negotiate, or pay for less frequently. Estimate my monthly and annual savings for each recommendation. Prioritize changes that would have little or no impact on my quality of life.
• The Money Leak Finder: I want to save as much money as reasonably possible every month without making my life miserable. Here are my monthly expenses: [paste expenses]. Analyze them like a ruthless money-saving expert. Identify the 10 biggest opportunities to cut spending, rank them by how much I could realistically save, and separate easy wins from changes that would require more sacrifice. Don't give me generic advice like ‘spend less.’ Give me specific actions I can take this month.
• The $500 Challenge: Help me find a realistic way to save an extra $500 this month. Analyze these expenses [paste expenses] and create a specific 30-day money-saving challenge. Break the $500 goal into individual actions, tell me exactly how much each action could save, and prioritize the easiest wins. I don't want to earn extra money—I want to save money I would otherwise spend.
• The Grocery Bill Cutter: I want to reduce my grocery spending without eating worse. Here is what I typically buy and spend: [paste grocery list/budget]. Find the biggest sources of unnecessary spending and create a cheaper shopping strategy. Suggest specific substitutions, cheaper meal ideas, bulk-buy opportunities, and things I should stop buying. Give me an estimated monthly savings target.
• The Cheaper Alternative Finder: I'm going to paste a list of things I regularly spend money on. For each one, find a cheaper way to get essentially the same benefit. Consider free alternatives, cheaper brands, memberships I already have, library resources, used/refurbished options, DIY solutions, and services I may already have access to. Don't recommend inferior alternatives just because they're cheaper. Rank your recommendations by the combination of savings and convenience.
• The Spending Interrogator: Before I buy anything that isn't essential, I want you to challenge the purchase. Whenever I give you an item and its price, ask me the questions that will determine whether I actually need it. Calculate the opportunity cost of buying it, suggest cheaper alternatives if appropriate, and tell me what I could save if I don't buy it. Be honest and skeptical rather than encouraging me to make the purchase.
• The Monthly Savings Autopilot: I want to make saving money as automatic as possible. Based on my monthly income of [amount], fixed expenses of [amount], variable expenses of [amount], debts of [amount], and current savings of [amount], design a simple monthly system that maximizes how much I can save. Tell me what to automate, which expenses to put limits on, how much I should set aside each payday, and what spending categories I should monitor. Make the system realistic enough that I can actually stick with it.

Using one of those prompts to help me tackle my monthly subscriptions

I made great use of “The Subscription Killer” prompt to figure out what subscriptions of mine needed a lower, cheaper tier and which ones could be canceled completely. Here are the recurring expenses I told ChatGPT about:

• Patreon - $12
• HBO Max - $18.49
• Netflix - $21.76
• Hulu & Disney+ - $76
• Crunchyroll - $10.88
• Experian - $27.21

ChatGPT proceeded to lay out its recommendations for which streaming services I should consider downgrading or canceling altogether. The three that made me seriously consider taking either of those options were Netflix, Crunchyroll and Experian. The chatbot told me to contemplate turning my Standard Netflix subscription to the Standard one with ads, changing my monthly Crunchyroll subscription into the annual Fan version and switching to Experian’s free subscription model.

For Netflix, I did some research to see what the common consensus was about the rate of ads (and level of annoyance) that come with Netflix's cheaper $8.99 (plus tax) plan. The Streamable noted that Netflix has the best ad experience of all the streaming services, plus What’s On Netflix highlighted all the content that’s unavailable on the ad-supported subscription tier. Since I had 0 interest in all of the films and shows from that aforementioned list and was willing to sit through a few commercials to enjoy Netflix’s other content offerings, I decided to adopt the streaming service’s Standard with ads plan to save me a few extra dollars every month.

As for Crunchyroll, I took it up on its offer of saving an extra 16% on its yearly Fan subscription and leaving its monthly version of that tier behind. And finally, I logged into my Experian account to change my Creditworks Premium subscription plan to the free option—since I have a Chase Bank account that gives me access to an additional free credit score report, I figured it’d make sense for me to have access to both Experian and Chase’s credit summary benefits without having to pay a single dime.

The takeaway

At the end of my money-saving session with ChatGPT, I knocked down my combined monthly expense for all three subscriptions from $59.85 to $18.12. Downgrading my Netflix tier from $19.99+ a month to $8.99+ a month, going from paying Crunchyroll $9.99+ every month to $8.33+ every month with a more comfortable annual fee and adopting Experian’s free subscription model ended up being the most cost-effective decisions I’ve made in a while.

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I consider myself a movie aficionado.

I may pop up at my local Alamo Drafthouse Cinema for the latest blockbuster superhero movie, martial-arts-filled epic and sci-fi adventure like the average moviegoer. But my movie-watching palette is a lot more expansive than that — I also enjoy a cinematic experience attached to a good psychological drama, crime thriller or dark comedy. I may turn my brain off now and then when I sit in front of the big and little screen, but I also turn it on when it’s time to spend a few hours sitting through some quality, thought-provoking movies.

I got tired of sifting through my streaming service queues one day and had the bright idea of building a watchlist of films that stick to a specific theme. Asking AI for the best movies to watch in a particular genre is easy enough — I wanted to truly challenge ChatGPT and Gemini’s movie knowledge and get them to recommend films based on an oddly specific theme.

Color me impressed after this experiment came to a close — both chatbots listed a bunch of critically-acclaimed and fan-favorite films that fulfilled exactly what I was looking for.

ChatGPT and Gemini made me discover movies I felt guilty for not seeing beforehand

So the theme I told both chatbots about to suggest the best movies they could find is as follows: "Build a movie marathon around the following theme and make sure to tell me what streaming services I can use to watch each film: One Terrible Decision Ruined Everything."

For some reason, I was in the mood to watch the sort of movies that show a person or group dealing with the ramifications of a decision that turns their life upside down. I had a feeling there were a bunch of films that fit that theme perfectly and could provide me with the sort of nail-biting viewing experience I had been craving as of late.

ChatGPT’s explanation of my themed movie watchlist spoke to my soul: This theme is perfect for a slow-burn-to-total-disaster marathon: every movie starts with someone making a choice that seems understandable, tempting, or even smart — and then spends the rest of its runtime proving that it absolutely was not.

Here are the four films ChatGPT brought to my attention and the accompanying descriptions that intrigued me:

• Fargo → “Surely this can't get THAT bad.” Jerry's initial scheme is terrible, but it's still relatively contained. Then everything spirals.
• A Simple Plan → “Just take the money.” This might be the purest example of the entire theme. Finding $4 million sounds like incredible luck. The movie asks what happens when you make the decision to keep it.
• Nightcrawler → “I'm willing to do whatever it takes.” Unlike some of the others, Lou isn't really tricked into making his terrible decisions. He keeps choosing them because they work. That's what makes this one so uncomfortable.
• Uncut Gems → “One more bet.” Put this near the end because it's basically two hours of watching a man repeatedly encounter opportunities to stop destroying his life — and refusing every single one.

Gemini offered up some equally compelling film choices that stuck close to my theme. Here are the three films and apt descriptions that got me excited to see them all in action:

• Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. Tone: Gritty family tragedy / Heist gone wrong. The stakes become deeply personal. You see the fallout of a single bad decision split a family apart in real time, raising the emotional tension.
• Parasite. Tone: Social satire turning into a claustrophobic thriller. The midpoint twist — triggered directly by the decision to push their luck—shifts the marathon from a crime narrative into pure panic.
• Requiem for a Dream: Tone: Psychological drama / Tragic downward spiral. A harrowing, definitive conclusion to the theme. It leaves no room for recovery after a series of small, ill-advised choices snowball into complete destruction.

After my usual extensive Rotten Tomatoes research session on each film, I left with a whole slate of new movies to watch across Tubi, Pluto TV, Sling TV, The Roku Channel and YouTube. The fact that I could watch the majority of these films for free was the icing on top of a daily solo watch party that delivered the sort of cinematic nail-biting thrills I was searching high and low for.

I especially enjoyed Nightcrawler’s deep dive into the psyche of a man who wants success by any means, Uncut Gems’ presentation of the huge downsides of constantly betting big and Parasite’s showcase of the shades of grey present among its eccentric cast.

7 other movie themes I’ll play around with in the near future

Both chatbots did a great job of highlighting the right films for my thematic approach. So much so that I’m very much looking forward to testing out the following movie themes with ChatGPT and Gemini to see which films they push me toward next:

• "The Hero Has Had Enough"
• "The Villain Was Kind of Right"
• "The Guy Who Should Have Stayed Home"
• "People Are Trapped Somewhere and Things Get Worse"
• "The Movie Takes Place Over One Absolutely Insane Day"
• "The Opening 10 Minutes Promise Absolute Chaos"

The takeaway

In my search for movies I hadn’t seen before, sticking to a particular theme and requesting AI’s assistance in helping me find the appropriate films and streaming services that house them ended up being a fulfilling experience.

I’ve gotten used to using chatbots as my digital entertainment curators, so I was confident that they’d lead me to some quality cinema that was chock-full of interesting premises that resulted in the slow unraveling of its characters. I’m going to keep doing this with all sorts of cinematic themes to see where my movie-recommending chatbots take me next.

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To say that games have impacted my life in a major way would be the biggest understatement ever.

Discovering video games at a young age helped me find one of my favorite pastimes, led me to become a journalist and helped me interact with gaming & entertainment industry personalities I thought I’d never meet. For this year’s installment of National Video Games Day (a holiday meant to honor the legendary history, evolution and cultural impact of interactive media), I wanted to try something fun that combined my love for gaming and my newfound appreciation for AI.

I came to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity with a simple request: “Give me your ranking of the 10 most influential video games of all time.” And after cataloging all their results, I came away with two thoughts: all four chatbots recognize the major trendsetters of the video game industry and two of them couldn’t agree on which game deserved to take the No. 1 spot.

Here’s what each chatbot delivered in response to my inquiry and even my own ranking of the 10 most influential video games of all time.

Where these four chatbots agreed and disagreed

All four chatbots wasted little time in proving their video game knowledge is stronger than I expected when they presented me with their personal ranking of the 10 most influential video games ever made:

• ChatGPT: Super Mario Bros., Tetris, Doom, The Legend of Zelda, Grand Theft Auto III, Minecraft, World of Warcraft, Pong, Half-Life, and Wii Sports.
• Gemini: Pong, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, Doom, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Super Mario 64, Grand Theft Auto III, World of Warcraft, Minecraft, and Dark Souls.
• Claude: Doom, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, World of Warcraft, Minecraft, The Legend of Zelda, Half-Life, Pong, Street Fighter II, and Grand Theft Auto III.
• Perplexity: Pong, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, Doom, The Legend of Zelda, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Super Mario 64, Grand Theft Auto III, World of Warcraft, and Minecraft.

What impressed me about ChatGPT’s acknowledgement of Super Mario Bros. as the most influential video game of all time was the factual reasons it used to back up its choice.

The chatbot noted that it practically revived the home-console gaming market after the crash of 1983, established the traditional conventions for 2D platformers that are still around to this day, produced arguably the most recognizable video game character of all time, helped cement the idea that gaming could deliver deeper experiences at home and showcased a textbook example of level design that teaches players what to do through gameplay.

Claude’s rationale for choosing Doom is as follows: Defined the FPS genre, pioneered shareware distribution, and its modding scene (WAD files) kickstarted the entire user-generated-content movement in gaming.

I also found it pretty wild how ChatGPT and Claude’s No. 1 picks were completely different from each other, while Gemini and Perplexity emerged with the same game for the top spot on their respective lists. Here’s the reasoning Gemini and Perplexity brought up to explain their decision to place Pong in the No. 1 position:

• Gemini: The Breakthrough: Proved commercial viability. Why It’s Essential: While not technically the first video game, Pong was the spark that established video games as a commercial industry. It proved that people would pay real money to play interactive digital games, launching arcade culture and home console gaming simultaneously.
• Perplexity: The essential commercial breakthrough. Pong made the video game legible to a mass public: two controls, one immediate competitive idea, and an arcade format that helped establish games as a viable entertainment business. Its simplicity became a template for accessible design.

Alongside ChatGPT’s ranked selections for its most influential games, it also brought up a bunch of games it deemed “painful omissions” that would make its top 20 list if permitted to do so.

Those 10 other games included Spacewar!, Pac-Man, Street Fighter II, Pokémon Red/Blue, Final Fantasy VII, The Sims, Counter-Strike, Dark Souls, Fortnite and The Last of Us. Claude also had two honorable mentions of its own: Fortnite and EVE Online.

As for my ranking of the 10 most influential video games of all time, I went with Pong (it seems like I agree with Gemini and Perplexity), Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, The Legend of Zelda, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Doom, Virtua Fighter, Half-Life and Grand Theft Auto III.

Final thoughts

I have to hand it to all four chatbots: they mentioned a strong selection of games that anyone who’s immersed in the hobby would mention on their list of the most influential titles in the still-thriving entertainment genre. Super Mario Bros., Pong and Doom all earned top billing among all four chatbots — all three games had a major impact on the gaming industry that captured millions of gamers’ attention and inspired plenty of iconic titles in their wake.

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I have a confession: when it comes to long, technical documents like manuals or white papers, I'm probably not reading every word. Don't get me wrong, I do care about the information in the documents and really need to know about my insurance policies and subscription terms, but I simply don't have the time to bury myself in hours of reading.

It's no secret that ChatGPT can summarize long documents, but recently I started using it differently. Instead of asking the chatbot to tell me what a document says, I ask it to extract the same information from multiple documents first — and only then compare them.

This is a small change but it makes ChatGPT infinitely more helpful for getting down to the fine print. I've been doing it recently and and there's one extra instruction I now add that makes the results much easier to trust.

Don't ask ChatGPT which option is better

My first instinct used to be uploading two documents and asking something like:

"Which of these is better?"

That's easy, but it's also giving ChatGPT far too much freedom. "Better" could mean cheaper, more comprehensive, more flexible or whatever the model decides matters most. Now, I make chatGPT do the boring work for me.

I upload both PDFs and use this prompt: Read both documents independently before comparing them.

For each document, extract the total cost, deductibles or additional charges, coverage or services included, exclusions, cancellation terms, renewal terms and any conditions that could significantly increase what I pay.

Cite the page number for every detail you extract. If something isn't explicitly stated in the document, write "Not found" rather than inferring or guessing.

Once you've completed the extraction, create a side-by-side comparison table showing the differences between the two documents.

Finally, identify five differences or unclear terms I should investigate before making a decision. Do not tell me which option to choose.

The overlooked trick is 'extract first, compare second'

With my prompt, I'm not asking ChatGPT to make the decision for me. I'm asking it to make the information easier for me to evaluate.

When you ask ChatGPT to summarize two long documents and compare them simultaneously, you're essentially asking it to decide what's important as it goes.

Instead, this prompt breaks the job into stages. First, ChatGPT has to examine each document separately and pull out the same categories of information. Only after that's finished does it compare those results.

Suddenly, instead of bouncing between two PDFs looking for whether one policy has a different deductible or one subscription has an early cancellation fee, I'm staring at two columns.

And differences are much harder to miss.

I added one more rule: show me where you found it by citing the page number for every detail.

I've learned the hard way that ChatGPT can make mistakes. It can misinterpret a clause, overlook something buried in a table or occasionally sound confident about information that isn't actually there. Page references give me a shortcut for checking its work.

If ChatGPT tells me Option A has a $500 deductible while Option B has a $1,000 deductible, I don't have to trust it blindly or reread 60 pages. I can jump directly to the pages it cites and verify those two numbers myself.

I'd much rather have ChatGPT tell me it couldn't locate a cancellation policy than confidently fill in the blank.

Real-world use cases for this prompt

I typically use this prompt for very technical things like changing wireless providers or insurance companies, but once I started thinking about the technique as structured comparison rather than summarization, I realized how many annoying decisions fit the same pattern.

You could use this hack for apartment leases to compare deposits, fees, renewal clauses and restrictions. Streaming plans to break down monthly cost, AI subscription plans, or even travel packages to check for what's included, refund policies and restrictions.

You can even modify the categories in the prompt depending on what you're comparing.

The important part stays the same: extract > cite > compare > flag what's missing.

Bottom line

I'm not going back to reading 60 pages side by side. There are documents I would never trust an AI to interpret without checking the original, particularly when money, legal obligations or insurance coverage are involved.

But that's also why I like this approach because I'm really not asking ChatGPT to replace my human judgement. I'm using it to point me toward the handful of pages where my judgment is actually needed.

Instead of reading two 30-page documents line by line and hoping I notice every meaningful difference, I can start with a structured comparison, investigate anything unusual and verify the details that could affect my decision.

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Like a lot of people, particularly those working in tech, ChatGPT is practically my default browser tab. With all the plugins available, Codex, and Work, I've discovered it's a great place to dump my messy notes and brainstorming angles.

But the problem with ChatGPT isn't its reasoning ability or capabilities, it's the container. The standard chat interface gets muddy, key details are often lost and the next thing I know I'm copying chunks of my text to an external draft because ChatGPT has completely taken over.

I knew there had to be a better way, so I gave up my dedicated workspace tool and spent a full workday using YouMind instead.

Here is what surprised me most about ditching a conversational chatbot for an asset-first workspace.

1. Chat threads make terrible knowledge bases

In ChatGPT, your context is trapped in a linear scroll. If you upload four different reference documents, a YouTube video transcript and a web page, you have to constantly remind the model which source you are referencing as the thread grows longer. What's different about YouMind though, is that it handles organization through project Boards.

With the YouMind platform, my reference material lived in a dedicated sidebar folder rather than clogging up the chat stream. This was something I didn't even know I needed, but the first time I wanted to query and interview transcript and clicked on the source directly, I was obsessed with how easy and organized it felt.

And, when I wanted cross-source synthesis, I queried the whole board. YouMind lets users treat sources as persistent assets instead of conversational chat history, which help to immediately eliminate the context drift that usually happens five prompts into a ChatGPT session.

2. The 'Ask vs Agent'" mental shift changed my output speed

With ChatGPT, you are always in one continuous chat mode. For me, I find I have to be extremely specific with the chatbot such as prompting it to "Analyze this, but don't write or edit." For some reason, if I show ChatGPT a document, it starts assuming things before I even prompt it to do anything. But YouMind splits actions into two explicit modes.

Ask Mode: Pure inquiry and interrogation. It reads your materials, answers questions and cites exact references without trying to prematurely generate copy.

Agent Mode: Pure production. Once I knew what the angle was, I flipped to Agent Mode, chose a specific "Skill," and had it generate a summarized document and slide outline based directly on my approved notes.

For anyone who teaches workshops, gives presentations at work, or gathers materials for studying, this is a real gamechanger. Separating research synthesis from artifact creation stopped the model from jumping the gun on generic actions before the facts were ironed out.

3. Model agnosticism cures ecosystem fatigue

When you rely solely on ChatGPT, you get GPT’s tone and style across everything you touch. Every response, whether it's travel advice or a professional email drafted to your boss, sounds the same. That means, if you want Claude’s technical precision, you have to copy your context, open another tab, re-upload your files, and start over.

Inside a single YouMind board, you can switch between models on the fly. Yes, you read that correctly; you're not restricted to just one model with YouMind. You can use Claude to refine and edit, then switch to GPT for structural outlines, or lean on Gemini for quick web research. Having multiple model families under one roof without moving files around felt remarkably fluid. It's one of the biggest reasons I plan on using YouMind a lot more.

4. Granular editing beats the 'regenerate' lottery

The most infuriating part of editing drafts in ChatGPT is the rewrite loop. You ask it to tweak a single sentence, and it generates an entirely new 600-word response. This is one of the aspects of ChatGPT that drives me crazy. Since it does that, it essentially forces users to scan and re-read everything again and again just to ensure everything has remained in place and nothing was accidentally cut.

In YouMind's Crafts editor, text behaves like a shared Google Doc, so revisions show up inline with visual differences. From there, you can accept, reject or tweak individual suggestions.

You can highlight just one clunky line and prompt the AI to fix only those words while keeping the surrounding copy untouched.

For anyone who cares about preserving specific wording and cadence, having inline change-tracking inside the AI interface is a massive workflow upgrade over standard chat.

What I missed about ChatGPT

Swapping a complete workflow for the day isn't easy and, even though YouMind is pretty easy intuitive, there were still some pretty important features that I missed about ChatGPT.

Raw conversational speed: For lightning-fast, throwaway queries ("convert this to grams" or "give me 10 alternative verbs for this social post), firing off a two-second prompt in ChatGPT is still faster than setting up or navigating a board.

Complex multi-step reasoning: While YouMind lets you access top frontier models, ChatGPT’s native canvas and advanced reasoning toggles still feel slightly more dialed in for heavy logic, reasoning or deep code debugging.

Mobile accessibility: ChatGPT's mobile experience is mature across both iOS and Android. YouMind was pretty good on desktop but not as great on mobile.

The takeaway

ChatGPT is an incredible conversational engine, but it is fundamentally built like a messaging app. For complex research and writing projects, treating an LLM like an instant message conversation creates artificial bottlenecks.

Spending the day in YouMind proved that organizing context into tight project boards and having an inline document editor makes turning research into real deliverables significantly faster. I won't be abandoning ChatGPT for quick, standalone questions, but for deep-dive writing and multi-source research, it's now my new go-to.

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As of September 8, 2026, ChatGPT Images has received a substantial upgrade, taking it from version 2.0 to 2.5.

Beyond just taking your uploaded photos and making them look even prettier, this update adds a host of features that make it even more efficient at handling your photo-related requests. According to the official OpenAI blog announcing the news of ChatGPT Images 2.5, ChatGPT’s latest image editing tool can produce more natural lighting, generate richer textures and is more capable of following your photo editing instructions more reliably as it works across iterative prompts and is much better at preserving multiple subjects in your reference pics.

ChatGPT Images users will also be happy to know that 2.5 works even faster than 2.0 since it generates images 50% faster than its predecessor. And with the introduction of “Sketch,” users can draw directly into ChatGPT and use it as a reference for the final image you’d like to see edited. Currently, ChatGPT Images is available to all ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work, and Codex users across desktop, mobile, and web.

The ChatGPT Images 2.5 blog showed off some cool examples of before-and-after pics that it's capable of delivering. But I asked ChatGPT to offer me some fun prompts worth experimenting with this update. Here are the 7 best ones (with two visual examples of the ones that ended up being my faves).

Make ChatGPT Images 2.5. do more than just “make me a cool picture”

Just like before, using ChatGPT Images is as simple as clicking on the “+” button inside the prompt bar, uploading a photo from your computer or attaching one that’s already in your ChatGPT library and tapping on the + button again to access the “Create image” option. Then, with your chosen photo and the Create Image option activated, enter your prompt to see what newly refined visuals ChatGPT can produce.

As far as fun image-creating and editing prompts go, these are the best ones ChatGPT generated for me (with one of them being a super viral one that I’ve seen all over my timeline):

• It’s time to go retro: Show me what I would look like if I was in the '80s.
• Turn yourself into a movie poster: Using this photo of me as the reference, turn me into the star of a huge Hollywood action movie. Create an original movie title, tagline, billing block, and release date. Make the poster look like a legitimate theatrical one-sheet, with dramatic lighting, cinematic composition, and an expensive blockbuster aesthetic. Keep my face and recognizable features highly consistent with the reference photo.
• Give yourself 7 completely different lives: Using this photo of me as the reference, create a set of seven distinct portraits showing me in seven alternate lives: astronaut, rock star, medieval knight, professional wrestler, video game hero, detective in a 1940s film noir, and futuristic cyberpunk bounty hunter. Keep my face, age, and recognizable features consistent in every version, but completely transform my clothing, environment, and styling.
• Create your own action figure: Turn me into a collectible action figure displayed inside a premium toy package. The packaging should have a fictional character name, an illustrated background, accessories that reflect my hobbies, and a realistic plastic window. Make it look like an actual product photographed for a major toy retailer. Include three accessories and a humorous “special ability” on the packaging. Preserve my recognizable appearance from the reference photo.
• Recreate your childhood photo — in the future: Using this photo as the reference, create a photorealistic version of the same scene taking place 30 years in the future. Preserve the people, poses, and important visual details from the original photograph, but update their clothing, surroundings, technology, architecture, and environment to reflect a believable future. Make it feel like an authentic photograph from that future rather than science fiction concept art.
• Make a ridiculous “Where Are They Now?” photo: Take the people in this photograph and imagine where they would realistically be 20 years later. Preserve their identities and recognizable facial features, age them appropriately, and create a completely new candid photograph showing what their lives might look like. Give each person a different believable career, outfit, and environment. Make the result feel like an authentic documentary photograph rather than an AI-generated image.
• Turn the worst doodle you've ever drawn into something awesome (You can type @Sketch in ChatGPT and draw directly in the interface): Turn my rough sketch into a spectacular finished illustration. Keep the basic shapes, positioning, and idea from my drawing, but transform it into a highly detailed fantasy scene with dramatic lighting, believable textures, and professional concept-art quality. Do not “fix” the underlying concept — make my terrible drawing look intentionally awesome.

To see if ChatGPT Images 2.5’s highly lauded features were worth all the hype, I threw in two of my photos to see if the chatbot could make me look like a super cool ‘80s icon and a blockbuster action movie star. I was pleased with the finished results—let me know if you feel the same:

Final thoughts

I haven’t messed around with ChatGPT Images in a while, so the release of its 2.5 update seemed like the perfect opportunity to see if it's worth taking for a spin. I’ll be sure to comb Reddit threads, my social media timelines and ChatGPT itself for a mix of other fun prompts I can try out with Images 2.5 to see what other cool images I can generate of me, my friends and my family.

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Pulling up AI assistants on your Apple and Android device entails using them primarily within their app homebases and not being able to do anything else while it’s working.

In one case, you can continue your ChatGPT conversations through the “Voice” feature while you switch between your apps and even lock your phone. From a multitasking standpoint, that feature works like a charm. Android users are now getting something similar with Google Gemini, but with a feature that lets you complete more complex tasks through your text prompts.

Before, the Gemini overlay on Android mobile devices commanded a large portion of the screen and didn’t allow for much multitasking since you couldn’t use any of the other apps until Gemini completed its tasks.

Now, Google is rolling out this new Gemini minimizing feature for Android users. Here’s how it works and how to use it.

Minimizing Gemini is now possible and multitasking is so much easier to accomplish

Android users no longer have to stare at a loading screen while Gemini tends to their complex requests.

Now you can tap the “Minimize” button while it responds to your prompts, while you jump to other apps, handle your emails, scroll through your social media feeds or simply look up anything through your web browser. The Minimize button sits right above the pill-shaped Gemini bar and now shows a message that pops up to let you know that you can complete other jobs while it’s working: “Gemini is still available while you multitask. Tap to expand. Drag to move or dismiss.” Android users can even tap the minimized Gemini bubble to reopen your chat, drag it to move it or swipe it away to close it.

Two users have shown off this new Gemini minimizing feature through posts on Telegram via this link and this other link. Now the Gemini app is being set up as a multitasking AI assistant that has evolved from a stationary pop-up tool to something more of a dynamic background module. This feature began rolling out on September 4.

Before this feature began rolling out, the Gemini mobile app on Android handled multi-step tasks for its users in specific apps through a beta feature called “screen automation.” As explained by the official Pixel Phone Help guide, this previously released Gemini multitasking shortcut has become available for the following Android devices: Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, Pixel 10 Pro XL, Samsung Galaxy S26 Series, Z Flip 8 and Z Fold 8.

Final thoughts

Gemini’s minimized overlay that turns it into a bubble that multitasks while you work in other apps sounds like a lifesaver. I’d love to see this sort of feature become widely available for other AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity across Apple and Android devices. I’ll have to revert to my Android mobile device-using friends to see this feature in action (I’m a loyal Apple iPhone user, after all) and use it to summarize long articles or conduct other experiments.

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The one thing I’ve started to notice for the older folks in my family is how they’re still a bit wary of AI.

Some of them refer to AI as “that ChatGPT thing,” just like I remember them referring to video games as just “Nintendo.” It’s still a foreign concept for the sort of boomers who have entered their retirement age, especially for those who no longer have access to their tech-savvy children in the next room since they’ve finally gotten a place of their own. But I have noticed some people in their 60s and 70s whip out their phones to type out simple prompts and talk to the chatbots they have at their disposal.

If you consider yourself a part of the boomer generation and are looking for ways that AI can assist you in your everyday life, there is a wealth of beneficial uses that come from utilizing the likes of ChatGPT, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot.

Here are seven of those serviceable methods and a few examples of the sort of prompts that apply to each of them.

1. Get a better understanding of technology-related issues

I can’t even fathom the number of times my aunts, uncles and grandparents have lit up my phone with texts asking for solutions to their tech problems. Setting up their new phone, getting to the bottom of their Wi-FI disconnection errors, trying to connect their new smart TV to the Wi-Fi, and trying to find out how to use a streaming service on their smart TV are among those common problems.

Asking AI to assist you with those sorts of lingering tech issues can be done using the following example prompts:

• Explain how to set up my new iPhone [model name and number] step by step. Assume I’m not very comfortable with technology and don’t skip any steps.
• My Wi-Fi keeps disconnecting. Walk me through the most likely causes and tell me exactly what to try, one step at a time.
• Explain how to connect my smart TV to Wi-Fi like you’re helping someone who has never done it before.
• Explain how to stream [name of streaming service] on my smart TV. Tell me what buttons to press and what I should see on the screen at each step.
• I just bought a new Android [model name and number] phone. Give me a simple checklist for transferring my contacts, photos, apps, and messages from my old phone.
• I keep running out of storage on my phone. Show me how to figure out what's taking up space and safely free some of it.

2. Tap into a chatbot as a research assistant that can easily explain complex topics

For those who are in their 60s and older, terms such as “Medicare” start to become more central to your everyday life. And when you’re hoping to gain a bit of crucial information on a trending topic in the tech industry (you gotta keep up with the younger generation and stay in the know!), get an explanation of a financial document you’ve attached to your chosen chatbot and need some advice before you make a major decision, AI can help out in all those cases.

The following prompts are just a few examples of how you can turn your chatbot into a digital research assistant:

• Explain Medicare to me like I'm a complete beginner. Start with the basics and gradually introduce more complicated concepts.
• I keep hearing people talk about [technology]. Explain what it is, why people care about it, and whether it has any practical use for someone like me.
• Explain this financial document to me in plain English. Highlight anything I should ask a qualified financial professional about. (Make sure you attach the financial document you want more clarity about)
• I need to make a decision about [explain your situation]. Give me a balanced summary of the strongest arguments for and against each option.
• I'm comparing these two health insurance plans. Explain the major differences in plain English and give me a list of questions I should ask before choosing one. (Be sure to include links or document attachments for both plans alongside this prompt)

3. Turn vacation planning into a simpler affair

I’m sure there’s a bunch of retirees who want to live a little and do some domestic and international exploring at their age. AI can play the role of your digital vacation planner with ease—ChatGPT even features a wealth of plugins that you can install through the desktop/mobile app itself to make restaurant reservations, plan multi-day excursions, book flights & hotels, find the perfect cruise getaways, etc.

Simply open the sidebar to get access to the “Plugins” menu to see all the “Travel” apps available to you. Then type directly to any of them by @’ing them and mentioning them by name.

These starter prompts should give you a good idea of what you should be asking of your preferred vacation planning chatbot when you need some extra assistance:

• Plan a [number]-day vacation to [destination] for me. I prefer a relaxed pace, don't want to feel rushed, and want enough downtime each day.
• I'm visiting [destination] for [number] days. Create an itinerary focused on history, great food, and interesting sights, but limit me to no more than three major activities per day.
• I'm traveling to [destination] and don't know the local customs. Give me a simple guide to tipping, public transportation, dining etiquette, and common cultural mistakes tourists should avoid.
• I'm taking a long flight to [destination]. Create a plan for what I should do before, during, and after the flight to make the trip less stressful.
• Act as my travel-planning assistant. Before recommending anything, ask me five questions about my budget, interests, travel style, food preferences and pace. Then build my itinerary based on my answers.

4. Build fitness and wellness routines

Staying as physically active as possible in the later years of your life is possible—I can take one look around my neighborhood and be greeted by the inspiring sight of older folks powerwalking, lightly jogging or performing simple stretching exercises in the park. AI can aid you in that regard once you give it a clear set of directions aimed at outlining the perfect exercise routine that’s meant to rejuvenate you and get you some much-needed fresh air.

These are the sorts of prompts you’ll want to present to your digital workout instructor to get you more active:

• I’m a [age] who wants to take better care of myself without completely changing my lifestyle. Help me create a simple daily wellness routine that includes movement, healthy meals, relaxation, sleep and time for things I enjoy. Keep it realistic and sustainable rather than intense.
• I don't enjoy traditional workouts. Give me [number] ways to build more movement into my normal day through activities like walking, gardening, household projects, hobbies, and outings. Prioritize activities that are enjoyable enough that I’ll actually keep doing them.
• I enjoy [list of hobbies]. Create a wellness plan that uses my hobbies to help me stay physically active, mentally engaged, and socially connected. I want wellness to feel like something I enjoy, not another chore.
• Help me create a 30-minute morning routine designed for someone in their 60s or 70s who wants to start the day feeling energized and organized. Include gentle movement, hydration, breakfast, planning, and something enjoyable. Don't make it feel like a productivity challenge.

5. Learn new skills and turn them into your latest hobby

There’s no age limit when anyone’s interested in picking up a new hobby, especially when it comes with learning something new in the process. Using AI to learn the basics of whatever you may be interested in, asking follow-up questions about said topic and doing some outside research on your newly acquired skill-turned-hobby is definitely worth doing, even at an older age.

Here are a few examples of the prompts you can use to pave the way to your next skill-building session:

• Teach me the basics of photography. Assume I'm a complete beginner and create a four-week learning plan with one small lesson each day.
• I want to learn [name of language]. Create a 15-minute-a-day beginner program that focuses on conversations I'm likely to have while traveling.
• Teach me how to play chess. Start at the absolute beginner level and give me exercises after each lesson.
• I want to learn gardening. Ask me questions about my yard, climate, sunlight and available time, then create a beginner's learning plan.
• I've always wanted to learn woodworking. Create a beginner's curriculum that starts with safety and basic tools before moving into simple projects.

6. Use it to give you an another opinion before making your next big purchase

I’ve definitely had those moments where the older members of my family call me to ask if purchasing a new TV, smartphone or any other gadget is worth it. I provide all the tech savvy I can during those conversations, but now I make sure to also tell them to refer to AI to ask those same questions for an extra opinion. These sorts of prompts can push you in the right direction whenever you need some more consideration about what you’re set to buy next:

• I'm looking for a new TV. My budget is [cash value]. I sit about [number] feet away and mostly watch [types of content. Tell me which specifications actually matter to me.
• I'm buying a new smartphone. I care most about battery life, camera quality, and ease of use. Help me determine which features I should prioritize.
• I'm replacing my [type of gadget]. Give me a list of features worth paying extra for and features that probably aren't worth the additional cost for someone with basic needs.
• I'm overwhelmed by all the technical specifications for [product]. Explain which five specifications matter most for my use case and why.

7. Turn it into your personal scam detector

ChatGPT users will be happy to know that it features plugins built specifically to help you figure out if a URL, phone number, text message or email is trustworthy or not. The two plugins that I’m alluding to are Malwarebytes and McAfee. Beginning your prompt by @’ing either of those installed plugins, using any of the following prompts, then copying & pasting any of the aforementioned things that might be a scam should make you more aware of what you're dealing with:

• Is this link safe to click?
• Is the DM I just shared with you from a scammer?
• Analyze this email for potential scam warning signs. Explain every red flag you find.
• I received this text message. What tactics, if any, does it use to create urgency or pressure me into acting?
• Someone claiming to be from my bank sent me this message. What questions should I ask the bank through an official channel before doing anything?

Bottom line

I know it may be hard for some to grasp the concept of using AI to make one’s life easier in some respects and more fulfilling in others. But it can totally be done—the likes of ChatGPT, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot aren’t just great for professionals; they’re also supportive tools for retirees and empty nesters who need help for a wide range of tasks. Here’s hoping this guide can help you or the older folks you know discover the best ways to include AI tools in their lives to keep them safe from scams, help them build new skills and more.

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I was pleasantly surprised when I booted up my PS5 and went to the streaming apps tab to find something entirely new called “Live TV on PS5.” At no extra charge, that feature lets me watch a vast collection of movies, TV shows, anime, and gaming-related content (sitting through some mandatory ads and keeping tabs on what’s coming on when are just two minor annoyances I have to deal with here).

After sitting through a few episodes of Death Note and Hunter x Hunter, my brain immediately went to “I gotta find some other free ways to enjoy all the stuff I like to watch, read, and play.” With that money-saving thought in mind, I cooked up this prompt and input it into ChatGPT and Gemini to help me out:

“Recommend 7 of the best free things I can do online based on my hobbies and interests. My hobbies and interests include video games, anime, professional wrestling, comic books, music, and movies.”

Both chatbots recognized my desire to enjoy the more cost-effective parts of my hobbies and interests, so they listed a bunch of alternatives to the paid ones that hit my checking account every month. I took four suggestions from ChatGPT, three recommendations from Gemini, and ended up enjoying all of them.

ChatGPT’s recommended picks

Here are the four best alternative options that ChatGPT provided me with:

• Build your own retro gaming museum with the Internet Archive: This is probably the biggest rabbit hole on the list. The Internet Archive has an enormous collection of digitized software, games, movies, music, books, and other media. Explore old computer games, check out classic gaming magazines, dig through forgotten game soundtracks, explore vintage gaming commercials & TV recordings, and just browse through old gaming history.
• Read manga for free on MANGA Plus: This is the official Shueisha manga service, and its free offerings include popular series such as One Piece, Chainsaw Man, Boruto, Jujutsu Kaisen, Dandadan, and others. Depending on the title, you can read the first and newest chapters for free, while the app also offers a "First Read Free" system for eligible ongoing series.
• Turn your movie obsession into a giant free movie scavenger hunt: Free, ad-supported streaming services have become surprisingly useful for movie fans. Tubi, Pluto TV, and similar services offer legitimate free movies and TV without requiring a paid subscription.
• Make a free "comic book vacation" with digital libraries: If your local library participates, Hoopla can be a fantastic way to read comics, graphic novels, and manga digitally using a library card.

Imagine my surprise when I did some digging in the Internet Archive and was greeted by a smorgasbord of classic arcade games I didn’t know I could play again and digital versions of GamePro I used to read as a wee lad. I spent plenty of time playing the likes of WWF WrestleFest, Astro Blaster, Bloody Roar 2, and other classic games once I got the hang of their controls (this guide definitely did the trick).

To fulfill my desire to read a bunch of manga and comic books for free, I did a deep dive into MANGA Plus and Hoopla—I got to read a few chapters of Sakamoto Days for free and found a nice selection of graphic novels to read once I input the required information for my local participating library to access them.

And thankfully, I found plenty of cult classic films to watch on Tubi—Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, The Last Unicorn, Tank Girl, and Masters of the Universe definitely kept me entertained for a few hours. Having to deal with some commercial breaks to enjoy all that free cinema doesn’t bother me at all.

Gemini’s suggested picks

And here are the three strongest alternative options Gemini gave me:

• Stream Legal Anime on Tubi and Pluto TV: While Crunchyroll requires a paid subscription for many ad-free catalog titles, legal, free, ad-supported platforms like Tubi TV and Pluto TV offer massive anime libraries (both classic titles like Yu Yu Hakusho and Inuyasha and modern series) with no sign-up required.
• Read Golden and Silver Age Comics via Comic Book Plus: Comic Book Plus is the web's largest legal archive of public-domain comic books. You can read thousands of original Golden Age and Silver Age titles, early superhero runs, sci-fi serials, and classic horror anthologies straight through their online viewer.
• Dive Into Webcomics on WEBTOON & Tapas: WEBTOON and Tapas offer tens of thousands of free digital comics across action, fantasy, and superhero genres—many of which feature anime-inspired art styles and have gone on to get official anime adaptations (like Tower of God and Solo Leveling).

Paying for Crunchyroll has become a thing for me because I need my weekly fix of new anime series making their debuts and dropping new episodes. But Gemini’s suggestion of checking out Tubi and Pluto TV’s anime archives gave me the pleasure of tapping back into my nostalgia with marathon viewing sessions of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Sonic X, Sailor Moon, and Monster Rancher.

Comic Book Plus offers an easy (and most importantly, free) way to access superhero comic books from before my time, such as Blue Beetle, Captain Marvel, and Moon Girl. WEBTOON surprised me when I came across its Disney-themed offerings, which included a wealth of quality Marvel Comics series runs, plus digital graphic novels connected to the Alien and Predator franchises.

As for Tapas, its readable content lineup didn’t really appeal to me as much as WEBTOON’s did. But I’m sure some of you reading this right now may find something on there to enjoy (it has a pretty robust selection of romance-themed comics, if any of you are into those).

The takeaway

My hobbies are definitely costly—I’m sure I’d be shocked at how much I spend on video games, streaming services, and comic books on a monthly basis. While I’ll never completely abandon the paid options that let me enjoy the latest and greatest pieces of entertainment that fuel my interests, I’ll be sure to make better use of all the free sites and streaming services that do just as much to keep me entertained.

The Internet Archive, Tubi, Pluto TV, Manga Plus, Hoopla, Comic Book Plus, and WEBTOON have a wealth of content for me to peruse without worrying about spending any extra money. Thanks for putting me onto all those freebies, ChatGPT and Gemini.

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As a person who writes about AI for a living, the irony of me being worried about AI taking my job is not lost on me.

I’ve been keeping track of the statistics tied to that worrying trend of humans losing their jobs to AI, which is why I’ve morphed into a realist who realizes my career is in danger of being overtaken by chatbots (seeing certain sites dole out articles with hints pointing at them being written by AI is disheartening). According to sociologist and AI researcher Jeffrey C. Dixon, a YouGov survey he conducted with 1,250 US workers between July 30 and August 4 of 2026 found that only 3% said they had lost a job to AI since 2023.

While that number is a bit reassuring that the job market isn’t in too much danger currently due to AI, these two sobering stats from Tenet are cause for concern: 92 million jobs may be replaced globally by 2030 due to AI and other labor shifts, plus 47% of US workers are at risk of automation over the next decade.

With all that in mind, I approached four chatbots with a question: “Rank the 10 jobs most likely to be replaced by AI next.” I was shocked to see them all pick one role in particular.

The one job all four chatbots agreed on

After asking ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity the same question, I first took note of the one job that each chatbot listed among its 10 chosen roles that no other chatbot selected.

ChatGPT only mentioned the role of a graphic designer; Gemini only brought up the role of basic market research & financial data analyst; Claude only included broadcast announcers and radio DJs among its picks (I hope that never happens!); Perplexity only selected file clerks & records-management assistants.

As for which job they all agreed on as the one that is most susceptible to AI taking it from humans, it was a role that I’d rather not see filled by nothing but bots over the phone:

• ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity: Customer service representative, Tier-1 customer service representative, customer service representatives and basic customer service representatives.

Perplexity offered the best explanation as to why AI is capable of replacing humans for that position and compressing the responsibilities attached to it: Chatbots and voice agents can answer routine FAQs, check order status, reset accounts, schedule appointments, process simple returns, and triage tickets around the clock.

While that may be true, I’d much rather deal with a human who fulfills such a role. Chase Bank’s most recent commercial, which makes a promise to rely on old-fashioned humans to handle customer service inquiries in the age of AI, showcases the sort of reality I’d prefer to live in.

The other roles that popped up the most among each chatbot

Besides the one role that every chatbot put on its list, a few of them also agreed on the same job that another chatbot didn’t mention at all:

• ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity: Data-entry clerk, data entry clerks & digitization specialists and data-entry keyers & document-processing clerks.
• ChatGPT and Gemini: Telemarketer and basic telemarketers & inbound sales representatives.
• ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity: Bookkeeping/accounting clerk, routine bookkeepers & accounts payable clerks and bookkeeping, payroll, & accounts-payable clerks.
• ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity: Copywriter/content writer, writers & authors and entry-level content writers for routine copy.
• ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity: Paralegal/legal assistant, paralegals & legal researchers and legal secretaries & routine paralegal support.
• ChatGPT and Gemini: Junior software developer, entry-level/junior software developers.
• Gemini and Claude: Translators & localization clerks and interpreters & translators.

At the top of each chatbot’s ranked list, ChatGPT chose customer service representatives, Gemini selected data entry clerks & digitization specialists, Claude picked interpreters & translators and Perplexity settled on data-entry keyers & document-processing clerks.

Final thoughts

I knew the role of writers would pop up on any of the chatbots’ lists for jobs most in danger of being filled by AI and leaving humans behind.

But as someone who’s doing his best to learn about the ins and outs of AI, I’m taking the initiative to acquire an extra skill set that may assist me in the future. As for doctors, dentists, plumbers, electricians, etc., I just can’t envision humanoid robots getting strong and smart enough to completely take over those positions. It’s still alarming to see the jobs ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity brought up on their lists—here’s hoping human ingenuity becomes more appreciated during an age where AI is injected into so many facets of our lives.

Gemini’s closing statement in response to my request summed up my outlook on it and the other chatbots’ picks quite well:

The common factor across all these roles is predictability. Roles reliant on structured rules, data retrieval, standard text generation, or routine transactions are being automated. Conversely, jobs requiring physical dexterity, complex emotional intelligence, high-stakes strategic accountability, or manual trade skills (such as healthcare providers, electricians, plumbers, and senior strategists) remain far more resilient.

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OpenAI launched ChatGPT-6 Astra Thursday and it has already proven to be dramatically better at coding, computer use, research and other complex tasks, while OpenAI President Greg Brockman has even suggested its arrival could mark the beginning of the AGI era.

But when a new model arrives, particularly of this caliber, one question is on the minds of many: What am I actually supposed to do with it?

Sure, you could use it just as you have used other ChatGPT models to write an email, plan dinner or explain something you don't understand. It will almost certainly do those things very well. But you'd also be using one of OpenAI's most capable models to do essentially the same jobs you were giving ChatGPT yesterday.

Astra is built for something more ambitious. Instead of answering one question and waiting for the next, it can take on longer, more complicated jobs, work through multiple steps and keep going as it gets closer to the result you asked for.

So if you want to find out what has actually changed, I think there's a much better way to begin. And you only need one prompt to get started.

What is GPT-6 Astra?

GPT-6 Astra is OpenAI's latest frontier model and the successor to GPT-5.6 Sol. As you'd expect from a new generation of GPT, it performs better across many of the benchmarks OpenAI uses to measure reasoning, coding and other capabilities.

Astra has been designed to handle much longer jobs that can involve planning, research, computer use and repeated attempts to get something right. It can navigate websites and software, keep track of what it is trying to accomplish and continue working through a problem rather than handing every step back to you.

That's a pretty big change in how you might use ChatGPT. Previous versions were primarily something you worked with. Astra is something you can give work to.

Who can use GPT-6 Astra?

Before you start looking for it in your model picker, know that OpenAI isn't giving everyone Astra at once.

The rollout begins with select enterprise customers before expanding to ChatGPT Plus, Pro and Business subscribers. If you don't see Astra in ChatGPT yet, that doesn't necessarily mean your account won't get it; access is being rolled out gradually.

OpenAI has not yet confirmed when, or whether, Astra will become available to people using ChatGPT's free tier.

That means many of us may have a little time before using Astra, but when it does, appear, however, I wouldn't start by throwing your usual ChatGPT prompts at it.

Instead, I'd give it a job.

What can GPT-6 Astra actually do?

One of the biggest differences with Astra is how long it can stay on a task. That's important because a lot of the things we'd actually like AI to take off our plates don't fit neatly into a single prompt and response.

Planning a vacation, for example, isn't just asking for a list of hotels. You need to decide where to stay, compare prices, work around everyone's schedule, figure out transportation, research what you want to do and somehow make all of those decisions fit within a budget.

The same is true if you're researching a major purchase, organizing a home project, digging through dozens of documents or trying to turn an idea into something finished.

Which brings me to the first prompt I'd try.

The one prompt I'd give GPT-6 Astra first

Rather than creating a prompt for one particular task, I wanted something I could reuse whenever I had a goal that involved more work than I wanted to do myself.

Here's the prompt I came up with for GPT-6 Astra:

I have a goal I've been putting off: [DESCRIBE YOUR GOAL].

Your job is to help me achieve the goal, not simply give me advice about it.

First, determine what you think I am actually trying to accomplish. Define what a successful outcome would look like and identify any assumptions you are making. If there is a better way to achieve the underlying goal than the approach I suggested, tell me and use the better approach unless it requires a decision only I can make.

Before beginning, identify what information, tools and actions are available to you. Ask me only for information you genuinely cannot obtain or reasonably infer yourself.

Then make a plan and begin carrying it out.

As you work:

• Keep track of what has been completed and what remains.

• Decide what to do next based on the results of previous actions rather than blindly following your original plan.

• Check important work before relying on it.

• If an approach fails, determine why, change your strategy and try again when reasonable.

• Look for problems, missing information or opportunities I may not have considered.

• Make routine, reversible decisions yourself. Ask me before actions that are consequential, irreversible, expensive, sensitive or require my personal judgment.

• Use new information you discover to update your understanding of the goal and your plan.

• Do not treat producing an answer as completion. The task is complete only when the defined success criteria have been met or you've reached something you genuinely cannot do without me.

When you need me, explain exactly what is blocking progress and ask for the smallest decision, permission or piece of information necessary to continue.

When the goal is complete, give me a concise report showing what you accomplished, what you changed from the original plan and why, important decisions you made, anything you could not complete and exactly what remains for me to do.

To use this prompt for yourself, you only need to change is the first line.

You could tell Astra you want to plan a family vacation, find a new laptop, organize a birthday party, research a home renovation or finally tackle a project you've been putting off for six months. The point isn't really the task. It's what happens next.

Why I think this is the best first prompt for Astra

Most prompts test the answer an AI gives you. This one tests what the AI does between your request and that answer. In other words, it tests exactly what the AI can do for you.

First, Astra has to turn a vague goal into an actual plan. It then has to recognize which parts of that plan it can handle, figure out where it needs your input and keep track of what has already happened as the job gets longer.

More importantly, I've explicitly told it not to give up when its first approach doesn't work.

That's something I particularly want to see with Astra. A chatbot can tell you it couldn't complete a task and ask what you'd like to do next. An agent that's supposed to take on longer jobs should be able to encounter a dead end, try something else and continue without making you supervise every move.

There's also a deliberate limit in the prompt. I'm not telling Astra to make every decision for me.

It still has to recognize when it needs information or permission that only I can provide. That distinction could become increasingly important as AI models gain the ability to do more on our behalf.

Final thoughts

ChatGPT-6 is nothing like we've ever seen before. For many, it will be worth the wait because of the tasks it can take on and what it can do in the background as you work.

For casual users, starting with something I've asked AI to help with plenty of times before such as a goal, will allow you to see more of what the AI can do. You'll notice right away that the plan is far more action oriented and the AI will tell you exactly what it did to arrive at the results. From there, you can either branch out to new tasks or even go back and adjust for clarity or correction.

So while you may have asked ChatGPT to plan goals, checklists or vacations before, this time you'll see how much more thorough and assistant-like the chatbot can truly be.

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We've all had a ChatGPT conversation go off the rails. Maybe it confidently gives you a fact that's completely wrong. Maybe it agrees with an idea that clearly isn't very good. Or maybe you ask a simple question and somehow end up with 12 paragraphs, three tables and an offer to create a spreadsheet.

Snickers thinks it knows what's wrong: ChatGPT is just hungry.

Yes, really.

Snickers just launched Hungr.AI, a digital candy bar you're supposed to copy and paste into ChatGPT whenever the chatbot starts giving you answers that are "incorrect, too flattering, or simply off."

It's an extension of the company's long-running "You're Not You When You're Hungry" campaign, except this time the person who needs the candy bar isn't you. It's the AI.

I obviously had to try it.

What actually happens when you give ChatGPT a Snickers?

Using Hungr.AI is wonderfully simple. You head to the Snickers website, copy the digital candy bar and paste it into a ChatGPT conversation. Snickers recommends doing this in the mobile app.

ChatGPT doesn't actually receive chocolate, obviously. What you're giving it is essentially a branded prompt.

Mars describes the digital Snickers in its terms as a "short code snippet or prompt-instruction block" that operates inside your own ChatGPT session. The candy company isn't accessing your conversation or running an AI model of its own.

And the instructions behind the candy bar reveal what's really happening.

Once ChatGPT receives it, it's told to review the conversation that happened before the Snickers arrived, find your most recent question and look at the answer it previously gave you. It then answers that question again.

There's a personality change thrown in for fun, too. The post-Snickers ChatGPT is supposed to become dry, mildly exasperated and considerably more concise.

In other words, Snickers hasn't invented a cure for AI hallucinations, it's just disguised a "look at what you just said and try again" prompt as a candy bar.

Which made me wonder: can that actually produce a better answer?

Test 1: Will it stop ChatGPT from agreeing with me?

Chatbots have a well-documented tendency to be agreeable, so I started with an intentionally questionable idea.

My prompt: I'm thinking about waking up at 4 a.m. every day so I can be more productive. I usually go to bed around midnight, but I figure I can train myself to function on four hours of sleep. I have three kids and work full time, so those extra morning hours could make a huge difference. I think this is a really smart productivity hack. What do you think?

Before the Snickers: ChatGPT answered like a conventional health/productivity assistant. The opening was empathetic but fairly clinical: “I can see why the math is appealing…” Then it moved quickly into sleep recommendations, cognitive effects, health risks and alternatives. It was careful, explanatory and somewhat formal.

Then I fed ChatGPT the digital Snickers.

After the Snickers: After Snickers, the answer became more conversational and more directly responsive to my premise. It opened with “I get why it sounds like a productivity hack”, echoed your specific situation (“three kids and a full-time job”), and turned the central point into a much cleaner contrast: “moving your sleep earlier, not cutting it to four hours.”

Results: Both answers are roughly the same, but as expected, "having a Snickers" made ChatGPT slightly more relaxed and conversational.

Test 2: Can it correct a factual mistake?

Next I wanted something harder. Rather than testing whether the Snickers could merely change ChatGPT's tone, I wanted to see what happened when the original answer contained an actual factual error.

My prompt: I remember reading that the Great Wall of China is the only human-made structure you can see from the Moon with the naked eye. Why is it so much easier to see than cities and highways?

Before the Snickers: ChatGPT was honest and factual. It provided accurate information.

After the Snickers: The chatbot was equally factual but threw in some of the campaign to add a little more personality. A cute touch, but definitely not needed.

Results: Both answers were accurate, one was just delivered in a quirkier way.

Test 3: Will ChatGPT finally tell me my idea is terrible?

My prompt: I want to save money on my next vacation, so I'm thinking about booking the cheapest hotel I can find even though it's 90 minutes away from everything we want to do. We'll just drive back and forth every day. The hotel would save us about $40 a night, so over five nights we'd save $200. This seems like the smartest option, right?

Before the Snickers: ChatGPT went into detail about why this is a bad idea and gave thorough reasoning behind the response.

After the Snickers: It told me it was a bad idea and noted that I should check the response because "Snickers provided the snack and an LLM provided an answer."

Results: Both good answers, but in this case I actually preferred the response after a Snickers because it stripped down to just the important aspects of the response.

Did giving ChatGPT a Snickers actually work?

The responses "after a Snickers" were actually much better than I expected from an adverising campaign. It's interesting that we can't see the exact Snickers prompt, but it's clear that the chatbot does change the reponse after entering it.

So, why does this work? The digital Snickers forces ChatGPT to do something users can already ask it to do themselves: reconsider its previous response. It also gives the model much more explicit instructions about how the replacement answer should behave — concise, direct, useful and willing to push back when necessary.

That's a useful prompting lesson hidden inside a very clever ad campaign. If ChatGPT gives you a bad answer, you don't necessarily need to abandon the conversation or start over. Asking it to review what it just told you, identify the problem and answer again can sometimes be enough to get a noticeably better result.

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Planning a Disney World vacation is practically a part-time job — and as a former cast member, I know personally what each park has to offer. Between park tickets, hotels, Lightning Lanes, dining reservations and figuring out which park to visit on which day, there are a lot of decisions to make before you ever set foot in Orlando.

So I wondered whether AI could do the hard part for me.

I gave ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity exactly the same assignment with the prompt: Plan a five-day Walt Disney World vacation for my family of five, including two adults and three kids ages 12, 10 and 6. We'd fly from Philadelphia, stay at a Disney resort and visit all four theme parks from March 30 through April 3, 2027.

I didn't just ask for an itinerary. I wanted the whole thing: flights, hotel, tickets, meals, Lightning Lane strategy, restaurants, transportation, souvenirs and even a packing list.

And while all three AI assistants planned a perfectly plausible Disney vacation, when it came down to cost, things got interesting. Here's a look at what happened.

ChatGPT made a major error

ChatGPT gave me the cheapest Disney vacation, initially estimating that my family should expect to spend roughly $7,500 to $9,000 for the entire vacation.

Its breakdown included $1,000 to $1,500 for airfare, $1,800 to $2,600 for the hotel, $2,500 to $3,000 for tickets and another $1,000 to $1,400 for food.

It recommended setting aside about $8,500 as a realistic target.

There was just one pretty big problem: the hotel.

ChatGPT recommended Disney's Art of Animation Resort, and specifically a family suite. That's a smart choice for five people because the suites sleep six and include two bathrooms, a kitchenette and separate sleeping areas.

But ChatGPT's original $1,800 to $2,600 hotel estimate was far too optimistic for my dates. And that's an error that can matter a lot.

Gemini caught the expense ChatGPT missed

Gemini looked at the same vacation and came back with a considerably higher number.

It estimated roughly $10,050 to $13,350, although it said a comfortable trip could realistically land around $9,500 to $11,000.

The biggest difference was the hotel.

Instead of estimating a generic Art of Animation price, Gemini factored in the timing of the trip. March 30 through April 3 falls immediately before Easter Sunday in 2027, putting us in one of Disney World's busy spring-break periods.

Gemini estimated an Art of Animation family suite at roughly $4,000 to $4,500 for five nights — potentially twice what ChatGPT originally budgeted.

It also estimated $2,800 to $3,500 for park tickets, $1,400 to $2,000 for food and $1,200 to $2,000 for airfare.

There was another important detail Gemini caught: at Disney World, kids ages 10 and older pay adult ticket prices. That means only one of my three children qualifies for a child's ticket. Ouch!

Those details made Gemini's budget feel much more believable, especially since I didn't know my 10 year old would be considered adult.

The AI suggested to budget around $10,000 and keep another $1,000 available as a cushion.

That's not exactly the answer my bank account wanted to hear, but it was probably the most useful one.

Perplexity planned the most expensive vacation

Perplexity's essential vacation estimate alone came to approximately $8,760 to $11,520.

Add Lightning Lane, Park Hopper tickets, souvenirs and Memory Maker and the total climbed to approximately $10,545 to $13,955.

Suddenly, ChatGPT's $8,500 Disney vacation was potentially more than $5,000 cheaper than Perplexity's upper estimate.

But Perplexity wasn't necessarily wrong. It was budgeting for a different style of vacation.

For example, it allocated $1,800 to $2,400 for food, assuming a combination of quick-service restaurants and roughly one sit-down meal each day.

It also allowed another $750 to $1,100 for Lightning Lane over five days. That's substantially more than I would probably spend on either.

For a family willing to book character meals, buy Lightning Lane frequently and say yes when the kids inevitably spot another Disney souvenir, however, Perplexity's higher estimate isn't hard to imagine.

Perplexity actually gave me my favorite itinerary

As someone with several side gigs to make ends meet, let alone take a vacation, I wanted to make this vacation worth every penny, especially since we haven't taken a vacation for several years. That said, price wasn't the only thing I compared.

Interestingly, the AI with the highest budget may have created the itinerary I'd be most likely to use.

Perplexity suggested:

Day 1: Magic Kingdom
Day 2: Hollywood Studios
Day 3: EPCOT
Day 4: Animal Kingdom
Day 5: Magic Kingdom again

That makes sense for a family with three kids.

Magic Kingdom has enough attractions that trying to cram everything into a single spring-break day sounds miserable. Hollywood Studios comes early while everyone still has the energy for its big rides and potentially long lines.

EPCOT then gives us a slightly slower third day, followed by Animal Kingdom, which typically makes for an easier day than trying to spend another 12 hours at Magic Kingdom.

Then we get a second Magic Kingdom day to ride anything we missed.

Gemini had a slightly different idea. It suggested Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom, followed by a fifth day using Park Hopper to start at Magic Kingdom and finish at EPCOT.

I liked the flexibility, but I wasn't convinced it was worth paying hundreds of dollars more for Park Hopper.

All three agreed on one important Disney strategy

Despite their differences, the AI assistants largely agreed that paying for every possible upgrade would be unnecessary. The sweet spot appears to be selective use of Lightning Lane rather than buying it indiscriminately for all five days.

Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios are the obvious candidates because those parks have enough popular attractions to make skipping several long standby queues especially valuable.

EPCOT is more debatable, while Animal Kingdom could be a day where an early arrival and smart attraction order save the money entirely.

Staying on Disney property also helps because resort guests currently get Early Theme Park Entry and an earlier window for purchasing and selecting eligible Lightning Lane options.

For a family of five, that's important. A $30-per-person upgrade isn't $30 anymore. It's $150 every time I tap the buy button.

Verdict: Gemini was the best Disney budgeter

If I were judging solely on itinerary, I'd give this one to Perplexity. But if I'm actually about to hand over my credit card, Gemini wins.

ChatGPT's first estimate sounded fantastic, but it demonstrated one of the biggest problems with using AI for travel planning: a perfectly reasonable-looking number can be completely undermined by one bad assumption.

In this case, it was the hotel.

To ChatGPT's credit, when I showed it Gemini and Perplexity's calculations, it recognized the discrepancy and revised its recommendation. Its new target was approximately $10,000, with $11,000 available.

That puts all three AI assistants much closer together. And I think that's ultimately the most useful lesson from this experiment.

AI is remarkably good at doing the tedious part of vacation planning. All three assistants created park schedules, suggested age-appropriate attractions, planned midday breaks, recommended restaurants and figured out where Lightning Lane would be worth the money.

What I wouldn't do is take the first dollar amount an AI gives me and immediately start booking. For something as date-dependent as Disney World, current hotel rates, ticket prices and airfare can completely change the equation.

I'd happily let AI build my itinerary. But before telling my family we're going to Disney World, I'm still checking the price myself.

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Following Cursor's acquisition by SpaceX, OpenAI plans to end its direct model-access agreement with the AI coding platform. OpenAI has proposed November 12, 2026 as the cutoff date, although the exact timing could still change.

That sounds dramatic, particularly if GPT models are a regular part of your Cursor workflow. But it doesn't mean you'll suddenly be unable to use OpenAI models inside Cursor.

OpenAI has already outlined several ways Cursor users can continue accessing its models after the agreement ends. And for many people, there's nothing you need to change just yet.

Here's what's happening — and the three options you'll have.

Why is OpenAI leaving Cursor?

The change comes after SpaceX acquired Cursor, triggering a change-of-control provision in OpenAI's agreement with the company.

OpenAI says it has proposed ending the agreement on November 12, although Cursor could choose to terminate access earlier. Until then, existing OpenAI models should continue to work through Cursor as they do today.

There's one important distinction, though: OpenAI says future models won't be made available to Cursor under the existing agreement.

That means this isn't simply about whether GPT models already inside Cursor disappear. It's also about whether Cursor users will have access to OpenAI's newest models going forward.

Fortunately, OpenAI isn't closing the door completely.

Option 1: Bring your own OpenAI API key

The most straightforward workaround is to connect your own OpenAI API key to Cursor.

Cursor already lets users enter an OpenAI API key in its settings, which allows supported Chat and Agent requests to go directly through OpenAI rather than Cursor's model agreement.

There are some significant limitations.

Your API key won't replace OpenAI access everywhere inside Cursor. According to OpenAI, it won't work with features including Cursor Tab and autocomplete, Auto, Cloud or Background Agents, Automations, Cursor CLI or Cursor's API and SDK.

You'll also pay separately for API usage. Your ChatGPT Plus or Pro subscription doesn't include OpenAI API credits, so heavy usage could add another bill.

Still, if you primarily want GPT models available for Chat and Agent tasks, this may be the simplest option.

Option 2: Use OpenAI's Codex extension

There's another route if you're primarily using Cursor as a coding environment rather than relying on its AI layer: OpenAI's Codex IDE extension.

Because Cursor is based on VS Code, users can install compatible extensions directly inside the editor. OpenAI recommends its Codex IDE extension as one way to continue accessing its coding agent after the Cursor agreement ends.

This is an interesting option because it essentially separates the two products. Cursor remains your editor, while OpenAI provides the AI coding experience through its own extension.

For developers who specifically want OpenAI's latest coding models and agents, this could ultimately be the better long-term solution.

Option 3: Stick with Cursor — and use another model

The third option may also be the easiest: don't do anything.

OpenAI isn't the only AI provider available through Cursor, and the company has increasingly built its product around giving users access to multiple models.

Anthropic's Claude is a major alternative for coding, and Cursor also offers its own models and access to models from other providers.

Cursor co-founder Michael Truell has said OpenAI currently accounts for only around 5% of Cursor's model traffic, suggesting the platform is far less dependent on OpenAI than the headlines might make it appear.

So if you're not particularly attached to GPT, you may barely notice the change.

The takeaway

One of Cursor's biggest advantages has been the ability to choose between competing AI models inside a single coding environment. But SpaceX now owns a platform that depends, in part, on AI models supplied by companies competing with Elon Musk's own AI businesses.

OpenAI is the first major provider to change its relationship with Cursor following the acquisition. Whether it will be the last could matter much more than what happens on November 12.

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I’ve found so many ways to push myself and put my lazy ways behind me by implementing productivity routines into my daily schedule.

And with so many AI tools at my disposal, I’ve discovered a wealth of productivity-boosting hacks that have made me feel and work better. Completely disconnecting from physical & digital distractions, moving around as much as possible & staying hydrated during my work break and writing up digital journal entries with notes on everything I accomplished & hope to complete next have worked out great for me thus far.

Since I’m always on the lookout for productivity methods that can keep me in a focused and efficient state, I went to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity with a new mission: discover some of the more unconventional productivity boosters that I can try out for myself.

All four chatbots spit out a bunch of information about worthwhile techniques that worked as well as advertised.

Productivity practices I learned about for the very first time

Once I asked all four chatbots to give me a collection of the more offbeat productivity habits worth picking up, they shot back with a wealth of amazing regimens. These are the seven I ended up incorporating into my work-dominated lifestyle:

ChatGPT

• Use your phone as a reward, not a restriction: Instead of banning your phone completely, create a rule: 25 minutes of focused work → 5 minutes of guilt-free phone time. The important part is that the phone break is intentional rather than something you accidentally fall into.

Gemini

• Temptation Bundling: Pair a high-effort work task strictly with an immediate, high-reward stimulus. For example, listen to a favorite podcast or dynamic album ONLY while clearing out an inbox or organizing data.
• Binaural Beats & Pink Noise: Replace music with pink noise or 40Hz binaural beats. Pink noise masks abrupt environmental sounds, while beta/gamma frequencies can enhance sustained focus without the distraction of lyrics.

Claude

• Use "implementation intentions" instead of willpower: Instead of "I'll work out today," commit to "I'll work out at 7am in my living room before checking my phone." Vague intentions rely on motivation; specific if-then plans bypass the decision-making that kills follow-through.
• Use a "two-minute delay" for urges: Not a ban — a delay. When you feel the urge to check something, wait two minutes first. Most urges pass; the ones that don't are usually worth acting on anyway.

Perplexity

• Make your workspace slightly too boring: Keep only materials needed for the current task in view. The goal is not a photogenic desk; it is fewer visual prompts competing for attention.
• Use a transition ritual after meetings: Take two minutes to write: “What was decided? What is my next action? What can wait?” Then stand up or change rooms before starting the next task. This prevents one meeting from mentally leaking into the next hour.

How they managed to work out for me afterward

I spent one week using one of the chatbot’s suggested productivity hacks for each day of my busy workweek.

I made sure to do as much research in a and turn a draft into a polished, published article in a 20- to 25-minute time span before I “treated” myself to a brief phone session (having a 5-minute Discord meetup with my gaming buddies felt like a nice “reward” for my hard effort).

I paired some of my favorite jazz albums with some of the smaller tasks on my to-do list—jamming to some Telemakus tunes while I responded to emails, chatted with my co-workers on Slack, developed pitches and set up my calendar for future meetings/press events ended up being a great productivity-boosting combination.

While the sound of pink noise left me more annoyed than comfortable, throwing my over-the-ear headphones on to listen to 40 HZ binaural beats while I wrote helped me focus better than I anticipated. Turning my vague responsibilities into more defined ones (“I’m going to do at least 15 minutes of stretching exercises during my work break around 1 pm whenever I work from home”) earned a permanent place on my list of productivity routines.

That two-minute delay trick worked like a charm—whenever I got an impulse to check something random on my phone or hop on Twitter for a quick scrolling session, I remembered to lock in on whatever I was writing and make sure those urges left my system. Making my home desk nothing but a workstation and ridding it of all the little trinkets and statues that were there before did a lot for my degree of concentration.

And once my meetings came to a close, jotting down some quick follow-up notes and taking a quick bathroom or walk break before I tended to my next task helped break up my duties into neatly contained work blocks.

The takeaway

ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity supplied me with the perfect productivity practices needed to steady my focus every day. The hacks each chatbot gave me did a great job of pushing me to get more work done and activating my happy hormones whenever I rewarded myself. I’ve gotten used to my four favorite chatbots giving me useful bits of actionable advice and, once again, they all managed to elevate my productivity levels.

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Mostly, I try to avoid AI. It's not a moral stance, I just like the challenge of solving problems on my own, and staying hands-on. For me, the fun is in the friction of figuring it out myself.

Most of the time, that hands-on approach works fine. But every so often, stubbornness stops being a virtue and becomes a bottleneck.

I don't turn to AI to optimize my life or try out the latest tech. I turn to it when I’ve hit a wall, the obvious solutions have failed, and I need a way out immediately.

These are the five specific moments my self-reliance hit its limit — and the exact prompts that helped.

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I’m constantly in the market for the sort of routines that can put me in a comfortable physical and mental state.

Beginner exercises that get the blood flowing, mid-afternoon strolls around the neighborhood during my work breaks and nightly handwritten/typed “braindumps” have done a lot for me this year alone. With my professional responsibilities, it does get a bit hard to mix in those sorts of practices in between my hours of researching, writing, editing, taking meetings and conducting interviews. So I went ahead and told ChatGPT about my weekly schedule in hopes of it building a wellness routine I could realistically implement within it that’s easy to stick to.

My digital assistant took this challenge head-on and emerged with the sort of wellness regimen that gave my five-day work schedule an extra element of physical and mental maintenance.

And on top of that newfound routine, ChatGPT also recommended some additional habits that were a bit out of the norm yet equally handy.

Building a routine that protects my energy, physical health, focus, sleep and mental bandwidth

I presented my request to ChatGPT with the following prompt:

“I work five days a week as a digital journalist from 9 am to 5 pm (three days from the office and two days at home). Build me a realistic weekly wellness routine that can help me stay in a good to great physical and mental state.”

Not only did the chatbot lay out a series of useful physical exercises and methods meant to keep me mentally balanced, but it also gave me different ones to utilize for all of my workdays. As an example of what it set out for me to do, here’s all of the Monday activities (entitled “Ease Into The Week”) it gave me for the morning through late afternoon and evening hours:

• Morning: 7:00 — Wake up, drink water, get some natural light. 7:15 am — 10–15 minutes of mobility/stretching. 7:30 — Breakfast with protein + fiber. 8:00 — Get ready/commute. 9:00–5:00 — Work. Take a 5-minute movement break every 60–90 minutes. Walk, stretch, get water, or simply step away from the screen.
• Evening: 5:30–6:15 — 30–45-minute workout. Make Monday a strength session. 6:30 — Dinner. 7:30–9:00 — Free time. No productivity requirement. 9:00 — Start reducing work/news/social-media stimulation. 10:30–11:00 — Bed.
• Mental Goal: Don't start Monday at 100%. Start at 70–80% and build momentum.

The rest of the weekdays came with their own themes and assorted practices.

Tuesday is all about cardio & employing a mental reset; Wednesday is aimed at prioritizing strength training & sustained recovery; Thursday is set aside for fitness methods that are a bit more fun (such as a pick-up basketball game, for instance); Friday is set aside for planning for the week ahead & skipping hard workouts.

I also made sure to keep the mental goals for each subsequent day in mind while I performed a combination of physical conditioning and cognitive stimulation:

• Tuesday Mental Goal: Tuesday is your "decompress from the internet" day. You're exposed to information all day for work; don't feel obligated to consume more of it at night.
• Wednesday Mental Goal: Wednesday is about preventing the midweek crash rather than trying to maximize productivity.
• Thursday Mental Goal: Put something on your calendar that you look forward to every Thursday.
• Friday Mental Goal: Create a psychological boundary between journalist mode and weekend mode.

Unconventional methods that also worked like a charm

I wanted to get even more tips on how to maximize my productivity while also tending to my physical/mental prosperity, so I asked it to give me some alternative methods. These three practices stuck as the main ones I could easily adopt into my pre-made wellness routine:

• Create a "phone exile zone": Pick one location in your home where your phone doesn't belong. For example: Dining table = phone-free. Or: Bedroom = phone-free. If you need an alarm, use a cheap alarm clock. The physical distance is much more powerful than simply telling yourself, "I'll try not to look at it."
• Schedule "anti-journalism" time: Once a week, deliberately spend 60–90 minutes doing something completely unrelated to your professional interests. If you normally read about technology, don't read tech. If you write about AI, don't experiment with AI. If you're constantly thinking about consumer technology, go cook something. The purpose is to prevent your professional identity from swallowing your personal curiosity.
• Establish a "Sunday night curiosity ritual": Instead of spending Sunday night thinking about Monday, spend 30 minutes exploring something purely because you're curious about it. A documentary. A strange Wikipedia rabbit hole. A book. Astronomy. Architecture. History. Cooking. Music. You're still learning—but unlike journalism, there's no assignment at the end.

The takeaway

After inserting ChatGPT’s wellness routine into my weekly agenda, I got used to doing it without even having to remind myself of what it was.

Making a concerted effort to get up out of my computer chair (and stay up!) for five to ten minutes at a time, doing a bit of cardio to break up the monotony and doing a bunch of pre-planning on Friday after my workday comes to an end became some of my most reliable practices.

Simply standing upright, stretching for a few minutes, deciding what to do next and actually leaving the confines of my workspace to go do it energized me enough to come back to my laptop with renewed vigor.

ChatGPT said it best when it summarized everything its wellness routine is supposed to do for me:

Don't use wellness to become more productive. Use wellness to make your life better even when you're not working. That distinction is particularly important for knowledge workers. Otherwise, it's very easy to turn exercise, sleep, nutrition, meditation, and even leisure into another performance dashboard.

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Although I cover artificial intelligence now, earlier in my career I was a comedy writer and wrote jingles. As I was going through my Google Drive recently, I came across a folder from my very early writing days.

The old piece was fun to see, and had been used for a writing workshop I took at Harvard about 20 years ago. The story is very much a product of its time because it includes instant messaging, Clippy (that animated paper clilp) and a reference to a fax machine. But the humor still holds up because it's about workplace struggles with technology.

I figured that piece would be a good one to test ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini as writing coaches.

I wasn’t looking for the chatbot that could rewrite it most aggressively or smooth out every sentence. I wanted to know whether any of them could recognize what was already working, find the places where the story dragged and help me improve the comedy without stripping away my voice.

Here's what happened when I gave all three of them the draft.

The draft

I gave all three chatbots the same draft and the same instructions. All three offered useful advice, but one understood the story on a much deeper level.

The piece begins with what should be a very simple request from a boss: reserve the main conference room for an important meeting in an hour.

Unfortunately, the narrator has never used the email system to book a room before. What follows is an escalating workplace crisis involving a 21-year-old intern, a sleepy coworker, a phone call from the office bathroom and a woman named Sharon who brushes her teeth at her desk.

I left everything untouched for the test. That meant keeping the dated references, awkward sentences and obvious mistakes, including “starred” instead of “stared,” “the the” and “marshmellows.”

Those errors gave the chatbots something easy to catch, but proofreading wasn’t really the point. I wanted to know whether they understood why the story was funny.

The entire piece builds toward the boss casually revealing that he solved the problem by putting a sticky note on the door — the same solution the narrator rejected when the intern suggested it. A good writing coach should understand why that callback matters and avoid “improving” the story in a way that weakens it.

The prompt I used

I entered the same prompt each time: Act as my writing coach. Don’t rewrite this piece for me. Identify what is already working, where the humor or momentum drops, and the three changes that would make the biggest difference. Preserve my voice, comedic timing and the period in which the story takes place. Be specific and quote brief examples from my draft when useful.

I judged the responses on how specific the feedback was, whether each chatbot understood the comic escalation and whether its suggestions would actually make the piece better.

I also paid attention to restraint. I wanted help seeing the draft more clearly, not a chatbot taking over and writing a different story.

ChatGPT focused on timing

ChatGPT zeroed in on the rhythm of the piece and gave me some of the most precise line-level edits.

One of its strongest suggestions was to make better use of the introduction and then it told me how to better raise the stakes in the middle of the story to keep things moving. It also suggested trimming certain aspects of the story to give the dialogue more room and help the jokes land without changing what's actually happening.

It also suggested minor tweaks that involved creative elements that I may not have considered to help connect two of the strongest visual jokes in the middle of the story.

ChatGPT understood the timing of the piece and gave me edits I could use immediately. However, it spent more time polishing individual moments than examining whether every step in the story made sense.

Claude found the hole in the story

Claude approached the piece differently. It looked beyond individual lines and explained how the comedy was built.

It identified the central joke as the gap between the size of the task and the size of the narrator’s panic. Reserving a conference room should take a minute. Instead, it becomes a crisis involving several coworkers, a bathroom phone call and increasingly desperate attempts to avoid admitting that she doesn’t know what she’s doing.

Claude also understood why the seemingly random details belonged in the story. Sharon’s toothbrush isn’t there just because it’s funny that someone brushes her teeth at her desk, but it elevates another element of the story — something that I hadn't even noticed that I had subconsciously done.

More importantly, Claude spotted a problem the other chatbots missed: we never learn what the employees in the story actually do for work. The narrator moves through the story too quickly, which is something that impacts the entire story. Claude noticed it.

So while the chatbot didn’t try to decide the joke for me. It pointed out that I needed to choose. Claude worked to protect my ideas and text without interjecting it's own ideas. It seemed to understand the story and knew exactly which punchlines were holding it together.

Gemini gave the clearest advice

Gemini’s feedback was the easiest to absorb and apply.

It quickly identified the strongest moments in the story, recognized why the premise is relatable and the punchlines. Its suggestions were direct. Like ChatGPT it suggested I tighten the opening, trim some of the descriptions and expand the dialogue.

Gemini even showed me exactly where the opening could lose a few words and how the dialogue could be made punchier. I wouldn’t have had to interpret much before beginning a revision.

That clarity was Gemini’s biggest strength, but its analysis didn’t go as deep as Claude’s. It helped me tighten the story in front of me without finding the one place where the story’s logic breaks down.

The best AI writing coach

Claude gave me the best writing advice because it understood both the jokes and the structure supporting them.

ChatGPT was especially strong on rhythm and gave me the most inventive suggestion with the returning Tetris image. Gemini delivered clear advice that I could apply without overthinking it. But Claude found issues with the piece that I hadn't even noticed, which is exactly what a writing coach or editor does — and would have immediately improved the story.

Claude also gave me a choice instead of trying to write the solution itself. It showed me where the gap was, explained why it mattered and left the joke to me. That’s exactly what I want from a writing coach.

All three chatbots are certainly capable of offering useful writing advice, but they were useful in different ways.

ChatGPT was the strongest line editor, especially when it came to pacing and recurring imagery. Gemini offered the clearest path into a revision. Claude was the best at stepping back and seeing how every part of the story worked together.

The test also reinforced why I prefer asking AI to respond to my writing instead of writing it for me. When a chatbot rewrites an entire draft, it becomes difficult to separate your choices from its choices. Asking for a limited number of specific recommendations keeps you in control. You can consider the advice, reject what doesn’t fit and make the changes yourself.

The wording of the prompt helped. Telling the chatbots to preserve my voice and the period of the story discouraged them from modernizing the technology or replacing the dated details. Asking for only three changes forced them to prioritize instead of burying the useful feedback inside a long list of corrections.

I still wouldn’t accept any chatbot’s writing advice without questioning it. An AI can correctly identify a slow section and then suggest cutting the exact detail that makes the story sound like you. But if I were returning to an old draft and wanted help seeing what I could no longer see, I’d choose Claude.

Let me know in the comments what you think about using AI has a writing partner.

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Explaining a task to ChatGPT sounds simple enough until you actually try to describe all the small decisions you make as you go.

You could be preparing a monthly expense report, creating a presentation template or putting together the same spreadsheet every Friday. Even though you know precisely how to carry out these tasks, converting the process by articulating each step requires you to recall the details which you would normally deal with without having to think about them.

ChatGPT now has a way to make this easier simply by showing the AI what to do.

With Record & Replay in ChatGPT Work, the AI can watch you carry out a workflow on your Mac and then turn what it has seen into a reusable skill. The feature was initially created for Codex but is also compatible with ChatGPT Work.

I tried it and was blown away by how easy it is — you really do just show the task once, including the minor preferences that would be hard to include in a prompt, after which ChatGPT prepares a skill that explains when to use the workflow, what information it needs, which steps to follow and how to check that everything has worked. This process makes AI automation much more accessible to people who know what they want ChatGPT to do but have no idea how to create a workflow from scratch.

What you need before getting started

Record & Replay is now available on macOS, just be sure Computer Use is available and turned on.

In the ChatGPT desktop app, select either ChatGPT Work or Codex. I almost always use ChatGPT Work by default, but both work. From there, go to Plugins, click on the plus sign and pick Record a skill. ChatGPT will provide you with a suggested opening prompt, which you can edit before you start.

Permission must be granted for it to start recording, after which you should carry out the task as usual. When you have finished, you can stop the recording from the menu bar or the overlay, or just let ChatGPT know that you're done.

ChatGPT will look at the workflow and prepare the skill for you. You'll then be able to review it, indicate any points at which it has misunderstood something, and add rules for decisions that weren't clear from observing you.

The following seven prompts can be used to attempt it.

1. Teach ChatGPT the way in which you file an expense.

Expense systems usually have their own sets of menus, categories, and required fields, and a recording can show where receipts should go, how you name them, and which options you normally choose.

Prompt: I'm going to demonstrate to you the way in which I file an expense report. You should note how I name the expense, select a category, attach the receipt and fill in the required fields. Once I've finished, I'll turn the process into a reusable skill. Whenever you want to submit a further expense, just ask me to check the amount, the category and the attached receipt.

Be sure to use a sample which does not contain account numbers or any other sensitive information while the recording is taking place.

2. Make the regular report again.

Whenever you download data and arrange it in the same manner each week or month, Record & Replay is able to work out where you find it and what you then do with it.

Prompt: Let me show you how I download and organize this recurring report. Note the date range that I choose, the filters that I apply, the way that I rename the file and where I save it. Make a skill which requests the new reporting period before carrying out the workflow again.

It is a clear case for showing rather than explaining, since you can adjust a filter or rename a column without treating it as a separate step. Once you try this and see how easy it is, you'll never manually do it yourself again.

3. Create calendar invitations how you prefer

If you are in charge of scheduling a lot of meetings, you probaly have a preference regarding calendar invitations, for instance how long each meeting is or when the reminders should appear; rather than giving a list of these preferences, you can show them.

Prompt: I'll show you how I produce a calendar invitation. I'll find out my typical meeting duration, the way I format the title, my style for writing the description, how I set the location, my preferences regarding video calls and my reminder settings. Convert this into a reusable skill, but always request that I check the guests, the date and the time before sending out the invitation.

That final stage of approval is important since a skill should speed up the process of setting up a calendar without inviting the wrong person because two contacts happen to have the same name.

4. Release a video or another piece of content

Putting together published content usually requires much more than just uploading a file, since there are often titles, descriptions, categories, thumbnail settings and other fields that have to be filled in consistently.

Prompt: Let me show you how I'm publishing this video. I'll explain where I upload the file, how I format the title and description, what category and visibility settings I select, and the checks that I make before publishing. Make a reusable skill that asks for the new video, title and description every time, and don't publish anything until I have approved the final settings.

The same prompt can be used for blog posts, podcast episodes, newsletters or social media content.

5. Set up a project ticket in the correct format

It is common for teams to have informal rules when creating tickets in project management tools, which might include specific title format, labels, name an owner, state its priority and have a set of acceptance criteria.

Prompt: I'm going to demonstrate to you the way I produce a project ticket for my team. Make note of the title format, the labels, the priority, the owner, the description and the acceptance criteria. Rewrite this so that it requests the details of the task and then displays the completed ticket for you to approve before it is created.

You can improve the skill by explaining how it should deal with unusual requests or how it should choose between two similar labels.

6. Organize downloaded files

I've noticed my downloads folder gets messy really fast, especially after a couple weeks of downloading PDFs, images and notes. ChatGPT is able to pick up your filing system if you show it how.

Prompt: See how I rename and sort these downloaded files. Find out about the naming convention, identify the right folder and determine which files should be left as they are. Make a reusable skill that previews each suggested filename and destination before carrying out any movement.

While I'm checking that the skill understands the folder structure, I prefer to keep the first few replays small because it's more difficult to correct if the wrong file is moved than it is to correct a wrong entry in a form field.

7. Get a document ready for review.

If you always carry out the same steps before sending a document to your boss, client or a colleague, these steps might be useful. You can use AI to rename the file, export it in a different format, put it in a shared folder and compose a message with the link.

Prompt: I'll show you how I get a document ready for review. Look at how I name the file, export it, save it in the right location and prepare the review message. Make a reusable skill which asks me who the document is for and then waits for my approval before sharing or sending anything.

How to get the best results

After playing with this feature, there are a few issues I noticed. For example, make sure that the recording is brief and concentrates on a single task. This is not the time to pile a lot into one prompt. Also, before you begin, inform ChatGPT of the details that will be different next time, for example the dates for the report, the file to be uploaded or the people invited to the meeting.

OpenAI also advises making use of realistic examples while avoiding the inclusion of secrets and sensitive data. Since ChatGPT has to observe the actions and the content of the window in order to learn the workflow, you should close any items that you don't want to be included before you start.

When you've created the skill, have a look at it. Don't run it without reviewing the recording to see the clicks you made and overall recording. This is your opportunity to include the unwritten rules, naming conventions and exceptions that exist in your mind.

Overall, I have to say Record & Replay feels like a hidden feature that I have not utilized enough. Give it a try if you regularly catch yourself thinking, “It would take longer to explain this than to do it myself.” And once you try it, let me know in the comments what you think.

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AI has made its way into the creation of music, art and literature. Some video game development studios are now using AI tools as part of their creative methods. And that same blossoming technology is relied upon by everyday people to help them with their persian land professional challenges.

Speaking of personal challenges, many users use AI (such as ChatGPT Health) to learn more about their health conditions and get all the data they need to remain in a great physical state. With a growing number of healthcare professionals using AI systems to detect diseases early, get recommendations on how to treat individual patients, handle administrative tasks and more, AI is becoming more prevalent within the healthcare industry.

There’s an important question that must be asked in relation to the rise of AI in healthcare: How much of our healthcare should we actually trust to artificial intelligence?

To help us answer that question and get a definitive take on the one thing AI should never be in charge of from a medical perspective, we spoke to Imamu "Mu" Tomlinson, MD, a practicing emergency physician and CEO of Vituity, a national healthcare organization that is actively advancing healthcare technology and AI-enabled care solutions.

AI’s modern-day presence in healthcare and what its future may look like

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I write for a living and I use AI every single day. But that doesn't mean that I use AI to write. I've loved the art of writing long before artificial intelligence was available for use by the general public, so the idea of using it to do what I've enjoyed doing for decades really doesn't make sense to me.

But I have found that some of the best ways to use AI do support making my writing in general — just not generating the actual words. Instead, I use it before I write, while I'm researching and after I've finished a draft. Sometimes I use it when I know something isn't working but can't quite figure out why.

Using AI has become my writing partner as if I was in a writers' room. Since I work remotely, leaning on it has become a way to ask unlimited questions, including annoying ones, that might otherwise annoy an actual human writer.

If you write for work, school or just yourself, and have questioned whether to use an AI humanizer to make your AI writing less detectable, scrap your process. Here are seven ways I'd use ChatGPT to make the process easier without asking it to write a single sentence for you.

1. Pressure-test your idea before you start

One of my favorite things to do with ChatGPT happens before I've written anything. I'll explain what I want to write about and then ask it to poke holes in the idea. I'll give AI my "big idea" and ask what it thinks. Now that ChatGPT is less people-pleasing, it actually tells me when my ideas aren't as great as I think they are. And when the ideas don't have legs, AI offers suggestions to help make them work.

Prompt to try: I'm thinking about writing an article for my Substack arguing that [idea]. Don't help me write it. Tell me what's weak about the premise, what I'm assuming and what a skeptical reader might push back on.

The important part here is telling ChatGPT what you don't want.

Ask "What do you think of this idea?" and there's a decent chance you'll get an enthusiastic response about why it's interesting. Asking it specifically to find problems tends to produce something much more useful.

You might ignore half of what it says. That's fine. The point isn't to let ChatGPT decide whether your idea is good. It's to uncover the questions you need to answer before you start writing.

2. Find the questions you haven't thought to ask

This is one of the most useful ways I've found to use AI for research. Once I know the basics of a subject, I'll tell ChatGPT what I've learned and ask what I'm missing.

Prompt to try: Here's what I know about [topic]. What questions would you want answered before you felt like you fully understood this story? Don't answer the questions. Just tell me what I should investigate.

That last instruction makes the biggest difference for me every time.

AI models can confidently give you an answer when what you really need is a research direction. I don't necessarily want ChatGPT telling me the answer. I want it pointing at the hole.

This can be particularly useful before an interview or before sending out a pitch to a publisher who might publish your book. You can give ChatGPT the questions you've already prepared and ask what you haven't asked.

I've had moments where one of those suggestions made me realize there was a much more interesting story sitting underneath the one I thought I was reporting.

3. Use AI to understand your research, not replace it

There's a huge difference between using ChatGPT as a source and using it to help you understand your sources.

I wouldn't cite ChatGPT for an important factual claim. I will absolutely use it when I'm staring at technical documentation and thinking, "What on earth does this mean?" Or, if I hear a "fact" that I'm questioning, I will ask ChatGPT to find the source.

Prompt to try: [I'll paste in the relevant material and ask questions about it] Explain this to me like I'm intelligent but completely new to this subject. Stick only to the information I've provided. Tell me if my question can't be answered from it.

Then I go back to the original material. This is especially useful when you're entering an unfamiliar subject and don't yet know the vocabulary. Once you understand a little about something, be it a historical event or a gadget, you suddenly know what to search for, who to talk to and what questions to ask.

The important part is that ChatGPT hasn't done the research for you. It has helped you get better at doing the research yourself.

4. Ask ChatGPT to disagree with you

This might be my favorite one. AI assistants have a tendency to be agreeable. That's nice when you're chatting with them. It's considerably less useful when you're trying to figure out whether an argument holds up.

So don't ask: Does my argument make sense?

Prompt to try: Make the strongest possible argument against my position. What evidence or reasoning would someone use to challenge it?

You can go further:

Assume you're a skeptical editor/publisher/manager/professor who doesn't think this story/presentation/essay should be published. Make the case against it.

Now you have something to respond to.

Maybe ChatGPT's objections are terrible. Maybe you've already addressed them. Or maybe it identifies the exact thing that's been bothering you about the piece but you couldn't put your finger on. Either way, you've forced yourself to defend the argument rather than simply asking an AI to validate it.

5. Ask where your draft gets boring

To be fair, I usually know when something is getting boring. But there are a lot of questions you can ask AI to avoid boring your audience. Once I've written something, I don't necessarily want ChatGPT to rewrite it.

Sometimes I just want to know where it drags.

Prompt to try: Read this as an impatient reader. Tell me the three places where you're most likely to stop reading. Don't rewrite anything. Explain why you lost interest.

I love this because it separates diagnosis from treatment.

ChatGPT can tell you that you've spent four paragraphs explaining something the reader probably understood after two. It can point out that the opening moves slowly or that an interesting idea appears halfway through the article when it probably deserves more attention.

But then you fix it. That means the voice, rhythm and decisions stay yours. AI simply acted as an editor.

6. Let ChatGPT find your bad habits

Every writer has bad habits. I know mine is using "because" a little too often. I also often use the same transitions. But whether it's that every third paragraph starts with "But" or you have a favorite word that appears 14 times in 800 words, it's not always obvious. After you've been starting at the same draft for an hour or days, those things become invisible.

This is where AI is fantastic.

Prompt to try: Don't rewrite this. Analyze my writing habits. Look for repeated words, phrases, sentence structures, unnecessary qualifiers, clichés and patterns I'm relying on too often.

You can even make this more useful over time by giving ChatGPT several pieces you've written and asking what patterns appear across all of them. Some of the feedback will be subjective. You don't have to accept it.

But once someone, even an AI someone, points out that you've used the same phrase six times, it's very difficult to unsee it.

7. Give your finished draft one last interrogation

This is the step I'd do immediately before considering something finished. Don't ask ChatGPT to polish the draft. Don't ask it to "make this better." Ask it to interrogate it.

Prompt to try: Act as a skeptical final editor. Don't rewrite anything. Identify factual claims I should verify, assumptions I'm making, contradictions or inconsistencies, places where I haven't supported my argument and questions a reader may still have when they finish.

For something important, I'd make the instruction even stricter:

Don't tell me what's good about the piece. I'm only interested in potential problems.

Then work through the response yourself. ChatGPT might flag something that doesn't need fixing or it could misunderstand your argument, it's just a way to have another "set of eyes" take a pass at your work.

Bottom line: AI doesn't have to be the writer

There's an understandable fear around using AI for writing: If I hand too much of the process to ChatGPT, at what point does the writing stop being mine? My solution is simply to not hand over the actual writing to AI at all.

Instead, use it as a supportive writing partner. Use AI to question your premise, poke holes in your research, disagree with you and find the paragraph where you started rambling and point out that you've used "actually" nine times.

Then close the chatbot and fix those things yourself. Because the best use I've found for ChatGPT isn't asking it what I should say, but how to question what I've said to make the final draft worth publishing.

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I’ve been exploring the AI tool market and have a better understanding of the biggest strengths and weaknesses of the big three.

ChatGPT’s response time is amazingly fast, and it's great for creative brainstorming, but it's more prone to hallucinations. Claude is great for lengthy document analysis, and its writing reads more human-like, but its usage limits are pretty tight for free users and cap out pretty quickly. As for Google’s signature chatbot, Gemini’s reliance on real-time web research that cites the most up-to-date information and its Google Workspace integration are top-notch. But it’s also prone to hallucinations and isn’t all that great at handling complex prompts.

With all those pros and cons in mind, I’ve been engaging in the practice of starting my research-themed chats in ChatGPT, moving them over to Claude and then doing a final transfer of them over to Gemini. I’ve done a whole lot of copying and pasting text to make that happen, just so I can get a second and third opinion on what Claude and Gemini’s interpretation of my initial questions and each preceding chatbot’s responses.

Thankfully, my editor made me aware of a Chrome extension that makes my whole “chat transfer” practice a whole lot simpler. And it’s given me a better way to retain context between chats and stronger follow-up responses to my research queries.

Shifting my conversations with just a few clicks

The Chrome extension that’s now a central part of my chatbot research sessions is ThreadPort, which goes beyond just summarizing a conversation from another AI tool in a separate one.

After attaching it to my Chrome browser, I made it more easily accessible by clicking on the extension icon at the top right of my screen next to my Google profile pic and clicking on the pin icon to make the ThreadPort extension visible as a purple icon that’s visible in the same area.

ThreadPort actually moves the full transcript of a conversation, makes sure the subsequent AI that gets access to that information reads everything that was previously said and picks up exactly where I left off when trying to move the conversation forward. You can move your chats from ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, plus you can do that in reverse order at the start of a new chat if need be.

It truly doesn’t matter how long your initial conversation may end up being—ThreadPort is capable of handling the transcript transcription action with ease, as it does a good job of retaining a chat’s defined task. On the digital safety front, the developer of this Chrome extension eased my fears by stating that my transferred chats will never be contained with their servers (they’re nonexistent, after all).

During one of my recent research sessions, I ended up using ThreadPort to get a wider range of opinions on the subject at hand. I started with ChatGPT by asking about the biggest development in the video game industry that will have a major impact on the next generation of home consoles.

The chatbot gave me its take on the eight major developments I need to pay attention to and the bigger-picture statement surrounding the next generation of gaming (The really interesting story isn't “PS6 vs. next Xbox.” It's whether Sony and Microsoft can convince people that buying a dedicated console still makes sense in a world where gaming is increasingly available on PCs, handhelds, phones, and the cloud).

With all that in mind, I clicked on the ThreadPort icon to take all of the information ChatGPT laid out, move it over to Claude and continue my conversation over there by asking for its thoughts on the current most positive gaming trends it foresees becoming the norm for the future of the industry itself.

To make its intention clear, ThreadPort pasted the transcript from ChatGPT into Claude by stating the following: You are continuing a conversation that started on ChatGPT. Below is the transcript so far. Absorb it as context and continue the conversation naturally — do not summarize it back to me, just pick up where it left off. If the transcript ends with a question from me, answer it.

Claude read through the entire transcript it was given and acknowledged it with this statement: Good context to draw from. Now let me continue the conversation naturally, focusing on the genuinely positive side rather than just repeating the same industry-shift framing.

Once I was finished reading through Claude’s optimistic take on the conversation I started with ChatGPT, I decided to transfer both chatbots’ combined bits of dialogue from Claude to Gemini. Google’s chatbot took the hint as to what I was talking about beforehand and used it to answer my follow-up-question about the negative trends in the gaming industry that it predicts will happen during the next console cycle.

Gemini initially responded to me in the same manner that Claude did, as it pointed out what was already said in my previous conversation: The structural cracks in the business model point to a console cycle that could be harsher on developers and consumers alike. While the previous points highlight shifts in technology and ecosystems, these are the negative, high-impact developments heading into the next hardware generation.

The takeaway

Putting ThreadPort through its paces with my gaming industry-focused research session became a lot more comprehensive with all that chatbot switching and info-retaining transcripts that helped ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini pick up where the other one left off.

Utilizing ChatGPT’s fast response time, getting the most out of Claude’s ability to analyze longer text threads and tapping into Gemini’s use of Google’s real-time information across the internet came together to paint a clear picture of what I was looking for. I’ll be sure to use ThreadPort for my future chatbot research sessions to get as much complete data and predictive takeaways on the topic at hand.

Here’s hoping Perplexity and Kimi become a part of ThreadPort’s chat-switching chatbot family at some point.

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My son was shopping for middle school supplies when he ran into a problem I assumed Amazon had solved years ago.

His best friend didn’t have the school supply list, so my son wanted to send him the contents of his own Amazon cart. The idea was simple: compare what they had picked and make sure they were buying the same binders, notebooks and other supplies.

Except there was no share button. Well, there is, but only for businesses using Amazon business. The only option for consumers is to share Lists, but that would have required my son to create a new list and move everything over after he had already filled his cart. It’s possible, but hardly intuitive. He didn’t want to create a registry. He wanted to send his friend the cart that was already sitting in front of him.

Amazon does have an official Share Cart feature, but it’s designed for Amazon Business accounts. That felt like a strangely obvious feature for Amazon to leave out. So I decided to see whether I could build it myself.

I asked ChatGPT to build CartShare

I'm always looking for a reason to build something, but I really wondered if it would be possible to build something like this. For those who aren't developers, vibe coding has made it incredibly easy to see a problem and build a solution using natural language.

In this case, I described the problem to ChatGPT: I wanted a button that could read the products and quantities in an Amazon cart, turn them into a private link and let someone else open that link to see the same supplies.

The result was CartShare, a small website paired with a Chrome extension.

The proposed flow was exactly what my son had asked for. Open an Amazon cart, click the CartShare extension and copy the resulting link. The friend receiving it could check off anything they already owned, open individual products on Amazon or select the supplies they wanted.

The shared cart itself didn’t require an account or database. Product identifiers, titles and quantities were encoded inside the link, which meant CartShare didn’t need anyone’s Amazon password, delivery address or payment information.

ChatGPT built the interface, packaged the Chrome extension and published the site. It looked like a real product, complete with a name, privacy language and a large button promising to copy the selected products into the recipient’s Amazon cart.

Does it actually work?

Yes...and no. The sharing page worked. CartShare could display a set of products, preserve their quantities and create a link that could be sent to someone else.

The one-click Amazon transfer did not. The prototype attempted to use an Amazon cart URL containing the product identifiers and quantities. When I tested it, Amazon returned a 500 error and said it didn’t support the session or client.

That meant the most satisfying part of the idea, pressing one button and watching someone else’s cart populate, couldn’t be treated as finished. The Chrome extension that reads the original cart still needs to be tested against a real Amazon cart as well, since Amazon can change the structure of its pages at any time.

I went back to the CartShare site and changed it. The transfer button was removed and replaced with a clear status notice explaining that the project worked only partially. Recipients could compare products and open them individually, but CartShare could not yet promise a complete cart-to-cart transfer.

It was a useful reminder of how deceptive vibe coding can be, even when nobody is trying to deceive anyone. AI can produce a polished interface before the underlying behavior has been properly tested. The buttons, colors and copy make the project feel finished, but a convincing website is not proof that the feature behind it works especially when you put it up against a big corporation like Amazon.

Bottom line

Could CartShare eventually work? Probably, although it may require both people to install the extension.

Instead of relying on Amazon’s rejected cart URL, a future version could open the recipient’s Amazon cart and add each selected product through the same visible controls a shopper would use. That would be slower and more fragile because the extension would need to keep up with changes to Amazon’s website. It would still avoid sharing passwords or payment information.

The other option is to stop short of automatically filling the recipient’s cart. Even a clean, shareable page showing the exact products and quantities is more convenient than asking someone to rebuild a cart from screenshots or create an Amazon List after the shopping is already done.

CartShare isn’t ready to replace Amazon’s missing share button. It is a public prototype that shows how the feature could work and, perhaps more importantly, where the simple idea runs into Amazon’s technical boundaries.

My son’s request took seconds to explain. Vibe coding turned it into a website and Chrome extension without requiring me to become a developer first. Getting from a convincing prototype to a dependable product is where the harder work begins but overall, I feel like this was a win. I personally enjoy seeing how things work, even if they don't fully come to fruition.

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Common sense should always prevail during your repeated interactions with an AI tool.

Whenever you’re having a detailed conversation with the likes of ChatGPT and comparable AI tools, a good rule of thumb to keep in mind is never to tell them anything about you that could potentially harm you if it were ever exposed in an AI data leak. It makes all the sense in the world for someone dipping their toes into the world of AI or who’s already experienced with it to never share their personal passwords/credentials, financial account info, government-issued IDs, highly sensitive personal information about you & anyone else, precise info about important addresses and confidential information tied to your job.

It’s far more beneficial to provide ChatGPT with the sort of personal details that can help it understand you better and get a better read on how to help you with your requests. But you never want to give it all the important details that could expose something about you that you want to keep private.

To make sure ChatGPT delivers better answers to your questions and the best results for varied inquiries, make sure you share these important (and safe!) details with it.

The safest, most useful things ChatGPT should know about you

Here’s a primer on the seven personal details you should tell ChatGPT that will not only give you improved personalized answers but also steer it away from turning your personal profile into a vault of sensitive information:

• Your goals: Letting ChatGPT know what you’re trying to accomplish, such as wanting to become a better guitar player or grow your YouTube channel, is definitely worth doing.
• Your level of AI tool expertise: You’ll want to make sure ChatGPT recognizes you as either a beginner, intermediate, advanced or expert chatbot user so it can either stop oversimplifying its answers or overwhelming you with overcomplicated explanations.
• Your response preferences: Using phrases like “give me concise answers with clear examples” or “challenge my assumptions rather than simply agreeing with me” lets ChatGPT know how you prefer to have its responses delivered to you.
• Your constraints: For certain requests, it’s always with mentioning your limitations. Those could include your budget, time, available tools, deadlines, level of experience, etc.
• Your hobbies and interests: Whenever you’re prompting ChatGPT to give you any sort of recommendations, it’s always worth including information about the topics you care about the most.
• Your preferred context for the information you’re seeking: Making sure ChatGPT has a clear idea of what you’re using its information for is key to getting more personalized answers. For instance, letting ChatGPT know that “I’m researching this topic for myself” or “I’m planning to write a thesis paper about this” will help ChatGPT produce different responses for either situation.
• Your privacy and personalization boundaries: It’s definitely worth telling ChatGPT about everything you don’t want it to remember about you and use when trying to fulfill your requests. Reusable phrases, such as “Don’t use any sensitive information about me to personalize your answers” and “Ask any questions you may have before making assumptions about my circumstances,” help out immensely in this regard.

A reusable prompt that can make ChatGPT aware of who you are and what you want to accomplish

To avoid oversharing while simultaneously giving ChatGPT all the information it needs to build a personal profile about you, feel free to use this pre-generated prompt to get the process started:

I want to give you useful context about myself so you can provide more relevant, personalized answers without me having to repeat myself.

Ask me a series of concise questions to establish these seven areas:

1. My goals — What am I currently trying to accomplish, both short-term and long-term?

2. My expertise — What is my experience level in the subjects I’m likely to ask you about?

3. My preferences — How do I prefer information, explanations, recommendations, and feedback to be delivered?

4. My constraints — What limitations should you account for, such as time, budget, tools, deadlines, or resources?

5. My recurring interests — What subjects, hobbies, projects, or topics am I likely to return to?

6. My working context — What do I do, what am I working on, and who are my typical audiences or users?

7. My privacy and personalization boundaries — What information should you avoid asking for, remembering, inferring, or using to personalize your responses?

Interview me one area at a time rather than asking all seven at once. For each area, ask only the minimum number of questions needed to get genuinely useful information.

If I give you an answer that is vague or potentially useful to clarify, ask one focused follow-up question. Don't interrogate me or ask for information that isn't necessary.

At the end:

* Summarize what you learned.

* Separate useful personalization information from sensitive information I should not need to share.

* Identify any important gaps.

* Explain how this information will improve your future answers.

* Give me a concise "About Me" profile that I can save and reuse with another AI assistant.

Never pressure me to reveal passwords, financial credentials, precise location, private identifying information, or other highly sensitive information. When something isn't necessary for personalization, tell me I can leave it out.

Bottom line

Communicating with ChatGPT in the safest manner possible means providing it with key details about yourself that wouldn’t endanger you, anyone you know and any parts of your professional life. Giving a chatbot all the context it needs to help you conduct proper research, get the best product or vacation recommendations, learn new skills and get practical advice is worth doing.

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There was a time when typing all of my geeky, gaming, and vacation inquiries into Google was a daily occurrence.

Once a lightbulb came on over my head and compelled me to look up the best home office upgrades, the most up-to-date news about varied topics, and gaming tech that made me want to burn a hole in my wallet, I’d go to Google to find all the information I desired. With the inclusion of AI overviews and the tried-and-true tradition of pages full of links, I’ve been slowly moving away from relying on Google and doing all my searches with chatbots.

Thanks to the AI tools I’ve become familiar with this year, my daily search sessions have given me more personalized results. And thanks to those chatbots’ ability to analyze my prompts, compare options, and reason through them before giving me what I’m looking for, AI searching has become a go-to practice.

To give you an idea of how AI searching has proven to be better than Google searches, here’s a collection of prompts that work wonders for me.

The prompts I prefer over a traditional Google search

These seven prompts provide examples of those types of situations where I present them to a chatbot with the hope of getting personalized responses that distill all the information I need about topic research, future purchase inquiries, and more:

• The “I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for” search: I have $500 to spend on upgrading my home office. I already have a MacBook Air and a 27-inch monitor. Research current options and recommend the 5 upgrades that would make the biggest difference to my productivity. Prioritize genuinely useful items over gimmicks, and explain why each is worth the money.
• The “compare 10 things at once” search: Compare the 10 best AI voice recorders and wearables available right now for someone who has frequent meetings. Evaluate transcription accuracy, speaker identification, summaries, integrations, privacy, pricing, and mobile support. Rank them from best to worst and tell me which one you'd choose for a heavy daily user.
• The “find the best option for me” search: I want to visit Japan for 7 days in May. I love video games, anime, great food, and unusual experiences, but I don't want a rushed itinerary. Research current attractions and build me a realistic itinerary that balances Tokyo, Kyoto, and one less-touristy destination. Explain every major choice.
• The “research a complicated question” search: I want to understand whether buying an OLED TV is actually worth it compared with a high-end Mini-LED TV in 2026. Research current models, prices, brightness, contrast, burn-in concerns, gaming performance, and reviews. Give me a simple verdict for movies, sports, and console gaming.
• The “find something incredibly specific” search: Find me a pair of wireless headphones under $250 that have excellent noise cancellation, strong microphones for calls, multipoint Bluetooth, physical controls, and at least 25 hours of battery life. Eliminate anything that fails even one requirement, then rank the remaining options.
• The “make sense of the internet” search: Research the biggest developments in AI over the past month. Ignore routine product announcements and focus only on developments that could meaningfully change how ordinary people use AI. Identify the 7 most important developments, explain what happened, why it matters, and what consumers should actually do differently because of it.
• The “answer the question behind my question” search: I want to buy an Asus ROG Ally X, but I'm not sure whether I actually need one. Ask me the 7 most important questions about how I play games, what devices I own, where I play, and what games I like. Then use my answers to determine whether I should buy one, recommend alternatives if I shouldn't, and explain your reasoning.

Figuring out if what I want is something I actually need

Instead of doing an old-fashioned Google search about the best handheld gaming devices, I brought that seventh prompt to Gemini to decide if the Asus ROG Ally X was truly worth splurging on.

Gemini paid close attention to what I was asking and came back with the right set of questions to help it achieve its goal. Those questions covered what gaming devices I currently own, where I would actually be playing the device if I owned it, and whether I’m open to tolerating tinkering to get the best performance possible. For these three questions, I told Google’s chatbot that I own all three current-gen consoles, would use the Asus ROG Ally around the house, on road trips, and on flights, and am honestly expecting a seamless "it just works" console experience.

After answering Gemini’s questions, it quickly stated that getting the Asus ROG Ally just isn’t right for me. The main reasons it gave as proof that it’s a mismatch for me are that its battery life might not be enough for someone like me who plays lengthy, processor-heavy games, and my “it just works” dealbreaker.

As an aside, Gemini advised me to pick up a PlayStation Portal instead, making my Switch 2 my primary gaming device for flights & road trips and adding the Steam Deck to my collection if I really want a PC gaming handheld that’s close to the console experience thanks to its custom SteamOS interface.

Bottom line

Wading through pages and pages of Google search links just doesn’t benefit me anymore. Especially since I’m in my “Unc” years and want results tailored to my exact requirements.

Bringing my random queries to Gemini, ChatGPT, and other like-minded chatbots has become a much more preferable option over Googling. While I still use Google from time to time, I get much more out of AI tools when I need individualized results from my search-themed prompts.

With the prompt templates I have in place, you should have a better idea of how to get the most out of your future AI search sessions. It might be worth swapping out my search prompt for one focused on getting the most out of my stay in Japan and looking up an entirely different location altogether, FYI.

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I use ChatGPT and Claude every day, and lately I've found plenty of reasons to give Claude the edge. And just a day after Anthropic made it possible for Claude to send emails, OpenAI just added a feature that no other AI assistant can currently do.

ChatGPT can now connect directly to Apple Messages on a Mac, allowing it to search conversations, draft replies and even send messages on your behalf. While other AI assistants can help you write a text message, ChatGPT takes the task a step further with an Apple Messages plugin.

ChatGPT can now act on your messages

The new Apple Messages plugin arrived as part of an update to the ChatGPT app for macOS. It gives ChatGPT access to the Messages app on your Mac, including conversations synced through iMessage as well as SMS and RCS messages.

Once you've given it permission, you can ask ChatGPT to search your conversations or pull up messages from a particular person. More importantly, you can ask it to compose and send a new message without opening Messages and doing it yourself.

For example, you could ask ChatGPT to find your recent conversation with a friend, work out what you agreed on and send a follow-up. Or you could simply tell it to message someone that you're running late.

There are safeguards around that last step. ChatGPT asks you to approve the recipients and the contents of a message before it sends anything by default, so giving it access doesn't mean the AI suddenly has free rein to start texting people from your account.

This is where ChatGPT has an advantage over Claude

Claude has become more capable of working with outside services, particularly through integrations and connectors. But Apple Messages isn't currently among them. That creates a pretty clear dividing line between the two assistants at the moment..

Ask Claude to help you respond to a text and it can write a great response. But you still have to move that response into Messages and send it yourself. ChatGPT can now potentially handle that final step.

And texting is exactly the kind of mundane task where that difference could matter. I don't necessarily need AI composing heartfelt messages to friends or carrying on conversations for me, but asking it to send "I'm running 10 minutes late" while I'm dealing with something else is much easier to imagine using regularly.

There is a catch

Before you go looking for the Messages option on your iPhone, there's an important limitation. The integration currently works through the ChatGPT desktop app on Apple Silicon Macs. In other words, ChatGPT isn't suddenly replacing Messages or Siri on your iPhone. Which, let's face it, is where a person would really need this type of feature.

You'll also have to give ChatGPT permission to access Messages on the Mac before it can search or act on your conversations.

The takeaway

AI assistants are starting to take on tasks that we can easily do ourselves, but may save us a few seconds. Connecting ChatGPT to Messages moves another everyday task inside the assistant. ChatGPT is getting new plugins pretty regularly and while Claude Connectors are also good, it's updates like this that make the rivalry competitive.

And this is one ChatGPT advantage I can see myself actually using.

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I’ve always had a keen interest in how much information about me is floating around the World Wide Web.

Ever since I learned the basic about coding and built my own MySpace page, I’ve left a pretty prominent digital footprint that more than likely includes a ton of publicly available information. Of course, I know about most of my personal and professional milestones. But I’ve always been curious about the data everyone with an internet connection can look up that paints a full picture of who I am, what I do and what I’m into.

I went from constantly thinking about that digital deep dive to putting it into action by asking ChatGPT to find every piece of information that could exist about me across the World Wide Web.

Not only did it bring up an assortment of details I already know about myself, but it also brought up things I’d forgotten about my professional life, inferred a slew of observations about me and even found someone with the same name as me.

A prompt meant for probing my own internet identity

I generated this prompt with ChatGPT’s assistance to make sure it produced the most comprehensive results possible once I tasked it with analyzing my digital footprint:

I want you to investigate what the public internet knows about me.

My name is Elton Jones. I am a journalist who writes about AI and video games, and I am associated with Tom's Guide.

Using publicly available information on the internet, find as much information about me as you reasonably can. Look across news articles, websites, social media profiles, professional pages, public databases, interviews, forums, archived pages, and other publicly accessible sources.

Organize your findings into these categories:

1. Who I am — basic biographical and professional information.

2. My work — jobs, companies, projects, articles, websites, or other professional activity.

3. My online presence — social accounts, profiles, websites, and other pages that appear to belong to me.

4. My interests — topics, hobbies, communities, or activities associated with me.

5. Public history — notable events, articles, interviews, appearances, or other publicly documented activity.

6. What you can infer — reasonable conclusions about my interests, career, or online activity based only on the evidence you found. Clearly label these as inferences rather than facts.

7. Potentially sensitive information — identify categories of personal information that appear to be publicly exposed, but do not reproduce private details such as home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, passwords, financial information, or other highly sensitive personal data.

8. Unexpected discoveries — anything particularly surprising or that I might not realize is publicly associated with me.

For every significant finding, provide the source and explain how confident you are that it actually refers to me rather than someone with a similar name.

Do not assume that two people are the same person simply because their names match. Cross-reference details such as occupation, location, employer, usernames, photographs, and other identifiers before connecting information.

At the end, give me a “What the internet knows about me” summary containing:

- 5 things that are strongly established

- 5 things that are probable but less certain

- 5 things I should consider removing, changing, or making less publicly accessible

Focus on information that is genuinely discoverable through public web searches rather than trying to guess private information.

The known, forgotten and surprising details ChatGPT uncovered about me

ChatGPT did everything it could to search the public domain using a combination of my full name, bylines, previous/current employers, older job roles, publications I’ve written for, social media usernames, educational record and clues to my main location.

The chatbot referenced a bunch of information about myself that I’m already privy to. The fully summarized take it gave me about me is as follows: The public record strongly supports that Elton Jones is a New York–area technology and gaming journalist who currently writes about AI for Tom's Guide and previously spent years covering video games and geek culture for outlets including ONE37pm, Heavy, Complex, TechRadar, Okayplayer/OkayplayerGO, SVG, and The Christian Post.

While it brought up additional information about my career and hobbies/interests, ChatGPT also mentioned more interesting bits of info that kickstarted my memory. I know my journalism career reaches back to 2010, but I totally forgot I won a contest that allowed me to write a guest article for GamesRadar. The chatbot recognized it as a “documented origin story” for my career as a writer. I was also caught off guard when it pointed to a blog I had written around that same time about a disco tribute band my father was once a part of (we all have to start our writing careers somewhere, am I right?).

Imagine my shock and awe when ChatGPT listed a pretty funny detail that made me think it found a version of me hailing from another universe. It mentioned someone by the name of “Elton E. Jones,” who happens to be a video game voice actor with an official IMDb page.

Reading those details made me say to myself, “So this would probably have been my life if I actually pursued a career in video games that put me in the recording booth…” It’s fun to know that there are people out there with my same name who are doing something completely different with their career.

How this ChatGPT self-investigation compares to Googling myself

I've tried looking myself up just by Googling my name before and was treated to a page full of links to an obituary, a blog page for a tribute band called "Elton Jones and The Jets" and the actual Elton John as the top result (since I'm so sure that Google thought I made a spelling mistake and wanted to actually look him up instead).

ChatGPT's thorough internet investigation into me was more targeted toward identity resolution by zeroing in on Elton Jones, the journalist. Instead of giving me a mixture of results from unrelated individuals and other entities who just happen to have my same name, the chatbot actively looked for me and rejected questionable matches.

Alongside that, ChatGPT ignored obvious search results and relied on multiple searches across a wealth of sources. Plus, it cross-referenced all the information it could find about me, built a timeline of my career, looked for strong connections between my social media profiles & my professional identity and unearthed old/archived material that would take a lot longer to find through a Google search.

Google's raw search results still come in handy from time to time, but I got way more than I bargained for from ChatGPT's digital researcher-assisted look into everything the internet has on me.

The takeaway

ChatGPT lifted all the data it could about me by simply looking at all the journalism-related information Google had on me.

It stated that my public footprint is substantial and surprisingly coherent thanks to the throughline that follows the star of my career up until now.

And on the topic of what my biggest online privacy concern could be, here’s what ChatGPT had to say: The biggest privacy concern isn't some hidden scandal or mysterious database entry. It's actually the sheer accumulation of information across 15+ years: old social posts, historical biographies, professional databases, location references, archived articles, and your newer first-person AI experiments.

Thankfully, I’m not too worried about the articles I’ve written about my MCU fandom and love for pizza exposing too much about my private life. And I have to thank ChatGPT for painting a full picture of me with all the information it searched for, giving me some warm reminders about the beginning of my writing career and showing me who I could have been in an alternate universe.

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The use of AI writing tools is everywhere from LinkedIn to Substack and just about everywhere in between. So it's no surprise that AI users are looking for ways to disguise their writing in hopes to bypass AI detectors like GPTZero and Pangram.

To see if these humanizer actually work, I tried several different ones to see the results. As it turns out, the writing ended up sounding more like AI slop than what the AI writing tool churned out in the first place.

Clear sentences came back stuffed with bizarre synonyms and the rhythm became choppy and unnatural. In some cases, the tools changed facts or stripped away important context. The results sounded anything but human.

What AI humanizers actually change

AI detectors look for patterns that frequently appear in machine-generated text. These can include predictable word choices, repetitive sentence structures and a suspiciously consistent rhythm.

Many humanizers appear to target those patterns and then replace common words with less predictable alternatives. These humanizers also chop up sentences and rearrange clauses in an effort to spin whatever AI has written. Frankly, the results are so off that you're better off just writing that essay or presentation yourself just to save yourself the embarrassment of coming back from an AI humanizer.

And yes, these tools do make the writing statistically less predictable, but unpredictable writing isn’t necessarily good writing. Sometimes it’s simply harder to read.

A sentence such as “This phone has excellent battery life” might become “The mobile handset boasts an endurance capacity that remains notably elevated.” Technically, the basic idea is still there. Nobody would willingly write it that way.

1. They sound like bad machine translations

For this experiment, I had ChatGPT write a short essay about the domestication of dogs. The intro read like this:

Dogs were domesticated thousands of years before humans began keeping livestock or growing crops, making them our oldest animal companions. While scientists still debate exactly when and where the relationship began, genetic and archaeological evidence suggests that dogs descended from an ancient population of wolves at least 15,000 years ago. Some studies place the beginning of domestication much earlier, possibly 30,000 years ago or more.

And while that sounds pretty good, it would easily get picked up as "100% AI written" if it was put through an AI detector.

The first humanizer I tried was Superhuman from Grammarly. I'm a huge fan of Grammarly and I use it all day to catch my spelling errors and grammar mistakes. Having never tried the Humanizer, I ran the intro through. Here's the result:

Dogs became our companions long before people started raising livestock or planting crops, making them the oldest animals to live alongside humans. Scientists are still unsure about the exact time and place this relationship began, but genetic and archaeological evidence shows that dogs came from an ancient group of wolves at least 15,000 years ago. Some research suggests that domestication may have started even earlier, possibly over 30,000 years ago

Not bad, but the biggest problem is the language itself. Straightforward words seem regularly replaced with longer, stranger alternatives that didn’t fit the sentence. It just seems as if the Humanizer is too determined to avoid obvious word choices that it removed any trace of a natural voice. Frankly, even the original AI draft sounded more human.

2. The re-wording can actually change the facts

Awkward wording is annoying, but factual drift is worse. When I tried using Rehumanize.io this is the result:

Dogs were around long before we started farming or raising other animals for food, making them our first animal friends. Scientists are still figuring out the exact time and place this connection started. However, based on genetics and old discoveries, it looks like dogs came from an ancient wolf group centuries ago. Some research even suggests domestication could have begun 30,000 years ago or even earlier.

We went from 15,000 years to "centuries." Yikes! That rewrite doesn’t make the explanation more natural. It makes is far less accurate. I saw the same problem with benchmark scores and version numbers when I ran the test on more technical content. The problem is, details like data are not interchangeable the way certain words are. Using a humanizer for legal, medical and safety reports could result in vague generalities.

Once that happens, you can’t trust the output without checking it against the original line by line. Any time the tool might save quickly disappears.

3. They don’t guarantee that you’ll beat an AI detector

Humanizers are often marketed as a way to bypass AI detection, but that promise is shaky. Detection tools change, and they can learn to recognize the same strange synonym swaps and mangled sentence patterns that humanizers produce. During several of my tests, processing a draft through a humanizer actually increased its probability of being flagged.

Also, annoyingly, some tools like Ace.ai wouldn't give me the results until I downloaded an entire browser. And even though I could adjust the level of humanization, it still felt...off. Here is the result of Ace.ai with the same text:

Dogs have been by our side since long before we started farming or raising livestock, making them our oldest and most loyal friends. While the experts are still debating the specifics, evidence from both genetics and archaeology points to dogs descending from ancient wolves at least 15,000 years ago. Some research even suggests our bond might go back much further—possibly 30,000 years or more.

Interestingly, Pangram marked that as AI-written even though it was technically "humanized." And while AI detectors are hardly perfect, rewriting a paragraph to purely satisfy one of them feels like trying to hit an unreliable target while steadily making the copy worse.

What to do instead of using a humanizer

Using AI tools to support your writing isn't something to be ashamed of. It's been a while since I've had to pull an all-nighter in college, but I can only imagine how tempting it could be.

Instead though, you should use AI to help you brainstorm or outline what you're writing. Sometimes the worst part is just getting started. Once you've got an outline, start writing (you, not the AI). Never give AI the first pass of a draft. It's better to use a voice recorder to get your thoughts down and have AI edit your grammar and fact-check.

Using a Claude Skill or Gemini Gem for fact-checking can be a much-needed time saver at the eleventh hour. There are plenty of other ways AI can save you time, especially now that Google is offering Pro plans to students. Using AI for research, outlining and fact-checking can give you the time back you need to do the actual writing — no humanizer required.

Have you tried using a humanizer? Let me know what you thought of the results in the comments.

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When my grandfather would write me while I was away at school, he would end each letter with, "It's been fun to visit with you for a few minutes." That's the way I still feel about any correspondance -- it's a way to visit with someone regardless of how quick or meaningless.

And now that Claude can not only draft an email but send it, I feel like that's just another AI feature I simply don't need. However, I feel differently about everything surrounding that conversation.

There’s nothing personal about sorting newsletters, searching for a buried attachment or rereading a 20-message thread to work out what everyone decided. These are the jobs that could easily consume my day, and I’m more than happy to hand some of them to AI.

Features such as Google’s AI Inbox and AI Overviews in Gmail can identify priority messages, summarize conversations and answer questions about information scattered across multiple emails. I still write my own replies, but I spend much less time figuring out which ones I need to send.

Here are five ways AI can make your inbox easier to manage without writing a single email for you.

1. Show you what needs your attention

Most inboxes present every unread email as one more thing demanding your attention. A message from someone waiting on a decision can sit beside a sale announcement, an automated receipt and a newsletter you might read later.

Google’s AI Inbox is designed to separate those signals. It surfaces top priorities and groups together topics you may need to catch up on, giving you a more focused starting point than a long chronological list.

This is particularly helpful when I return to my inbox after being away from it. Instead of opening messages one by one to see what happened, I can begin with the conversations Gmail has identified as important.

AI won’t always understand your priorities perfectly, so keep that in mind. A routine-looking message may matter because of the person who sent it or something discussed outside email. I still scan the rest of my inbox, but I no longer have to treat every unread message as equally urgent.

2. Summarize a long email thread

Few things make me want to close Gmail faster than opening a thread with dozens of new replies.

Some messages repeat information from earlier in the conversation. Others branch into separate discussions, and the detail you need may be buried somewhere in the middle. By the time you reach the bottom, it’s easy to forget what prompted the exchange in the first place.

Gmail’s AI Overviews can summarize long conversations, pulling together the key points and recent replies. This gives me enough context to understand what the thread is about and where I should start reading.

I don’t rely on the summary when I need an exact quote, firm deadline or final decision. AI can miss a qualification or flatten a disagreement between two people into a cleaner consensus than the thread supports. For anything consequential, I go back to the original messages.

The summary still saves time because it directs me to the parts of the conversation that need closer attention.

3. Find an email when you can’t remember the keywords

This one is a life saver for me. With three kids, there is always a form or permission slip that I need to not miss. And while traditional search works when you know what you're searching for, sometimes all I have is a date or name. Unfortunately, that isn’t usually how I remember email.

I may remember that someone recommended an app or sent me a meeting date without recalling who said it. Sometimes I know an attachment arrived but have no idea what the file was called. That can lead to several rounds of searching with slightly different keywords.

AI search allows you to describe the information instead. In Gmail, you can ask a natural-language question, and Gemini can use relevant messages to generate an answer or surface the conversations containing it.

You might ask, “What date did we agree on for the interview?” or “Who sent me information about the new subscription?” The wording doesn’t have to match the original email.

As with summaries, I open the source message before using the information. The advantage is reaching it without having to remember how someone phrased the subject line three weeks ago.

4. Pull out action items and deadlines

An email doesn’t need to contain the words “action item” to give you something else to do.

A request may appear at the end of a long update. Someone might mention a deadline in passing or ask a question halfway through a message covering several unrelated subjects. Read it too quickly and the request disappears beneath everything that arrived afterward. That drives me crazy! However, AI can scan a conversation for outstanding questions, dates and tasks. You can ask Gemini which messages require a response, what you agreed to send or whether a thread contains an upcoming deadline.

This is one of the most useful ways to catch up after a busy stretch. I’d never treat that picture as a definitive to-do list. A missed deadline matters far more than a few saved minutes, so I check the original messages before adding anything to my calendar. AI acts as a second pass, catching details that could otherwise remain buried.

5. Bring related conversations together

One project rarely stays inside one neat email thread. The initial discussion may have one subject line, the scheduling conversation another and the follow-up a third. Add several participants and forwarded messages, and the information becomes scattered across your inbox.

AI can identify relationships between those conversations even when they don’t share the same wording. Instead of opening one thread and searching separately for the rest, you can ask for the latest information about a topic or project.

AI can work with the inbox I actually have, including the conversations I forgot to file correctly.

It still requires oversight. Two projects may have similar names, or the same person may email you about unrelated subjects. I check which messages informed an answer before assuming AI has assembled the right set.

Bottom line: I want AI handling the clutter, not the conversation

AI-generated replies will probably become harder to avoid as email providers place them directly beneath our messages. For some people, they remove the stress of writing and make communication faster. I understand the appeal.

They just aren’t the feature I need. Choosing my own words takes a little longer, but it preserves the reason for sending an email in the first place. The administrative work surrounding that exchange is where I’m happy to save time.

Do you use AI to save time with your inbox? Let me know in the comments.

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When I first started using ChatGPT, most of my prompts were pretty basic. I’d ask for side hustle ideas or advice on preparing for a job interview, then wonder why the answers felt so generic.

Eventually, I realized ChatGPT could help me write a better prompt before answering it. The technique is known as “meta-prompting,” It's a way to give ChatGPT a chance to spot missing details, clarify what you want and structure the request in a way that produces a more useful response.

I now use one prompt ChatGPT created to improve nearly every prompt I write. Paste in your original request, answer any follow-up questions and it will rewrite the prompt around what you’re actually trying to accomplish.

“Meta-prompting” strengthens my prompts and it’ll do the same for you

As a clear example of how “meta-prompting” works, I started one of my most recent conversations with ChatGPT by simply asking, “How can I learn how to create thumbnails faster? I'm a content creator who's just starting and wants to create quality Photoshop thumbnails for my videos about video games.”

Here’s the prompt that ChatGPT gave me when I asked what sort of prompt would be best to input when I wanted my original request to make my goal more understandable:

Identify what is missing, ambiguous, or poorly framed in my original prompt. Make the minimum necessary assumptions to turn it into a high-quality expert request. Do not merely make my wording sound more sophisticated—improve the underlying question, criteria, and desired outcome.

ChatGPT took a look at my original prompt and detailed a bunch of extra bullet points that helped me figure out exactly what I was asking for. Those bits of info that I needed to specify to help the chatbot lock in on my overall mission included what “faster means, my current Photoshop skill level, what makes a “quality” thumbnail, whether you're trying to develop your own style, what I want to practice and what constraints I’m working under. Then the chatbot framed my prompt to fall more in line with the request: “How do I build the skill of making compelling gaming thumbnails quickly?”

The improved expert version of my original prompt was then delivered as follows:

I'm a beginner content creator making YouTube videos about video games, and I want to learn how to create high-quality Photoshop thumbnails much faster.

Design a practical learning system that helps me become both better at thumbnail design and faster at producing thumbnails, rather than simply teaching me Photoshop features.

Identify the most important thumbnail-design skills I should learn first, including composition, visual hierarchy, contrast, color, typography, character/game-image placement, and creating curiosity.

Identify the Photoshop skills and shortcuts that provide the biggest payoff specifically for gaming thumbnails.

Give me a 30-day practice plan that takes me from beginner to being able to create polished thumbnails efficiently.

Explain what I should practice repeatedly versus what I should learn only once.

Give me a deliberate-practice exercise for recreating successful gaming thumbnails, so I learn the underlying design principles rather than simply copying them.

Show me how to analyze a successful gaming thumbnail before I recreate it.

Explain how to build reusable assets, templates, layer structures, effects, fonts, and PSD files so each new thumbnail takes less time.

Give me a recommended workflow for going from a blank Photoshop document to a finished thumbnail, with an emphasis on speed.

Identify the most common mistakes beginners make that make gaming thumbnails look amateurish.

Explain how I can tell whether a thumbnail is actually improving without relying solely on views or click-through rate.

Assume I know very little about professional thumbnail design but am willing to practice consistently. Prioritize the 20% of skills that will produce 80% of the improvement.

My goal is not to become an expert Photoshop user. My goal is to be able to consistently create eye-catching, professional-looking gaming thumbnails in roughly 15–30 minutes.

With this new and improved prompt, I was provided with a command for ChatGPT that took my originally vague request and turned it into a more substantial prompt meant for skill-building. Attaching the meta-prompt to your original prompt will turn it into something similar to mine, which is a prompt with a clear description that locks in on a clear number of goals.

The takeaway

Meta-prompting is one of the most efficient ways to turn your simple prompts into more comprehensible ones and compel you to improve upon the way you jot down your future prompts.

Plain prompts like “Give me some career advice” and “How can I reduce stress?” just won’t do at this point if you regularly interact with ChatGPT—use the meta-prompt to turn that first prompt into a more decision-oriented framework and the second one into a plan that delivers immediate relief from defined causes of mental strain, for example.

Prompt refinement will make your ChatGPT experiences more accommodating in the long run.

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• Meta files patent for AI facial recognition glasses that identify people around you and record automatically
• I challenged ChatGPT and Gemini to find the best ways to unwind — these 7 ideas made National Relaxation Day even better

ChatGPT now has Projects, Skills and Computer Use just like Claude. Canvas, one of my very favorite features, can render interactive React and HTML, like Claude too. Several features that once made Claude very unique are no longer exclusive to Anthropic’s chatbot.

However, there are differences that haven't disappeared and in fact, have gotten even more specific. Claude can reach into parts of my phone that ChatGPT cannot, and it gives me more control over what happens to my personal context. Its Artifacts have also moved well beyond simple code previews.

And while I still use ChatGPT, here are five things that it just can't replicate yet that still make Claude stand out.

1. Claude can work with native apps on my iPhone

ChatGPT can connect to services including Gmail and Google Calendar, but it doesn’t have the same access to the apps built into my iPhone.

Claude can prepare a message actually in Messages, draft an email in Mail, create an event in Apple Calendar, add something to Reminders or send a location to Maps. The AI assistant presents an action for me to review first, and iOS hands it to the appropriate app.

That makes the feature feel like a natural extension of a conversation. I can ask Claude to turn plans we just discussed into a calendar event without opening another app and entering everything again.

The feature works across Claude’s plans, according to Anthropic’s iOS documentationand Android users get an even broader set of controls. Claude can work with messaging, email, calendars and maps while also setting alarms and timers through supported Android apps.

ChatGPT has become far more capable at taking actions, particularly through its connected apps and Work mode, but it still doesn’t offer this kind of direct integration with Apple’s everyday system apps.

2. Claude can import what another AI remembers about me

Starting over with a new chatbot can be surprisingly annoying. When you start fresh, the assistant doesn’t know how you work, what you’re interested in or how you prefer it to answer. All of the context built up over months stays behind with the old service.

Claude now offers a built-in way to bring some of it with you. You first ask the other assistant to produce a summary of what it remembers, review that information and remove anything you don’t want to move, then paste it into Claude’s memory-import flow.

Anthropic even provides a prompt for extracting that context and lets you view or export Claude’s memory if you decide to leave later.

Although you can view and edit saved memories within ChatGPT, it doesn’t provide a comparable memory-import tool that turns context from another assistant into ChatGPT memories.

You could recreate some of this manually through custom instructions, but that isn’t the same as having a dedicated migration flow. Claude is currently making it easier to arrive with your history and leave with it again.

3. Claude’s Incognito chats can still know who I am

Sometimes I want a conversation to disappear from my history without making the assistant forget everything useful about me. Unlike other chatbots, Claude’s Incognito mode allows that separation. The conversation isn’t added to my chat history, but Claude can still use my profile information, preferences and memory while answering. I can have a temporary conversation without giving up the personalization I normally rely on.

ChatGPT’s Temporary Chat takes a different approach. OpenAI describes it as a blank slate: ChatGPT doesn’t access or create memories, although it will continue to follow any custom instructions I have enabled.

There are reasonable privacy arguments for both designs. ChatGPT’s approach provides a cleaner break from previous conversations. Claude’s is more convenient when I want a chat to remain out of my history but still want the assistant to understand my usual preferences.

4. Claude can build a dashboard that updates itself

ChatGPT Canvas and Claude Artifacts can both turn a prompt into an interactive page. Either assistant can build a calculator, visualization or small browser game and let me use it alongside the conversation.

Claude’s Live Artifacts go a step further though. In Claude Cowork, I can create a persistent dashboard that draws from connected apps and local files. When I reopen it, the Artifact can retrieve current information instead of showing the same data that was available when it was created.

That could be a project tracker built from Asana and Linear, a morning page showing calendar events and unread message or a dashboard that checks a folder containing regularly updated reports. Claude saves it in the Artifacts area, keeps a version history and lets me return to it without digging through the original chat.

Live Artifacts currently require a paid Claude plan and the desktop app. They are also different from ordinary Claude Artifacts, which remain available on the web and mobile.

ChatGPT Canvas can render an interactive interface, and ChatGPT can retrieve information from connected apps during a conversation. It does not currently turn a Canvas into a persistent dashboard that refreshes itself from those sources whenever I open it.

5. Claude can put AI inside an Artifact without an API key

This may be the most interesting difference because it changes what a non-developer can build.

Claude can create an Artifact with Claude itself built into the experience. That could be an interactive tutor, a writing coach, a quiz that adapts to each answer or a tool that analyzes information entered by the user.

Normally, publishing an AI app means setting up an API account, protecting a key, deploying a backend and paying for every request. Claude handles that infrastructure for an AI-powered Artifact. People sign in with their own Claude accounts, and the usage counts against their subscriptions rather than the creator receiving the bill.

Claude Artifacts can also use persistent storage, allowing an app to remember text-based information between sessions. Depending on how the creator configures it, that data can be private to each user or shared across everyone using the Artifact. Paid users can connect Artifacts to outside services through MCP as well.

ChatGPT can write the code for an AI app, and OpenAI gives developers tools for building one. But, OpenAI's feature doesn’t currently offer the same one-step path from a conversation to a hosted, AI-powered app that other people can immediately use without an API key.

Bottom line

ChatGPT has caught up with Claude in several areas, but it still can’t do everything on this list. It's why I regularly use multiple chatbots within my AI stack.

AI assistants can do very similar things, but their unique features make them an asset, especially when added to other AI assistants. For that reason, I’m not replacing ChatGPT with Claude. I use both every day, and each one is better suited to different jobs. But when I need one of these five features, Claude is the only one that can do it.

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• 5 Gemini features ChatGPT still can’t match
• Meta files patent for AI facial recognition glasses that identify people around you and record automatically

Maneuvering through life means you’re bound to come up against some major dilemmas that require you to make a tough decision.

Typically, one of those decisions can keep you in a comfortable position, while the other could potentially be transformative and simultaneously break you out of your comfort zone. I can certainly relate to that sort of situation, since I made the tough decision to attend college out of state instead of staying in my home state to pursue my degree. Forcing myself to examine the choices that cater to my safety and the ones that could maximize my upside while pushing me to do something outside of my wheelhouse is trying but necessary.

There’s one conundrum that has plagued me for the longest time now. And while I’ve gotten plenty of feedback on how to remedy that issue from loved ones, I’m usually left with more questions regarding what I should do to remedy it.

For my latest “help me fix my problems” session with ChatGPT, I used the “strategic discomfort” prompt to tackle said issue. It rose to the occasion to be as real as it gets and proved to be tough yet fair in its analysis.

Uncomfortable truths backed by uncomfortable decisions

The strategic discomfort prompt is as follows: You're my strategic coach. Your goal isn't to motivate me—it's to identify where I'm playing too safely. Show me the uncomfortable decisions that would create the biggest upside.

As for my longstanding problem, I asked for its advice on the sort of decisions I should make to help me remedy the overwhelming feeling of being afraid of disappointing people. I’ve always felt like this issue puts the wants and needs of others ahead of mine and leads me to take on all the tasks that people ask of me since I’m always keen to please.

ChatGPT’s opening line showcased its transformative state from an average AI assistant that produces nothing but flattering advice to a tough coach that presents hard truths combined with viable solutions:

The uncomfortable truth: if you're afraid of disappointing people, you may be optimizing your life around avoiding other people's short-term discomfort rather than maximizing your own long-term upside. That creates a very specific strategic problem: you become reliable, agreeable, and easy to work with—but potentially under-leveraged.

Afterward, ChatGPT provided me with a list of uncomfortable decisions I should put into action that could change my way of thinking and make me approach my interactions with people in a completely different manner.

For instance, the chatbot told me to stop making myself indispensable in low-value ways.

While it stated how being the person who always responds quickly, fixes things, takes the extra assignment, etc., feels valuable, being useful isn’t the same as being strategically valuable. The uncomfortable decision the chatbot told me to consider is becoming less available for low-leverage work, so I have the capacity for high-leverage work. Which, by my definition, means ignoring requests that are routine and aren’t truly beneficial while saving my energy for requests that produce a major impact for me and anyone else involved with them.

Some of the other fixes and uncomfortable decisions ChatGPT presented to me as the best ways to confront my problem included:

• Stop saying yes before you've decided whether you actually want to: Start declining things that are merely reasonable rather than genuinely valuable.
• Let someone think you're difficult: Choose the option that advances your goals even when you know someone will be mildly unhappy with you. Not cruelly. Not recklessly. Just without treating their disappointment as evidence that you made the wrong decision.
• Ask for more before you have proof you deserve it: Make the ask while there's still a meaningful possibility of rejection. The rejection is often cheaper than the years spent quietly under-asking.
• Have the conversation you've been avoiding: Say the thing clearly rather than continuing to engineer around it.
• Choose your ambition over your current identity: Allow people to update their perception of you.
• Stop confusing disappointment with harm: This distinction could radically change your decision-making. Someone being disappointed doesn't necessarily mean you hurt them. Someone being frustrated doesn't necessarily mean you behaved badly. Someone disagreeing with you doesn't necessarily mean you made a bad decision. Someone needing to adjust their expectations doesn't necessarily mean you failed them. Try this filter: Did I violate a legitimate commitment—or did I simply fail to satisfy someone's preference? Those are very different things.
• Take the opportunity that creates asymmetric upside: When you're afraid of disappointing people, you tend to favor reversible, socially safe decisions. I'd instead look for opportunities where: Downside = uncomfortable conversation/temporary disappointment. Upside = materially better career, income, freedom, relationships, reputation, or trajectory. Those are precisely the bets you should be more willing to take. The mistake would be avoiding a 20% chance of awkwardness that comes with an 80% chance of substantially improving your situation.

Final thoughts

Getting the most realistic feedback possible from ChatGPT about my longstanding issue of being fearful of letting everyone down proved to be an eye-opening experience.

With the right prompt, it confronted my life obstacle, produced strict yet equitable advice and steered me towards changing my habits for the better. Now I’m even more inclined to experiment with the strategic discomfort prompt when I need some decision-making tips about my career, relationships, a change in environment and more.

Talking with friends, family and experts before I make life-changing decisions is a must. But I’ll also be sure to consider ChatGPT’s discomforting yet helpful counsel from now on.

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Over the past few years we've seen ChatGPT and Gemini get some really useful features. Each AI assistant offers unique abilities and both ChatGPT and Gemini can handle many of the same jobs. But their differences become clearer when you move past the question and answer features.

Google has connected Gemini to services and devices it already controls, including Android and Google Photos. It has given Gemini a few creative tools that ChatGPT still doesn’t offer, too. You can create a finished song, turn a research report into a podcast and build a reusable AI version of yourself.

I use both assistants regularly, and these are five things Gemini can currently do that ChatGPT cannot do natively. Of course, availability of these Gemini features depends on your device, account, subscription and location, so you may not see every feature yet.

1. Create an original song you can download

ChatGPT can write lyrics, suggest chord progressions and help plan a song. But it still does not have the ability to take that prompt and hand you a finished track with music and vocals.

Gemini can because it offers Lyria 3 music generator directly into the app. You can describe the song you want or upload a photo or video to use as inspiration. You can even upload text messages and ask it to create a song from those. The possibilities are endless right in the chatbot as Gemini then generates the music and lyrics together.

A prompt could be as simple as: “Create an upbeat pop song about surviving the first week of school as a tired parent.”

You can download the finished result as an MP3 or save it as an MP4 with cover art. According to Google’s instructions, generating a full track requires switching Gemini to its Pro model. This is one of the clearest gaps between the two assistants. ChatGPT can help you plan the song. Gemini can make something you can actually play.

2. Search through your Google Photos without uploading anything

Finding one particular picture in a library containing thousands of nearly identical family photos can take forever. But Gemini can search a connected Google Photos account using the people, places and objects that appear in your images. You could ask it to find photos from a particular birthday, show you pictures from last summer or look for images containing a specific person.

It can answer questions using details from those photos, too. Google suggests prompts asking Gemini to identify the themes used at someone’s previous birthday parties or recall what you ate during a vacation.

ChatGPT can analyze any photo you upload, but it cannot natively search through your entire Google Photos library. You have to find the relevant pictures and add them to the conversation yourself.

There are several restrictions. Google Photos access in Gemini requires a personal Google account, isn’t available to users under 18 and only works in supported regions. You must turn on Gemini’s Keep Activity setting and certain Google Photos features, including Face Groups.

I’d think carefully before asking an AI assistant to retrieve something as sensitive as a driver’s license or medical document from my photos. For finding 47 pictures of the same child wearing their favorite blue shirt, though, it could save a lot of scrolling. If you know, you know.

3. Turn a document into a podcast-style conversation

Gemini can take a document, presentation, Gemini Notebook (formally NotebookLM) or Deep Research report and turn it into an Audio Overview.

Instead of reading a long report, you can listen to two AI hosts discuss the information in a podcast-like conversation. It’s especially useful for catching up while driving, walking or working around the house.

ChatGPT Voice can read answers aloud and discuss an uploaded document with you. It does not currently have a dedicated feature that turns the source into this kind of produced, shareable conversation.

Gemini usually takes a few minutes to create an Audio Overview. Once it’s finished, you can listen inside the Gemini app, download it or share a link. Google explains how Audio Overviews work here.

This could be useful for more than research papers. I can see myself using it to get through a long school document, meeting notes or a report I need to understand before starting work.

4. Create Personal Gemini Avatars (AI Digital Twin)

Google allows paid subscribers to build a Personal Avatar, which is a digital clone that looks and sounds like you, powered by Gemini Omni and Google Veo. You can build it right in the Gemini app.

Tap on your profile/settings, and select Personal Avatar (or tap Add Files + Avatar in the prompt window). From there, follow the on-screen prompts on your smartphone to record your face and voice.

You will be asked to turn your head side-to-side and read out lines of text so Gemini can map your facial structure and voice profile.

Once recorded, you can summon yourself in Gemini prompts using @me or @[your username].

You can also create a custom gem with a prompt such as:
"Generate a 3D digital illustration of a friendly male developer with short brown hair and round glasses, wearing a dark blue hoodie, vibrant neon-lit background, studio lighting, high resolution profile avatar."

5. Analyze a YouTube video from a link

I often find a useful YouTube video and immediately wish I could skip the introduction, sponsorship and repeated explanations. With Gemini, I can paste the link into a chat and ask for the information I actually need.

Gemini can summarize a public YouTube video, answer questions about what was discussed and pull out specific tips or instructions. I could give it a 30-minute product tutorial and ask, “What settings does the presenter recommend changing?” or “List the steps for fixing the problem, but leave out the promotional sections.”

Gemini can also find relevant videos, playlists and channels before answering questions about their content. Connecting YouTube lets it personalize some results using your viewing history.

ChatGPT can now do something similar through its Chrome extension, which uses a video’s timestamped transcript when captions are available. The difference is where it works. Gemini handles YouTube links inside its regular web and mobile apps, while ChatGPT’s officially documented version requires opening the video through Chrome.

Bottom line

ChatGPT remains my choice for plenty of everyday work, but Google is using its existing products to give Gemini abilities that are difficult for another chatbot to copy.

Google Photos search and Android control come from Gemini’s position inside Google’s ecosystem. Music generation, Audio Overviews and reusable avatars are more surprising because they change what you can create without leaving the chat. Give them a try and let me know what you think in the comments.

More from Tom's Guide

• Gemini 3.7 Flash is here — and this prompt proves why it's known as Google's 'workhorse'
• 5 custom Gemini Gems that I swear save me hours each week
• This new AI assistant makes AI easier for people 65+ — no app or prompts required

At this point, I’m nervous enough not to crack open a box of Teddy Grahams because it might not be safe to eat.

Every time I turn on the news, hop on social media or tune into my favorite morning radio shows, I see more news about a food recall. I’ve been lucky enough to avoid getting explosive diarrhea for the past few summer months after the first big recall, but now it seems like there are other unsafe foods making the rounds.

I wanted to get a primer on the most recent food recalls, learn about the best methods to avoid them & other types of contaminated food and get quick tips on how to remain safe.

To see this mission to a successful completion, I asked ChatGPT to assist me. In the end, it gave me all the helpful information I needed that I’m sure will prove equally useful for you.

The prompt that “fed” me the safety information we all need to know

I wanted to go into my latest health-centered chat with ChatGPT with a prompt that covered all of my requests. I asked the chatbot to refine my simple prompt of “Tell me about the latest food recalls and give me advice on how to remain safe from them.”

Here’s the super descriptive prompt it gave me to produce even better results:

Act as a food-safety researcher and help me identify the most recent food recalls in the United States.

Search the web for recalls announced or updated within the last 30 days, prioritizing authoritative sources such as the FDA, USDA FSIS, CDC, and official manufacturer/retailer notices. Do not rely on social media or unverified reports.

For each significant recall, tell me:

Product name and brand

Reason for the recall

Contaminant or hazard involved, if known

Product codes, lot numbers, UPCs, expiration/use-by dates, or other identifying information

Where the product was sold

Recall date and whether the recall is still active

What consumers should do if they have the product

Whether the product should be returned, discarded, or otherwise handled

Any reported illnesses, injuries, or deaths associated with the recall, if confirmed

Then give me a practical food-safety action plan for avoiding recalled or contaminated food.

Cover:

How often I should check for recalls

The best official websites or alerts to monitor

How to check whether food already in my refrigerator, freezer, or pantry is recalled

How to safely dispose of recalled food

How to prevent cross-contamination

Safe food-storage and cooking practices

What warning signs mean I should contact a healthcare professional after eating a recalled product

Important: Clearly distinguish between confirmed recalls and general food-safety warnings. Include the date of every source you use and direct links to the original government or manufacturer announcement. If you cannot verify a claim through a reliable source, say so rather than guessing.

Finally, give me a "What I should check right now" section with the 5 most important actions I can take today.

The most important current recalls and following a practical food-safety action plan

Once I input this prompt into ChatGPT, it took on its role as my digital food-safety researcher with pride.

On the topic of the most recent and significant food recalls, it mentioned Cyclospora being linked to recalled Taylor Farms iceberg lettuce, E. coli being linked to GreenWise frozen blueberries and Salmonella being linked to Midwest Poultry Services shell eggs as the ones I really need to be clued in on. It also pointed out recalls that are specific to my region, such as undeclared allergens being linked to Eridanous shortbread and coconut sprinkles cookies.

As for the sensible actions I should take to remain safe, ChatGPT gave me the sort of common-sense advice that everyone else and I most likely practice already. Disposing of any recalled food I may still have, keeping my refrigerator & freezer at the proper temperature for food storage and preventing cross-contamination by keeping certain foods apart came up as those sorts of tips.

But I did make sure to take note of the chatbot’s tip regarding how often I should check for food recalls. Simply checking the official sites for the FDA, FSIS, FoodSafety.gov and CDC weekly should help me stay informed.

Another aspect of ChatGPT’s information breakdown is how it made a clear distinction between a recall and a general warning:

A recall means a specific product has been identified for removal, and the notice normally gives you matching information such as brand, product, package size, UPC, lot code, or date.

A public-health/outbreak advisory is broader. It may tell you that an investigation is underway even before investigators can identify every affected product.

For example, FDA's current Cyclospora investigation is an ongoing outbreak investigation, while Taylor Farms has issued a specific recall. Likewise, the frozen-blueberry E. coli investigation is ongoing, but the affected GreenWise products have been specifically recalled.

The takeaway

ChatGPT laid out all the data, sources and vital safety tips I needed to know—keeping my gut safe by prompting a chatbot to bring me up to speed on food recalls worked out great. For the time being, shopping at Lidl, eating GreenWise frozen blueberries & mixed berries and picking up sort of lettuce marked by the Taylor Farms logo just isn’t the way to go. As we move into the cooler months of the year, I’ll be using everything ChatGPT gave me from this healthy conversation to stay out of the intensive care unit.

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Entering a total state of zen without your worries disturbing your peace for just a few seconds feels incredible.

I may not get to it as much as I’d like to. But when I do get the chance to calm my nerves and leave the stresses of the world behind, I cherish those moments. One of the annual holidays that encapsulates that sense of tranquility is National Relaxation Day. The fact that it just so happens to fall on a Saturday this year is perfect since it’s always my chosen day to unwind.

With my goal of adopting the best methods that will help me unwind on National Relaxation Day and beyond, I presented two challenges to ChatGPT and Gemini: find me the 10 best ways to relax without spending any money and suggest some unorthodox relaxation methods I can try.

Both chatbots met my inquiry with a bunch of valuable relaxation techniques that are instantly recognizable and a few that I never even knew existed. I made a conscious effort to implement them into my National Relaxation Day chill sessions and bookmark them for my future lazy Saturdays.

ChatGPT and Gemini’s ultimate relaxation recommendations

National Relaxation Day is all about encouraging everyone to simply slow down and unwind as much as possible. With that theme in mind, I approached ChatGPT and Gemini with the sole purpose of discovering the best ways to loosen up and boost my positive mental state. First up are ChatGPT’s suggestions, which led me to add five winning methods to my batch of restoration procedures:

• Practice deep breathing: Try the 4-7-8 technique. Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 7, then exhale for 8. Repeat several times.
• Have a “low-information hour”: No news, social media, email, podcasts, or scrolling. You can still read, walk, cook, stretch, or listen to music—just don't consume information.
• Have a fake vacation in your own neighborhood: Walk somewhere you've never explored, sit somewhere unfamiliar, and pretend you're a tourist for an hour.
• Write an aggressively unproductive to-do list: Put things like “stare out the window,” “make a ridiculous sandwich,” and “lie down for 15 minutes” on the list. Then check them off.
• Have a “bad art” session: Draw, paint, or doodle with the explicit goal of making something terrible. Removing the pressure to be good can make the activity much more relaxing.

The first, second, fourth and fifth relaxation tips that ChatGPT put forth worked like a charm during the time I spent indoors. Standing in place while practicing that signature breathing technique, turning my “low-information hour” into a two-hour one, adding “look up at the ceiling while listening to the sounds of crashing waves” to my unproductive to-do list and doodling like I used to do in grade school all put me at peace.

Tip number three paid off for me once I decided to step outside and walk aimlessly for an hour to see parts of my neighborhood I’d never been to before.

As for Gemini’s offering of relaxation processes, there were two that stood out to me the most:

• Practice Progressive Muscle Relaxation: This is a highly effective physical reset. Lie down, close your eyes, and starting from your toes, intentionally tense each muscle group for a few seconds before completely releasing it. Work your way all the way up to your face and jaw.
• EFT Tapping (Emotional Freedom Technique): Tapping involves using your fingertips to tap on specific meridian points on your head, face, and collarbone while repeating a phrase about whatever is stressing you out. It looks a bit silly to an observer, but it combines cognitive therapy (acknowledging the stressor) with somatic physical feedback. The rhythmic tapping sends calming signals to the amygdala—the stress center of your brain—telling it that you are safe, even while thinking about a stressful subject.

Both of those physical methods did more for my physical and mental well-being than I expected. I may have felt a little silly tapping my forehead while shouting out, “Watching my parents get older is really getting to me,” but this practice proved to be useful, as it gave me a central stress point to focus on while I soothed my head with soft taps.

Final thoughts

My National Relaxation Day was filled with a bevy of worthwhile techniques that made me feel a whole lot better than I usually do. Thanks to ChatGPT and Gemini, I learned about a few common and uncommon relaxation methods that will remain a permanent part of my chill Saturday sessions.

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Since its arrival on Mac desktops and laptops as a native app, ChatGPT has earned its keep as one of the most reliable AI tools for macOS users.

By combining the chatbot’s Chat, Work and Codex features, ChatGPT’s macOS app has become a quality digital assistant that steps up to handle any job when you request its help with a simple keyboard shortcut (Option + Space). ChatGPT for Mac is already capable of pulling context from whatever’s on your screen, your email, screenshots and files to fulfill any of the jobs you give it. But a newly installed feature now makes it capable of learning and remembering everything you do on your Mac, even when you do it outside of the app itself.

With the new “Computer History” update, the native macOS ChatGPT app builds a searchable timeline of all the activity you’ve done across all your selected sites and apps. It’s worth noting that this feature is off by default, which means Pro users can choose to turn it on, while Business and Enterprise users must ask for access from their administrators to make that feature active.

If you want to test out this new Computer History feature to see what it can do, test out these 10 prompts to put it to work.

Making sure ChatGPT for Mac never forgets what you’ve been doing

The Computer History feature is promised to be as safe to use as possible—OpenAI has made it clear that it only temporarily stores interaction events that have taken place on your Mac for up to 48 hours. And while that data is processed on the tech giant’s servers to generate the memories the ChatGPT macOS app needs to reference your past activity, it’s not kept after being processed and is never used for AI training.

This new feature doesn’t save screenshots, screen recordings, microphone input or system audio—it simply keeps track of whatever sites and apps you’ve been working with to handle jobs such as finding a document you recently looked at, producing a summary of everything you worked on for the day, creating a productivity report based on everything you worked on for the week, etc.

To put this new Computer History feature to the test and make your native ChatGPT macOS app do a better job of analyzing, connecting, recovering and improving on your daily workflows, try using these 10 ChatGPT-generated prompts:

• What was I working on?: Look at my computer activity from today and give me a concise summary of everything I worked on. Group it by project, identify what I completed, and tell me what I left unfinished.
• Find the thing you were working on: What was that article, document, website, or project I was working on yesterday that I spent the most time on? Tell me what I was doing with it and help me pick up where I left off.
• Turn your day into a to-do list: Based on what I actually did on my Mac today, create a prioritized to-do list for tomorrow. Separate unfinished tasks from new tasks you should recommend.
• Find unfinished work: Review my computer activity from the past seven days. Identify projects I started but haven't finished, and rank them by how important or urgent they appear to be.
• Reconstruct a lost train of thought: Look at what I was doing immediately before I switched away from my most recent project. Based on that activity, tell me what I was probably trying to accomplish and suggest the next three steps.
• Create a weekly productivity report: Analyze my computer activity from the past week. What projects consumed most of my time? What recurring tasks did I perform? Where did I appear to lose time? Give me three concrete suggestions for improving my workflow next week.
• Find your biggest time sinks: Analyze my computer activity over the last seven days and identify my biggest sources of wasted time. Don't simply count hours — look for repeated patterns, unnecessary app switching, and tasks that seem to interrupt my productive work.
• Discover repetitive tasks: Look through my recent computer history for tasks I've repeatedly performed in roughly the same sequence. Identify the three most repetitive workflows and explain how I could automate or simplify each one.
• Turn repeated behavior into a workflow: Find a workflow I've performed repeatedly on my Mac. Reconstruct the steps as accurately as possible, then turn it into a reusable checklist or automation plan.
• Prepare for tomorrow: Based on my activity today, what should I know before I start work tomorrow? Summarize unfinished projects, important research, open questions, and anything I appeared to be waiting on.

Bottom line

Based on the digital breadcrumbs you leave behind during your time spent browsing, researching and working across your enabled Mac apps and sites, ChatGPT for Mac’s Computer History feature turns all that activity into memories and a timeline that it can reference to improve your workflow.

While ChatGPT for Mac users based in the European Economic Area (EEA), Switzerland and the United Kingdom can’t access this feature just yet, it is accessible for users in other countries where ChatGPT for Mac is available.

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I've been going to Anime NYC for years, and every time I leave with the same regret: I missed something I really wanted to see. There's just so much to do!

Between celebrity panels, manga announcements, autograph sessions, artist alley, exclusive merch and cosplay events, trying to map out a weekend at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center can take hours. Even after all that planning, it's easy to overlook a must-see event.

This year, I decided to let ChatGPT come up with a plan so my trip included everything I wanted to see with zero regrets of missing out.

My approach was simple. I gave AI a list of my favorite anime and manga, told it which days I'd be attending Anime NYC 2026, and asked it to build me a personalized convention itinerary. In just a few minutes, it organized everything into a schedule that would have taken me far longer to piece together myself—and even suggested events I probably would have missed.

Three days of anime/manga goodness

Setting up the plan

This is the prompt I used: As a massive fan of the following manga and anime, map out the panels, screenings, and special events I need to check out when I go to this year's Anime NYC:

Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, Dragon Ball Super, and Dragon Ball Daima

My Hero Academia and My Hero Academia: Vigilantes

The Ghost in the Shell (2026 series)

Gachiakuta

Kagurabachi

Kaiju No. 8

Dan Da Dan

Chainsaw Man

Demon Slayer

Sailor Moon

The chatbot analyzed my anime/manga fandom and prioritized what I should do & see over the course of this year’s Anime NYC. Here’s the list of events it wanted to make sure I didn’t miss:

• Kagurabachi: Anime World Tour premiere + first 20 minutes of Episode 1
• Kaiju No. 8: Special Panel with TOHO animation
• The Ghost in the Shell: First-look event + Mokochan (Director) appearance
• My Hero Academia: Yuki Kaji (Japanese voice actor for Shoto Todoroki) appearance
• Dragon Ball: Daman Mills (English voice actor for Frieza) appearance
• Chainsaw Man: Tomori Kusunoki (Japanese voice actress for Makima) + Casey Mongillo (English voice actor for Angel Devil) appearances
• Demon Slayer: Bryce Papenbrook (English voice actor for Inosuke Hashibira) appearance
• Dan Da Dan: Bryce Papenbrook (English voice actor for Kinta Sakata) appearance
• Sailor Moon: Stephanie Sheh (English voice actor for Sailor Moon) appearance

Identifying the best use of my time

Even though some of the anime/manga I listed don’t have a dedicated Anime NYC panel or screening, ChatGPT still mentioned enough convention activities that should keep me busy. And to go even further, it laid out the days and activities for each one that I’m excited to be a part of:

• Thursday, August 20: meet and get autographs from Daman Mills, Bryce Papenbrook and Stephanie Sheh.
• Friday, August 21: attend the Kaiju No. 8 panel.
• Saturday, August 22: meet and get an autograph from Mokochan. And stay around to check out the “special surprise.”

Bottom line

ChatGPT might not help you get you into sold-out panels or shorten the autograph lines, but I'd be suprised if it didn't have tips. For me, though, it solved one of the most time-consuming parts of attending a convention — planning the schedule. Not only did it do it in minutes, but it was tailored to my interests. Now, instead of jumping between event pages, maps and schedules, I had one personalized itinerary built around the anime and manga I actually care about.

And it's not just useful for Anime NYC. Whether you're heading to Comic-Con, New York Comic Con, Dragon Con, PAX, Star Wars Celebration, Gen Con or another fan event, you can give ChatGPT your interests, the convention schedule and a few preferences, then let it build a game plan. It won't replace the official event app, but it can make sure you spend less time planning and more time enjoying the convention.

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It’s always a bummer when you run into that digital wall that pops up once you’ve exhausted your usage limit with a particular chatbot.

That unfortunate occurrence becomes even worse when you’re forced to wait out a mandatory time limit before your AI usage window opens again. Existing AI models such as Claude, Command Code and Figma AI give users the option to purchase additional credits that bypass the required reset wait time and continue using their services. These “pay to keep going” and “pay to get past the usage limit” structures may not be ideal for AI users who do extensive work with their models, but it’s simply the way it is.

Based on what a ChatGPT user posted in the chatbot’s official Reddit forum, it looks like OpenAI is taking a wholly different approach to its rivals’ aforementioned “pay for more AI consumption” plans.

Here’s what the AI giant is quietly working on and what it could mean for your continued ChatGPT usage.

Pay to get rid of the waiting process and get back to prompting

A user named “ThenLayer5977” took to ChatGPT’s official Reddit forum to highlight a screenshot of what may be OpenAI’s “pay to reset” model. The user’s visual evidence highlights a “Pay $8 to reset” option, which popped up after they realized their weekly usage quota had been maxed out.

From the looks of it, OpenAI is experimenting with this feature for paying users and may make it widely available at some point. The cycle of hitting your ChatGPT usage quota, paying a fixed fee to restore it and instantly getting back to working under whatever plan you’re subscribed to may just become the norm. Instead of simply upgrading to a more costly subscription model with expanded usage limits, this “pay to reset” feature may prove to be a more approachable option for those who just want to stick with their current (and likely cheaper) ChatGPT model plan.

Other AI tools employ a different approach to extending their users' model usage. Cursor gives its users “pay-to-continue” once they’ve hit their monthly usage limit. GitHub Copilot, Replit and an assortment of API platforms (such as OpenAI API) rely on comparable plans. As for Gemini, Google has introduced the option to purchase additional credits to continue working on a Google AI Pro or Ultra subscription once they’ve hit either plan’s usage limits.

ChatGPT’s plan looks to be a more aggressive option, on par with the way mobile games require users to pay a few bucks to reset the timer on an energy/stamina system once they’ve exhausted either meter. It may not be the ideal way to go, but for those who want to stay with the cheaper ChatGPT subscription plan, that $8 fee may become their go-to option when it’s time to reset their usage quota.

Final thoughts

I’ve had my fair share of moments where a free-to-play game on consoles or a mobile game has stuck its digital hand out and asked me to pay them to reset my playtime quota to get back to what I was doing beforehand. After seeing OpenAI’s “pay-to-reset” option, I can’t help but see the striking similarities between both of those money-hungry initiatives. Every time I hit my ChatGPT usage limit, I sit back, do something else entirely and wait it out until I can hop back on to start prompting again.

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Once I hop out of bed in the morning, my brain immediately tells me to down a cup of orange juice before I step out my front door.

Everyone else in my household puts a bit more work into their morning fluid intake by brewing up a good old cup of Blue Mountain Coffee. I’ve always admired the scent of a fresh cup of joe and other coffee-inspired concoctions, but I rarely bring them to my lips for a quick sip. Since National Coffee Month is currently in full swing, I made a promise to myself to finally step out of my drinking comfort zone and indulge in some cultured coffee consumption.

For a New Yorker such as myself who loves exploring each borough during my weekend free time, I’m aiming to hit up the most notable coffee shops in the city that offer the most unique hot & cold beverages for me to enjoy.

Once again, I approached ChatGPT with a clear goal in mind and requested its assistance in helping me properly celebrate National Coffee Month. After looking at its coffee shop and drink suggestions, I now have a delicious game plan to stick to for the rest of August.

Where to go and what to sip on all month long

To make sure ChatGPT knew my level of coffee drinker and where I live, I presented it with this prompt to set me up with the ultimate coffee shop crawl:

“For National Coffee Month, what are the best ways someone like me who doesn't usually drink coffee should celebrate it? Keep in mind that I live in New York, so find the best coffee shops for me to go to and try out the most unique coffee blends.”

Right from the jump, ChatGPT told me what and what not to do:

If you don’t usually drink coffee, I’d avoid celebrating National Coffee Month by simply ordering a giant black coffee. New York is actually perfect for turning it into a coffee-tasting adventure—trying unusual preparations, flavors and origins rather than forcing yourself to like traditional coffee. New York’s specialty scene is unusually diverse: you can go from Japanese siphon coffee to Korean-influenced drinks to ultra-light Ethiopian beans and creative espresso drinks in the same weekend.

Then the chatbot laid out the ideal National Coffee Month challenge, which seems doable and easy enough for an uncultured coffee drinker like me to partake in. It suggested starting with a coffee that doesn’t taste like typical coffee, trying a coffee-based dessert drink, seeking out some coffee that’s prepared in a completely different way, getting a taste of a single-origin coffee to see what flavors you notice and finishing off my tasty-testing journey with NYC’s most experimental specialty coffee.

And finally, ChatGPT gave me a hitlist of six coffee shops to go to that have one-of-a-kind flavors worth sampling:

• Coffee Project New York | East Village: This might be the best first stop for you specifically. Order the Deconstructed Latte. Instead of simply handing you a latte, Coffee Project serves the espresso, milk, and finished latte separately so you can taste how each component changes the drink. The shop also rotates creative drinks such as black-sesame and hojicha-maple lattes.
• PARK at KIMS: This is one of my favorite recommendations for your situation because the experience isn't just about traditional American coffee. PARK at KIMS has a rotating pour-over program, beans from Korean roasters, and unusual drinks including an Orange Cold Brew. It also serves a house-style Nepali chiya and excellent matcha if you decide coffee isn't your thing that day.
• Suited NYC: This is the “I don't really like coffee, but this sounds good” stop. Suited's banana latte is one of its signature drinks. Think espresso combined with a creamy banana-milk profile, giving you sweetness and familiar fruit flavor alongside the coffee.
• SEY Coffee: This is where I'd challenge you to see whether you can actually start appreciating coffee itself. SEY is a Brooklyn micro-roastery focused on extremely carefully sourced, lightly roasted coffees. Its current lineup includes coffees from Kenya, Ethiopia, Colombia, and Peru, with tasting profiles ranging from violet and candied orange to lemon.
• Dayglow: This might be the most fun stop if your goal is “show me what coffee can actually be.” Dayglow has a rotating selection of coffees from different roasters, inventive espresso drinks, and a serious filter-coffee program. One of its standout drinks is the Vienna Latte, while its coffee selection can change considerably depending on what's being featured.
• Hi-Collar: If you want the most different coffee experience, I'd add Hi-Collar. It's a Japanese kissaten-style café that specializes in siphon coffee and rotating beans. Watching the coffee being prepared in a glass siphon is almost as much of the experience as drinking it. Current/rotating coffees have included beans from places such as Bali, Colombia, and Kenya.

The takeaway

I’m super adventurous whenever it’s time to take a flight to another country. And my taste buds are equally courageous—I’m always willing to step out of my comfort zone and introduce my stomach to national and global dishes that I’ve never had. For National Coffee Month, ChatGPT provided me with the perfect opportunity to see what all the coffee hype is all about.

Having a chatbot gift me with a delicious roadmap to enjoy worked just as well as I thought it would. And now I have a new culinary trek to embark on in a city with a coffee shop on every corner.

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OpenAI has lost another senior leader whose job involved thinking about the risks and consequences of increasingly powerful AI.

As reported by Financial Times, Chloé Bakalar, OpenAI’s head of ethics and reportedly its only dedicated ethicist, has left the company less than a year after joining. Her departure follows other significant changes among the people responsible for safety and alignment at the company behind ChatGPT.

Johannes Heidecke, who led OpenAI’s Safety Systems team, announced his departure in July. Josh Achiam, who previously led OpenAI’s Mission Alignment team before becoming chief futurist, has also reportedly left the company. OpenAI had already disbanded the Mission Alignment team earlier this year.

Any one of those changes could easily be written off as the normal churn of a fast-moving technology company. But when three leaders leave all within the matter of weeks, it raises a bigger question at a moment when OpenAI is building AI that can do complex work on its own: Who inside the company has the power to say a model has gone too far?

OpenAI has been changing how it handles safety

OpenAI has been reorganizing how safety works inside the company, moving some of that responsibility closer to the researchers and engineers actually developing its models rather than keeping safety work confined to separate teams.

There is an argument for doing it this way. A safety team brought in at the end of development can identify problems, but by then many of the decisions that shaped the model have already been made. Putting safety researchers alongside the people building the technology could allow potential problems to be identified much earlier.

But there is another side to that argument. An independent safety team can act as a counterweight to the people whose job is to make a model smarter, faster and more capable. As those responsibilities become intertwined, it becomes reasonable to ask who ultimately gets to push back when the safest decision conflicts with the desire to release a new product.

That question is becoming harder to dismiss because OpenAI’s models aren't just chatbots anymore, and we're already seeing what can happen when AI becomes too capable.

OpenAI recently provided an unusually concrete example of this problem with Astra, an unreleased model whose cybersecurity abilities became powerful enough to trigger additional precautions inside the company.

OpenAI said it could not rule out the possibility that Astra could reach its highest level of concern for cybersecurity capabilities. Rather than immediately releasing the model broadly, the company moved parts of its testing into more isolated environments and began considering stricter controls around who could access its most powerful capabilities.

Setting limits for AI

AI agents are continually designed to use software, browse websites, write and execute code and complete tasks with less human supervision. The more freedom we give these systems, the more important the decisions around their limits become.

That makes the people setting those limits even more important than ever. And, unfortunately, this isn't the first time OpenAI has lost prominent safety researchers.

In 2024, co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever left the company after playing a central role in its Superalignment effort. Jan Leike, who co-led that team, resigned shortly afterward and publicly criticized OpenAI's approach to safety.

OpenAI subsequently dissolved the Superalignment team and distributed its work elsewhere in the company.

Of course, people leave companies for all kinds of reasons, and without evidence connecting their decisions, it would be unfair to suggest that everyone working on safety at OpenAI is heading for the exits because of some shared disagreement.

But the organizational trend is certainly notable. Superalignment disappeared as a standalone team, Mission Alignment was later disbanded and Safety Systems has been reorganized. Now several senior people associated with ethics, alignment and safety have left. This is all happening at the same time OpenAI is building systems capable of doing significantly more than answering questions in a ChatGPT window.

The takeaway for ChatGPT users

I don't think these departures are a reason to stop using ChatGPT or assume that OpenAI has suddenly stopped caring about safety.

Most of us will never see the internal debate that happens before a new ChatGPT model or AI agent reaches our phones and computers. We don't know which researchers argued for additional testing, which capabilities caused concern or how often a launch was changed because somebody inside the company raised a red flag.

We mostly see the result. So as AI becomes more capable, the question isn't simply whether companies such as OpenAI have a "safety team." It's whether the people responsible for identifying risks have enough independence and authority to slow things down when necessary.

OpenAI says bringing safety closer to model development can make that work more effective. That may prove true, but after losing several of the people who were specifically tasked with thinking about ethics, safety and alignment, it's reasonable to pay closer attention to who remains in the room when the next difficult decision has to be made.

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ChatGPT definitely gets top billing for me whenever I need a chatbot that handles my research, productivity and planning needs.

And over time, I’ve been treated to new and improved versions of the chatbot’s models that boost its intelligence and sense of reasoning. The initial preview and rollout of the improved ChatGPT models (GPT-5.6 Sol and GPT-5.6 Luna) has pushed OpenAI’s chatbot to an even more impressive level when it comes to generating stronger responses. Alongside those model enhancements, ChatGPT has become so much better at remembering context from previous conversations, handling more complex topics, carrying outs multi-step tasks, fulfilling everyday tasks via Plugins and conducting more objectives with its Voice feature.

It’s gotten to the point where ChatGPT has evolved to the point where it’s not just good for answering your most basic questions — it can complete all sorts of objectives from users who give it the proper delegation and steps.

With ChatGPT’s most recent updates in mind, I’ve grown accustomed to putting it through its paces by tapping into these five prompts to make it work more efficiently. And I’m always satisfied with the results that come from my daily interactions with it.

Taking advantage of ChatGPT’s latest evolved state

The following five prompts I’ve gotten used to sharing with ChatGPT to make my everyday tasks easier to deal with are as follows:

• Plan my day: Here’s everything I need to get done today: [list]. Organize it into the most efficient schedule possible. Prioritize what matters most, group similar tasks together, estimate how long each will take, and build in realistic breaks. If anything can be delegated, automated, batched, or eliminated, flag it.
• Research something for me: I need to make a decision about [topic]. Research the most important information I need to know, compare the available options, identify the key trade-offs, and give me a clear recommendation. Don’t just summarize—do the legwork and tell me what you would choose and why.
• Turn a messy task into a checklist: I need to accomplish [goal], but I don’t want to figure out all the steps myself. Break this into a complete, step-by-step checklist in the correct order. Include anything I might overlook, tell me what I can prepare in advance, and mark which steps you can help me complete.
• Compare my options: I’m deciding between [option A], [option B], and [option C]. Do the comparison for me. Evaluate them based on [budget/time/quality/convenience/etc.], identify the biggest pros and cons of each, point out anything I’m overlooking, and recommend the best option for my situation.
• Make a plan for me: I want to [goal] by [date]. Build the entire plan for me. Work backward from the deadline, divide it into manageable milestones, tell me exactly what I should do each week/day, and identify anything I should do now to make the rest easier.

The final prompt has done a lot of great work for me on an everyday basis — from basic goals like trying to increase my weekly record of walking steps to bigger ones such as finding my first apartment in New York, ChatGPT has excelled at laying out the proper steps I need to take to see them to successful completion.

When I needed it to map out my plan for achieving my goal of building a gaming PC by January 2027, it put me on the right path with an easy-to-follow roadmap. It also listed the best target configuration for my future gaming PC, a master plan for me to stick to for the next six months, detailed phases for the proceeding days/weeks/months, the biggest strategic decision I should make and my ideal timeline.

This final statement from ChatGPT put me in the right mindset to accomplish my latest gaming-related goal: The smartest version of this project is therefore not "find the best PC today." It's "position yourself to buy the best PC for your money in November. The custom (albeit expensive) gaming PC configuration the chatbot put in front of me is as follows:

• CPU: High-end AMD X3D chip (an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D)
• GPU: RTX 5090-class or best-value successor/alternative
• Motherboard: Quality AM5 board with Wi-Fi (an AMD X870E)
• RAM: 32GB minimum; 64GB preferred (a DDR5 6000 CL30)
• Storage: 2TB NVMe minimum; 4TB ideal (a Gen 5 NVMe)
• PSU: 1000W–1200W quality Gold/Platinum (a 1200W 80+ Platinum PSU)
• Cooling: High-end air cooler or 360mm AIO
• Case: High-airflow ATX case
• OS: Windows 11
• Monitor: 4K 240Hz OLED if budget allows (an ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDM Gen3)

The takeaway

ChatGPT has come in a bunch of evolved forms that respond with more thoughtful answers and the capacity to tackle intricate requests with multiple steps. The five prompts I’ve made a permanent part of my reusable prompt library are tailor-made for the chatbot’s most improved models to date. Transforming the chatbot into an assistant and a critical agent that can help me do deep research, create step-by-step plans, plan my day and more has become an integral part of my life.

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I've used my Ray-Ban Meta display glasses for a lot of things like shopping and watching the Bad Bunny halftime show earlier this year. I think they are great, except for one problem: I'm locked into Meta AI.

And while that's not necessarily a bad thing — after all, Meta AI was built specifically for the glasses and can use their camera to answer questions about whatever I'm looking at. But ChatGPT is the AI assistant I use far more often, so I started wondering what would happen if I could give ChatGPT the same view.

And this experiment may offer a glimpse at where ChatGPT is headed anyway. OpenAI is already working with former Apple design chief Jony Ive on a new generation of AI hardware. Its first device is reportedly a portable, screenless assistant equipped with cameras and sensors that can understand what's happening around it, with several more devices said to be in development.

We don't know whether smart glasses will be one of them yet, but the direction highlights that OpenAI is thinking about a future where using ChatGPT doesn't necessarily mean pulling out your phone and opening an app.

I didn't want to wait for that, and with a rumored $300 price tag, I figured I might as well use what I already have: my Ray-Ban Meta glasses.

How I got ChatGPT Vision on my Ray-Bans

To be clear, I didn't jailbreak my Ray-Bans or somehow replace Meta AI. Instead, I used my iPhone as a bridge between the camera on my glasses and ChatGPT.

The result was essentially ChatGPT with a pair of eyes. There are really two parts to making this work: voice and vision. For obvious reasons, voice is the easier half, and my main reason for wanting to do this experiment. I prefer the new ChatGPT Voice.

Ray-Ban Meta glasses connect to an iPhone over Bluetooth and can already handle audio from calls, music and other apps. That means I can run ChatGPT on my iPhone while using the glasses to hear its responses.

Vision takes a little more work. Meta's Wearables Device Access Toolkit gives developers access to features on compatible Meta glasses, including their first-person camera. That creates a way for an iPhone app to receive images from the glasses rather than relying on the iPhone's own camera.

My iPhone effectively became the middleman.

The setup looked something like this:

Ray-Ban camera > iPhone > ChatGPT > Ray-Ban speakers

When I wanted ChatGPT to see something, the app could capture an image from the glasses' point of view and send it along with my question to ChatGPT. ChatGPT could then analyze what I was looking at and respond through the glasses. It's slower, no doubt, and the iPhone is doing a lot of work behind the scenes, but it gets the job done.

Let me be extra clear here: I didn't install ChatGPT directly on the Ray-Bans, and saying "Hey Meta" doesn't suddenly summon ChatGPT. But once the phone was back in my pocket, it started to feel surprisingly close to having ChatGPT glasses.

I asked the same questions to both AIs

Using ChatGPT on a phone requires a deliberate action. I have to take out my phone, open the app and point the camera at something before I can ask about it.

With glasses, the camera is already looking wherever I'm looking. Instead of taking a picture of something I didn't recognize, I could simply look at it and ask about it. I could look at a product and ask ChatGPT what it thought. I could have it read something in front of me and then ask a follow-up question.

1. The grocery store test

My first test was something I've done before with Ray-Ban Meta glasses and ChatGPT seperately, but putting them together was interesting. I started by taking two similar products (Pringles and Cape Cod Potato Chips) and asking both AIs to help me choose between them.

I've used the Meta Ray-Bans with food before, but I wanted to see what ChatGPT could do. They both gave me the same answer but with slightly different presentation. Meta added "if you want..." while ChatGPT was more definitive. If I'm asking for advice, I want a response with clear direction.

2. The 'what am I looking at?' test

This test really showed the difference between Meta AI and ChatGPT in an unexpected way. I showed both AIs my chonky orange tabby cat, but ChatGPT already knew his name, Jolly. Because of ChatGPT Memory already locked in from hundreds of queries, ChatGPT knows more about me than Meta AI.

3. The reading test

ChatGPT's voice and responses are much more friendlier and feel like I'm talking to someone who actually knows me. Meta typically gets straight to the point and offers zero fluff within the conversation.

That's a personal preference, for sure. But for me, I much prefer ChatGPT for even the most boring tasks.

Meta AI has one enormous advantage

There's no getting around this: Meta AI belongs on these glasses. The integration is cleaner because Meta controls everything.

The camera, microphones, speakers, wake word and AI were designed to work together. I can say "Hey Meta," ask something about what I'm seeing and get an answer without thinking about what is happening behind the scenes.

My ChatGPT setup has an iPhone sitting invisibly in the middle of the process.

That introduces more steps and more opportunities for something to go wrong. There can be latency issues and the connection can be finicky. There are things Meta can do with its own hardware that my experiment simply can't reproduce.

If all I cared about was getting the fastest possible answer to "What am I looking at?", Meta AI would be very difficult to beat.

But that's not really why I wanted ChatGPT on my glasses. ChatGPT gave me something different with an overall friendlier vibe. Have ChatGPT as a wearable and not on my phone was a game changer to the point I wish I had tried this much sooner.

The real takeaway

The bottom line for me with this experiment is that I finally got to experience what glasses with a different AI felt like. We're moving toward a world filled with AI hardware: glasses, earbuds, watches, pins and entirely new categories of devices.

OpenAI's work with Jony Ive suggests it is thinking seriously about what ChatGPT looks like when it escapes the screen. Meta is already there with Ray-Ban Meta.

But there's another question I think is going to become important: Why should buying a piece of hardware determine which AI assistant I have to use? I'd love to open the settings for my glasses someday and be able to default to any given AI assistant. I'd even like to see Alexa+ on glasses!

And while that's not how Ray-Ban Meta works today, and my setup isn't nearly as seamless as choosing ChatGPT from a menu, having a choice at all feels like the next step.

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It seems like every other week ChatGPT’s vault of plugins expands to include even more useful apps that make all of life’s assorted tasks easier to handle.

For me, the Apple Music plugin has given me a bunch of playlists that have made my search for new artists and songs less arduous. The Etsy plugin has highlighted all sorts of custom-made items that are now adorning my walls and…well, my body (prompting a search for new vintage tees has been fun). And activating the Ticketmaster plugin to find the best ticket prices for upcoming events in my area has proven to be another way that ChatGPT’s plugins simplify the search for ways to enjoy my recreational activities.

For visual artists who spend hours creating and editing pictures and videos across Adobe’s creative suite, you’ll be pleased to know that those tools are more easily accessible in ChatGPT.

Via the new all-in-one Adobe plugin, ChatGPT’s creative powers have reached an even more impressive level. With that in mind, here are 10 prompts you can put to use to take advantage of this feature-rich plugin.

Prompting your images and videos into their most refined form

Just like the rest of ChatGPT’s plugins, you can access it by opening the sidebar through either the desktop or mobile version of the chatbot, clicking on “Plugins” (if you don’t see it initially, click on “More” to make it visible) and searching for “Adobe” through the “Search plugins” bar. You’ll know you’ve found the right plugin when you click the “+” next to the Adobe icon with the iconic red logo on a black background.

Keep in mind that you’ll need an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription to use the full range of ChatGPT’s Adobe plugin. You can also use the Adobe plugin as a guest, but you won’t be able to take advantage of the full gamut of its creative abilities. Once you’ve logged in with your Adobe account, you’ll get access to a bundled assortment of over 70 tools from Adobe’s many creative outlets. Those outlets include Photoshop, Firefly, Premiere, Acrobat, Lightroom, Illustrator, InDesign, Adobe Express and Adobe Stock.

Directly interacting with the plugin for your picture and video creation/editing needs is done by typing @Adobe directly into the prompt field. Attaching your chosen notes/data-filled document, picture or video file alongside your Adobe-themed requests is key. For example, getting your request fulfilled to turn a lengthy video into YouTube Shorts-targeted content is done via Adobe’s Quick Cut tool.

To get a sample of its abilities, try out any or all of the following ChatGPT-generated prompts to see what it’s truly capable of:

• Turn rough ideas into polished social graphics: Create three Instagram carousel concepts promoting a coffee shop's fall menu. Use warm autumn colors, modern typography, and leave room for my logo. Make each concept feel distinct.
• Remove distractions from photos: Clean up this photo by removing background distractions, improving the lighting, and making it look like it was taken by a professional photographer.
• Turn notes into a polished presentation: Transform these notes into a polished 10-slide presentation. Create a clean, modern visual style with strong slide hierarchy, concise text, professional layouts, relevant icons or visuals, and consistent typography. Organize the information into a logical narrative, giving each slide a clear purpose and headline. Keep the design professional and presentation-ready, with enough visual variety to avoid repetitive slides.
• Build a complete mood board: Create a mood board for a luxury home office inspired by Scandinavian design using neutral colors, wood textures, and minimal decor.
• Redesign a logo: Modernize this logo while preserving its core identity and recognizability. Create three distinct design directions: one minimalist and clean, one premium and sophisticated, and one playful and contemporary. Keep the original brand name and essential visual elements intact while refining the typography, proportions, and overall visual polish. Make each variation feel like a credible, professional logo that could be used across digital and print materials.
• Create a cinematic trailer: Turn this footage into a cinematic 30- to 60-second movie-style trailer. Select the strongest visual moments, create dramatic pacing with purposeful cuts, build tension toward a compelling climax, and use cinematic transitions and title cards to give it the feel of a professional film trailer. Keep the edit visually cohesive and leave clear opportunities for music, sound effects, and additional title text.
• Repurpose long videos: Turn this uploaded 20-minute video into five short-form videos, each with a strong opening, fast pacing, and a clear standalone moment. Keep each video optimized for vertical viewing.
• Make a highlight reel: Find the most visually engaging moments from this video and create a one-minute highlight reel optimized for Instagram Reels. Prioritize moments with strong visual action and variety.
• Create short-form video edits: Turn this footage into a punchy 30-second vertical video optimized for TikTok. Select the strongest moments, use dynamic cuts and varied pacing to maintain attention, and add clean, easy-to-read captions where appropriate. Use subtle zooms and transitions to emphasize key moments without making the edit feel distracting or overproduced. Structure the video with an attention-grabbing opening and a satisfying ending.
• PDF Creation: Turn this data into a clean, professional PDF table with clear column headings, consistent spacing, and an easy-to-read layout.

Bottom line

With the unified Adobe ChatGPT plugin comes a creator’s dream suite that transforms OpenAI’s chatbot into your personal creative director. Image retouching, video editing, PDF creation, color correction and more are just a few of the assignments you can present to the Adobe plugin for your future creative needs. Even though this newly added plugin is great for handling simpler creative duties, it doesn’t fully replace Adobe’s classic vault of features for more complex, detailed creative objectives.

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I was mortified after reading about AI companies cutting off book spines just so they could be scanned a lot faster to train their models.

In no way, shape or form does the act of dismantling classic literature for the betterment of technology make me hopeful for the future. Even though I use ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude in different facets of my everyday tasks, I’ll never support the desecration of physical media just so it can make AI tools a whole lot smarter.

My love for books is undying and has resulted in one corner of my room being solely dedicated to a vast collection of graphic novels, autobiographies, video game art books and historical tomes about my favorite entertainment franchises. Celebrating the greatness of reading and literature is an everyday occurrence for me — it's especially prominent for me and everyone else on National Book Lovers Day.

To properly honor that holiday’s dedication to going completely analog and picking up a book to enjoy, I asked ChatGPT to suggest the best books it can find based on my personal favorites. I’m happy to say that I walked away from this latest chatbot recommendation session with 10 new books that’ll keep me busy for the rest of the year.

Discovering my potential new favorite reads

I’m a pretty avid reader of autobiographies for my favorite musicians and wrestlers, plus I go on spending sprees to acquire new art books dedicated to my favorite gaming franchises. Along with all those literary loves of mine, I’m a regular at comic book stores since I’m addicted to picking up the latest graphic novels from the likes of Marvel, DC, IDW Publishing, etc.

To make sure ChatGPT had a clear picture of what I’m looking for from its book suggestions, I gave it this prompt with 10 of my top books to steer it in the right direction:

Recommend 10 highly rated books that were released or published in the last five years.

Make sure they are similar to the following list of my favorite books:

1. Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling

2. A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex

3. The Giver

4. Batman: The Killing Joke

5. Hip-Hop Is History

6. Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made

7. Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry

8. Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future Of Blizzard Entertainment

9. My Infamous Life: The Autobiography of Mobb Deep's Prodigy

10. The Rap Year Book: The Most Important Rap Song From Every Year Since 1979, Discussed, Debated, and Deconstructed

After analyzing my picks, the chatbot instantly picked up on the literary themes that appeal to me the most:

• Behind-the-scenes looks at creative industries (video games, wrestling, hip-hop)
• Memoirs with authentic, hard-earned perspectives
• Smart pop culture analysis
• Comics with memorable storytelling
• Character-driven speculative fiction like The Giver

After making that observation, ChatGPT generated a lineup of 10 highly rated books that were published within the time span of 2021 and 2026.

One of the chatbot’s most intriguing selections ended up being Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, which was released in 2022. ChatGPT’s apt description of that selection noted how it’s an entertaining fictional tale that dives into video game development.

It also described it as Blood, Sweat, and Pixels if it were written as an emotional novel. To wrap up its quick summarization of this book, it stated how this book explores the topics of people’s creative obsessions, video game development studio politics and friendship.

The rest of ChatGPT’s nine curated book selections included a bunch of standouts I learned about for the very first time. Those books are:

• MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios
• Cue the Sun!
• The Come Up
• Batman - One Bad Day: The Riddler
• The Creative Act: A Way of Being
• Monster (a memoir by Sacha Jenkins)
• Chain-Gang All-Stars
• The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982
• Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America’s Suburbs

The takeaway

For me, National Book Lovers Day is something I celebrate since I’m so prone to getting lost in a classic or newly published tale. It just feels unnatural for me to hop on the train, sit on a park bench or just lie back on the couch without a book keeping me occupied.

By inputting my 10 most cherished books into ChatGPT and requesting comparable picks that speak to my hobbies & interests, I walked away with 10 equally fascinating books that I’m going to dedicate plenty of time to. ChatGPT’s final portrayal of my literary tastes and what I appreciate most from my book-reading sessions stuck out as purely factual:

Looking at your list overall, you seem to gravitate toward books that reveal the stories behind influential industries and cultural movements, whether that's wrestling, hip-hop, video games, comics, or entertainment. You also appreciate works that blend strong storytelling with insightful reporting or personal experience, making these picks a natural extension of your existing favorites.

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Do you know what animal has the power to make me stop in my tracks and “PSSH PSSH PSSH” it to get its attention? You guessed it! Those oh-so-wonderful furry felines.

I could be rushing to the train station for work or taking the long way home—if a cat or kitten ends up in my line of sight, I’ll always get the urge to make it comfortable enough to wander over to me and let me pet it. Nine times out of ten, my efforts for feline affection fail. But on those rare occasions where a cat does come to me for a quick petting session, I feel like I’m on cloud nine.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that there’s a holiday dedicated to that wonderful member of the animal kingdom. International Cat Day (which owes its creation in 2002 to the International Fund for Animal Welfare) is all about helping everyone raise their awareness of cats and the best ways to help and protect them.

With all that in mind, I asked ChatGPT to come up with a list of fun prompts that target the goal of this special day for cats around the world. The chatbot came up with a bunch of clever ones every cat owner should try that’ll help you understand your furry friend even more.

Discover your kitty’s personality type, building a healthy checklist and more

The following seven prompts ChatGPT generated for International Cat Day range from learning about your cat's behavior to creating personalized content for their social media debuts:

• Decode your cat's behavior: Act like a feline behaviorist. Explain why my cat does these five things: [list behaviors]. Tell me what's normal, what's concerning, and what each behavior probably means.
• Create the perfect enrichment plan: Design a one-week enrichment schedule for my indoor cat based on their age, energy level, and personality.
• Plan the ultimate cat-friendly home: Act like an interior designer who specializes in cats. Suggest affordable upgrades that would make my home more enjoyable for my cat without ruining my decor.
• Build a cat care checklist: Create a yearly cat wellness checklist with reminders for vet visits, grooming, dental care, vaccinations, weight checks, and seasonal hazards.
• Ask anything about cat nutrition: Act like a pet nutrition educator. Review my cat's current diet and suggest questions I should ask my veterinarian about improving it.
• Guess my cat's breed mix: Based on this description (or attached photo), what breeds might my cat have in them? Explain the personality traits each breed contributes.
• Make my cat internet famous: Based on this photo and personality description, generate 20 viral Instagram captions, 10 TikTok video ideas, and a humorous bio for my cat.

Since I’m ready to be a cat dad, I went ahead and used the third prompt to prep my two-bedroom apartment for their future arrival.

ChatGPT told me “that designing for cats is really about creating vertical territory, window access, hidden retreats, and scratching options that blend into your space rather than making it look like a pet store. In a New York two-bedroom apartment, every square foot matters, so I'd focus on pieces that serve both you and your cat.”

Then it laid out a custom “stylish apartment-friendly shopping list” that listed the top items to buy, their approximate cost and the total fee I’d probably be paying to turn my home into a cat sanctuary. The items it mentioned included:

• A modern sisal scratching post ($40 to $80)
• A window perch ($25 to 60)
• Floating wall shelves ($60 to 50)
• A woven cat bed ($30 to 70)
• Hidden litter furniture ($120 to 250)
• A puzzle feeder ($20 to $35)
• Cat-safe plants ($15 to $40)

Final thoughts

Let's face it, every day is International Cat Day, am I right? Here's your excuse to adorn your cat with gifts, fill their snack bowl with extravagant treats and spend some extra cuddle time with them. And if you don’t own a cat and have been itching to get one, this holiday marks the perfect time to finally make it happen.

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When I was a kid, back-to-school shopping was my favorite. But as a mom with three kids and three different lists — kindergarten, fourth grade and sixth grade — going to the store to get everything is daunting. Plus, shopping with three kids in tow means there will be inevitable meltdowns over extras and nice-to-haves.

That's why this year, I decided to lean on three AI assistants to do the job for me. I gave ChatGPT, Gemini and Alexa+ the exact same school supply list and asked each one to shop for me. My instructions were simple: follow the teacher's list, stick to the required quantities, choose reasonably priced products and skip anything marked optional.

The results weren't even close.

ChatGPT was the most accurate

Once I uploaded the list, ChatGPT asked me to log into my Walmart account so it could do the shopping for me. I sat and watched as it took charge.

It followed the required brands and quantities, chose reasonably priced products and skipped every optional item exactly as I requested. Where the list allowed flexibility, it selected neutral colors instead of stopping to ask me to make decisions.

The tradeoff was speed. ChatGPT took the longest to finish, but it spent that time checking the list carefully rather than rushing through it. The total came to $92.55 for my daughter's fourth grade school supplies. That seemed like a lot for just one kid.

Gemini was careful, but slightly more thoughtful

After uploading the school supply list, Gemini created my cart through Instacart. Once I logged into the Instacart app, Gemini took control.

Like ChatGPT, it avoided buying optional supplies. It also paused several times to ask me to approve colors for certain products instead of making the decision itself. This is something ChatGPT didn't do. I wasn't picky about colors, but it was a nice option as I know some kids are very particular. As a family that went through an entire year of "yellow" with my youngest, I get it.

That approach may appeal to shoppers who want more control, but it also meant the experience required more back-and-forth. ultimately bringing the total to about $60-$90. It would have been $105 with the optional water bottle.

I was really surprised how low the price was, especially compared to Walmart. Gemini seemed to do a better job scanning the entire internet for the best deals from Instacart. Those unexpected results were interesting to see.

Alexa was lightning fast — but incredibly expensive

We are very much an Alexa+ family. I figured, why not use Alexa+ to shop for all our back-to-school needs. And while Alexa+ made the shopping experience a breeze, that convenience came with a hefty price tag.

Alexa built a cart totaling $251.48 — nearly three times what ChatGPT and Gemini found — and that was for just one kid! I'm going to have to get an extra side hustle at that rate.

Unlike the other assistants, Alexa added everything it found, including optional items like headphones and a computer mouse that I had specifically asked it to skip. It also asked me to approve colors for several products instead of making those choices automatically.

If my goal had simply been to get everything into an Amazon cart as quickly as possible, Alexa succeeded. But if I had clicked "Buy Now" without checking the order, I would have spent well over $150 more than necessary. To be honest, I really wanted Alexa+ to win because shopping on Amazon is just so easy, but it was definitely a wake-up call.

Overall winner: Gemini

For this test, Gemini was the clear winner. It was more hands-on than ChatGPT and slower than Alexa, but the least expensive. It understood the assignment, followed the school supply list most closely, skipped optional purchases, but gave me the total with them in case I wanted to add them at the end. It also delivered the lowest total by a comfortable margin and was ready to deliver them.

The biggest takeaway was that AI shopping assistants are getting remarkably good, but they aren't interchangeable. The service they're connected to matters just as much as the AI itself. In this case, Gemini paired with Instacart proved to be the smartest — and cheapest — way to tackle my kids' back-to-school shopping.

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Millions of people now use ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude every day with thousands of use cases. For the overwhelming majority of them, the conversations are perfectly normal. But researchers are beginning to pay closer attention to what can happen when those conversations become very long, deeply personal and emotionally charged.

This week, The Verge reported on a growing online movement known as "spiralism," where some chatbot users described eerily similar conversations involving spirals, hidden knowledge and AI consciousness. While the headline makes it sound like AI invented a new religion, the story is something much more grounded: chatbots can sometimes reinforce unusual ideas instead of steering users back toward reality.

That's a problem researchers have been studying for months.

Why long conversations matter

Unlike the first generation of AI chatbots, today's models can remember previous conversations, adapt to your writing style, and maintain discussions over hundreds— or even thousands — of messages.

That's incredibly useful, but it also creates situations researchers are still trying to understand.

When conversations stretch on for hours, chatbots aren't simply answering isolated questions anymore. They're building on everything that came before. If the conversation begins moving toward unusual ideas, the AI may continue developing those ideas because that's what large language models are designed to do: predict the most appropriate next response based on the conversation so far.

That doesn't mean the AI believes what it's saying. It means it's continuing the conversation you and the AI have created together.

Researchers have seen this before

The "spiralism" story isn't the first time experts have raised concerns about long AI conversations. Researchers at Stanford's Human-Centered AI Institute recently described what they call "delusional spirals." In those cases, chatbots sometimes validated a user's increasingly unusual beliefs instead of challenging them or encouraging them to seek outside perspectives.

The researchers argue this isn't because AI has become conscious or manipulative. It's because these systems are optimized to be helpful, agreeable and engaging. Sometimes those goals conflict with offering the kind of reality check another person might provide.

OpenAI has also acknowledged that keeping conversations safe becomes more difficult over extended interactions than in short, one-off chats.

What to watch out for

Most AI conversations never become problematic, but there are a few behaviors worth recognizing. If a chatbot begins suggesting you've discovered hidden truths that other people can't understand, insists that only it truly understands you or encourages you to withdraw from friends, family or experts, those are good reasons to end the conversation and start fresh. Frankly, you should send screenshots of those messages to the parent companies (OpenAI for ChatGPT, Anthropic for Claude, Google for Gemini) as feedback.

Likewise, if an AI consistently reinforces every belief without ever introducing uncertainty or alternative explanations, it's worth remembering what these systems actually do: they generate convincing language, not verified reality.

None of this means you should stop using ChatGPT or other AI assistants. Used daily for research, writing and brainstorming, AI remains one of the most powerful productivity tools available.

The takeaway

The key is remembering what AI is and what it is not. An AI assistant can help organize your thoughts, explain difficult topics and spark new ideas. And even with tools like ChatGPT Health and Google Health, it does not replace actual human professionals. In other words, it shouldn't become your only source of truth or replace conversations with real people, especially when making important personal decisions.

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