From Dinner Plans To DIY: Here’s How Our Team Really Uses AI
Contents
Ryan Haines / Android Authority
Artificial intelligence is starting to get a bit of backlash, and it’s easy to see why. Following the initial excitement after ChatGPT burst onto the scene a couple of years ago, it now feels like we’re having AI shoved down our throats everywhere we look. As annoying as it can be to have those two letters attached to everything, it’s easy to forget how useful these AI apps and tools can actually be in the right circumstances. I was curious to know how my tech-savvy colleagues got the most out of it, so I asked a bunch of them about their best uses of AI.
I was impressed by the broad range of responses, from improvising games and meal planning to helping with contracts and even DIY. The team also doesn’t see a clear winner in terms of platform — while Gemini got a few mentions as the onboard Google LLM, most of the biggest chatbots are represented.
Let’s take a look.
Has AI genuinely improved your life in some way?
7 votes
A quick reference for documents
Andy Walker / Android Authority
It’s not the most exciting use on our list, but that’s exactly the point. AI’s creativity is still limited, but it can keep all your boring paperwork in check so that you have more time to unleash your own potential. Instead of reading whole manuals or agreements, you can feed them to the LLM and let it be your personal expert.
Both Mitja Rutnik and Andy Walker have found NotebookLM to be ideal for this task, albeit in differing personal circumstances. In Mitja’s case, he had a ton of paperwork to consider and reference in the process of purchasing a new apartment, so he used the AI-powered note-taking app to organize and quickly reference all of the documents. Not only did it help him check everything was in order, but he could now ask the AI if he needed to quickly look up some obscure details about the fixtures and fittings.
How many of us sit down and read a car manual from cover to cover?
Andy also found this aspect of NotebookLM handy when he bought a new car. How many of us sit down and read a car manual from cover to cover? How many of us would understand it if we did? But Andy uploaded a digital version to the app, and now he can ask it questions in plain English, with the answers being equally understandable.
I’ve had a good experience with AI similar to Mitja’s last time I signed an apartment rental lease. Being in a country outside of my homeland, I was faced with both foreign property laws and a different language in the terms of the contract. I scanned it into ChatGPT and asked it to summarize and highlight anything that looked like a red flag. This was in the early stages of AI, and I was mightily impressed.
A kitchen guide
Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority
I’ve enjoyed using ChatGPT for specific recipes based on what’s in my fridge, and I’m not the only member of the AA team who uses it for cooking advice. As Kaitlyn Cimino told me:
“I asked ChatGPT to help me plan a week’s worth of dinners for my family. After inputting a few parameters (desired meal size, preferred health focus, dietary restrictions, etc.) ChatGPT suggested seven easy recipes for me to try, with additional options when I requested alternatives. I then asked for a grocery list, and ChatGPT automatically populated a highly organized shopping list for everything I’d need to prepare the meals. “
Rushil Agrawal had an even more impressive food-based AI experience — using Gemini, this time. He used the chatbot to investigate his wife’s recurring gut issues by describing symptoms and meals. After a few examples, Gemini identified a possible FODMAP intolerance — something doctors hadn’t considered — leading to dietary changes that significantly improved her condition ahead of a formal diagnosis.
Samsung Food also got a mention for its more muted use of AI in Andy’s experience. He found it helpful for bite-sized Smart Cook instructions and easy recipe imports.
A games and DIY assistant
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
Gemini can be very useful around the house, even in the most obscure of situations. Ryan Haines discovered this when he used the chatbot for tips on how to fix a leaky bathroom sink after his landlord proved unreliable. With voice prompts, photo uploads, and shopping help, Gemini guided him through diagnosing the issue, buying parts, and installing a new drain assembly. He found that it made the DIY repair surprisingly straightforward for someone with no plumbing experience.
While not as crucial from a DIY standpoint, Mishaal Rahman used Gemini to recreate a missing 20-sided Scattergories die digitally for a game night with friends. As he told me:
I was hosting some friends over for a board game night at my place, and one of them brought the game Scattergories over. This game makes use of a 20-sided die that consist of the first two letters of the alphabet. However, my friend had lost the die, so to make do, I asked Gemini to create a digital version of the Scattergories dice and roll whenever I told it to.
Sure I could have used a number of online D20 dice websites and then converted the number it landed on to a letter, but Gemini quickly solved the problem for me without me needing to do much.
A language guru
Robert Triggs / Android Authority
There are plenty of translation apps out there, but AI has taken it to a new level. As well as directly switching languages of your text, it can also hone the wording for our desired use. Molly Wang has found DeepSeek particularly useful in this regard, telling me:
I need to do some promotion on Chinese social media about the media and my work. DeepSeek far outperforms other AI tools in Chinese output and comprehension. With just a simple idea from me, it can generate social media language that’s perfectly suited.
Even if you’re not switching to a different language, AI can help you perfect your prose. When Stephen Schenck is mentally reaching for the right word or phrase, he sometimes uses Gemini to brainstorm. By describing the context of the content to the AI, it can usually offer better suggestions for the wording than a traditional internet search.
A work productivity tool
We’re dedicated to bringing you original content at Android Authority, which means we’ll never use chatbots to write our articles. However, that doesn’t mean we don’t find the tech extremely useful for tasks on the periphery. I don’t mind admitting that, having collected the responses I got from my colleagues regarding their best uses of AI for this article, I had ChatGPT help me order and categorize them.
I’m not alone. Other members of the team have embraced AI in other aspects of their roles:
- Adam Birney uses Grammarly AI to draft emails from prompts. This can do the bulk of the task, and he can then easily add personal touches afterward.
- Jonathan Feist uses NotebookLM to organize product review documents for robot vacuums, letting him quickly answer questions about features and pricing.
- Bogdan Petrovan used ChatGPT 4o to build and later update a Chrome extension for internal analytics despite his limited coding experience.
- Molly uses Grok to brainstorm creative client proposals, generating ideas that balance client needs with media strengths.
There you have it. Maybe AI is a bubble that’s about to burst, or perhaps it will take all of our jobs and eventually run our society. These things might be out of our control, but in the meantime, we’re happy to find the upsides.
What are the best uses for AI that you’ve discovered? Let us know in the comments!
