Personal Automation with AI

Microsoft Innovation Podcast

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2M ago 28:31

MP3•Episode home

🔴 For full Show Notes
https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/747

Hosts: Mark Smith, Meg Smith

Personal automation that works now. Real examples beat agent hype: observe tasks, optimise setup, and automate recurring work. Scheduling with ICS, daily briefs, shopping lists, and one-off searches show clear time savings and control.
Join the private WhatsApp group for Q&A and community: https://chat.whatsapp.com/E0iyXcUVhpl9um7DuKLYEz
🎙️ What you’ll learn

Spot hype and choose automations that save setup time.
Use observation and RPA-style recording to find repeatable tasks.
Build simple, personal apps for health and routines.
Auto-schedule learning, news, and entertainment with ICS and prompts.
Aggregate niche purchases and compare options without bias.

✅Highlights

"we're in agent slop land"
"they require me to do a whole bunch of work to save myself a whole bunch of time."
"It should save me time and that's the time to set it up as well."
"an alongside helper that's always looking at how it can make my life more friction free"
"that requires you to give over a lot of control"
"I built an app that allows me to carry out my fasting"
"AI is going to allow people to build the TikTok themselves"
"created ICS files for three to four sessions a week"

🧰 Mentioned

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Signal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Foundation
Meredith Whitaker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredith_Whittaker
Rebel Finance School https://rebeldonegans.com/finance/rfs/
Kimi https://www.kimi.com/en/

👉 Connect with the hosts
Mark Smith:
Blog: https://www.nz365guy.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nz365guy
Meg Smith:
Blog: https://www.megsmith.nz
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/megsmithnz
Subscribe, rate, and share with someone who wants to be future ready. Drop your questions in the comments or the WhatsApp group, and we may feature them in an upcoming episode.
✅Keywords:
personal automation, agents, rpa, observation, fasting app, kimi, gemini, ics files, camper van search, news brief, scheduling, privacy, perplexity, whatsapp

Microsoft 365 Copilot Adoption is a Microsoft Press book for leaders and consultants. It shows how to identify high-value use cases, set guardrails, enable champions, and measure impact, so Copilot sticks. Practical frameworks, checklists, and metrics you can use this month. Get the book: https://bit.ly/CopilotAdoption

Support the show

If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.
Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

Chapters

1. The Hype of Automation and AI Agents (00:00:00)

2. Real-World Applications of AI in Personal Productivity (00:03:56)

3. Community Feedback: Personal Productivity Use Cases (00:11:25)

4. Navigating Information and News with AI (00:19:23)

5. Future of Personal Automation and AI Tools (00:25:17)

769 episodes

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