Hi Product Hunt, I'm Linden. I started IFTTT 16 years ago.
In 2010 I covered a wall with sticky notes. Some sketched the database: users, triggers, actions. Others sketched what it might feel like: a triangle for "if," a circle for "then," and a lot of questions. Back then I called each automation a "statement." Today they're Applets. That wall turned into a side project I called "ifttt," and I've been working on it ever since.
Right now I'm thinking about personal AI. AI agents got very good at answering, and at acting when you ask. But they still wait for you to ask. Most of the tools they use, MCP (Model Context Protocol) included, can't start anything on their own yet.
I think the next step is AI that watches for the "this" and reliably does the "that," on terms you set and understand. For a person, not just a company.
I'm here to see what you're building with AI and automation, and to learn from it.
To start: what's one thing you wish happened automatically?
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First, I view IFTTT as one of the OG's for workflow agents. Reliable, useful, deploying a builder/owner centric approach - a personal deterministic agent more than a decade before personal AI agents were even on the horizon. @ltibbets you have been a relentless builder and pioneer.
Hmmmm....one thing.....likely out of scope, but I would like every single piece of data about my human body collected and centralized for analysis, alerts, etc. - source my doctor, my Garmin watch, labs, procedures, you name it. As it stands, it feels like I have more intentional and complete information about my Land Cruiser than my body.
I look forward to the answers you get.
The one this and that I have built is a date. My app reads birthdays and anniversaries out of the phone's calendar, a model turns a calendar line in any language into a type and a name, and three days before the day and on its morning a push suggests a song for that person. Two lessons that may map onto personal AI. The that has to know what already happened: if a song for that date was made in the two weeks before, the reminder stays silent, otherwise the automation nags you about the thing you just did. And I first sent the reminders only to people who had not subscribed, as a sales message, which was wrong. A reminder is part of the product, so now paying users get it too and spend their week's credits on it. The this is the cheap part. The hard part is a that which knows when to shut up.
IFTTT's UX was magical. Well done. :)
Top of mind for me right now: It's shocking how inefficient most SMBs are, even when I'm trying to give them money. AI phone calls might solve some of the coordination challenges but it's a multi-channel problem where businesses often need you to provide specific information, create online accounts, verify receipts of emails, etc.