What is the small job that you gave to the AI and which you never reclaimed?
There’s no shortage of bold statements regarding how AI is going to replace jobs, but I find the humble victories much more fascinating—the small tasks that have been taken off my plate and remain off.
My actual contenders are mundane things like translating my jumbled meeting notes into a list of action items or making a customer service response sound less frustrated than I was at the time. Boring but valuable in practical saved time.
On the other hand, there are the tasks I've attempted to delegate and failed because of my inability to formulate my requirements precisely enough.
What tasks would be on your list that you will not perform manually anymore and which ones you tried delegating and gave up on? Specific examples help better than generalizations.
Replies
We have a rule that requires us to record what we did the previous day and what we need to do today at the start of every workday. As a developer, I had to find and write commits and PRs myself, so I often missed them or skipped minor tasks. However, since I started using AI, this task has been automatically organized and handled every time I go to work, which has been a great help.
For me, it’s the small repetitive research tasks that quietly consume a surprising amount of time.
Finding a business is easy. But then checking the website, finding contact details, understanding what the company does, organizing the information, and deciding what to do next — doing that manually over and over gets expensive very quickly.
That’s actually one of the problems that pushed me to build BizPlifier.
More recently, I’d add answering routine business calls to the list. An AI can handle the initial conversation, answer common questions, capture the caller’s details or booking request, and only involve a human when needed.
What I wouldn’t fully delegate is the final judgment. I like AI doing the repetitive collection and first-pass work, while the human keeps control of the decisions.
That division has worked best for me: AI handles repetition; humans handle judgment.
@andy_chirila Great way of putting it "That division has worked best for me: AI handles repetition; humans handle judgment.". AI for the repetitive tasks is a breath of fresh air, but doesn't replace the judgment, navigation, sign-off.
For me, it’s the small repetitive tasks around building products — turning rough notes into action items, rewriting copy, debugging small issues, and summarizing information.
I still make the final decisions myself, but I rarely start these tasks from scratch anymore. That’s probably where AI has saved me the most time.
Turning a recorded call into something I'd actually reread. I used to take notes during and be useless in the conversation itself. Haven't written a note by hand in two years.