An AI Feature Done Right

Given my rants about AI done wrong, unnecessary complexity, or folks being snobbish about "simple" features, I thought I'd give a shout-out to Todoist (still my favourite to-do app).

They've slowly but steadily shipped some nice AI features. The recent one (currently in beta collecting feedback) is as genius as it's simple:

• As a user, your task inbox has a unique email address (some-unique-code@todoist.com).

• If you send an email to that address, it gets added to your task list.

• The new feature: AI reads the email, extracts the actual tasks and their due dates, and adds those to your task list.

The Prompt is Not Your Moat

If your to-do app doesn't have this feature, you can copy and paste an email straight into ChatGPT's interface, ask it to extract all action items from it, and then copy those into your app. I suspect that landing on the right prompt to achieve this wouldn't be too hard.

Or, if you're feeling fancy, you can set that up as an automation in Zapier and co.

Or, we realize that AI represents raw functionality that provides the most value when integrated into a holistic product experience. The question is not, "Can straight-up ChatGPT already do it?" The question is, "How can we improve our users' experience?"