Meet My AI Life Manager: Please Handle the Busywork. I Have a Life to Live.

I have decided that my future AI Life Manager has a lovely European accent.

I don't know exactly which country she is from. Somewhere sophisticated, obviously. She is calm, never frazzled, and apparently wakes up before I do.

And someday, perhaps not nearly as far in the future as we think, I imagine beginning my morning something like this:

Good morning. I hope you slept well. It looks like it will be a beautiful day. You have a fairly light afternoon, and the weather should be perfect for a walk after lunch. You might even have time for an hour at the beach.

While you were sleeping, here is what I handled for you…

Jennifer needed to move Thursday's meeting from 1:00 to 2:00. Done. Calendar updated.

The airline changed your departure time by fifteen minutes. Not enough to affect anything. Itinerary updated.

The dentist confirmed Tuesday's appointment. Done.

Then:

A few things need your approval…

Someone wants to schedule a meeting during an afternoon you had planned to work from home. Your calendar says you can do it, but I know you well enough to know that available and desirable aren't necessarily the same thing. I have drafted a response, and it is waiting for you.

And then:

Worth knowing…

There was a six-message email thread yesterday. You do not need to read all six messages. The final decision was X, nobody needs anything from you, and the relevant information has been saved in case you need it later.

I have to admit, this all feels rather fancy.

And I am here for it.

From AI Assistant to AI Life Manager

Until fairly recently, most of us experienced artificial intelligence as something we asked questions.

We typed something into a box. AI answered.

That alone felt rather remarkable.

But something much bigger is beginning to happen.

On September 23, Google announced another expansion of Connected Apps in Gemini. The new connections include tools such as Apartments.com, Peloton and SeatGeek, along with productivity and creative platforms. Instead of moving among a collection of separate apps to accomplish a task, Gemini can increasingly reach into connected services from one conversation.

Google had already been expanding this idea into services for booking local experiences, finding home professionals, renting cars, making restaurant reservations, and scheduling medical appointments.

Meanwhile, Meta recently introduced Muse, which it calls a personal AI agent. Muse can connect with things like email and calendars, browse the web, work through multiple steps of a task, keep working after you close the app, track goals, and ask for approval before certain actions such as sending an email or making a purchase. It also maintains an audit trail so you can see what it has done.

That last part matters.

Because I don't particularly want AI to run my life.

But I am becoming increasingly interested in letting it manage parts of my life.

There is a difference.

Apparently, We All Have a Second Job

Somewhere along the way, simply being a person became administratively complicated.

We manage calendars, emails, appointments, passwords, subscriptions, insurance, travel reservations, returns, household repairs, prescriptions, grocery lists, bills, birthday gifts, and approximately 147 other tiny obligations that seem determined to reproduce while we're sleeping.

Even relaxing requires administration.

Want to take a lovely vacation?

Wonderful!

First, please compare 32 hotels, check six airfare combinations, research neighborhoods, create three accounts, download four apps, make dinner reservations, figure out the train system, and remember the exact date on which your refundable hotel reservation becomes decidedly nonrefundable.

Then relax. 😂

People with significant resources have long hired personal assistants, household managers, and others to coordinate some of this invisible work.

Perhaps AI brings a version of that luxury to ordinary people.

An AI Life Manager.

Not someone—or something—to live our lives for us.

Something to manage some of the machinery surrounding them.

AI Still Cannot Clean My Apartment

This remains deeply disappointing.

However, I realized that it doesn't necessarily need to.

My AI Life Manager could eventually find several highly rated, background-checked housekeepers in my area, compare prices and availability, identify the three that meet the criteria I care about, and bring those choices to me.

I choose the person I trust in my home.

Then AI handles the scheduling.

That distinction has become increasingly important to me as I think about where all of this is going.

Let AI find the flights.

I'll choose the trip.

Let it compare the hotels, remember what I like, and monitor the cancellation deadlines.

I'll wander the streets of Lisbon.

Let it identify the emails that actually require my attention.

I'll write the personal message to someone I love.

Let it remind me about a birthday, help me find the gift I had mentioned months earlier, and make sure it arrives on time.

I'll write the note.

Let it handle the administrative work surrounding my relationships.

I'll have the relationships.

Maybe that is the line I have been looking for:

Let AI manage my life. Don't let AI live my life.

What If Apps Don't Really Disappear—But We Stop Thinking About Them?

I remember hearing Elon Musk talk about a future in which our phones may eventually stop being collections of apps in the way we currently understand them.

At first, that sounded very futuristic to me.

Now I can begin to see how it might happen.

Today, I am the coordinator.

If I'm planning a trip, I know to open my airline app. Then Calendar. Then email. Then Maps.

Then the hotel website. Then the restaurant app. Then Notes.

I am essentially moving information between little digital boxes all day long.

But what happens when AI becomes the layer sitting above those boxes?

The airline still exists. The calendar still exists. The restaurant reservation system still exists.

The hotel database still exists.

Perhaps I simply don't need to operate every individual interface myself.

Instead of opening six apps, I might eventually say:

I'm going to Atlanta Friday. Get me ready.

And my AI Life Manager understands what ready means to me.

The technology underneath may still be there.

I just stop being the middleman.

The Résumé Skill That Made Me Think

I remember when typing speed was something worth putting on a résumé.

Mine was quite good, thank you very much.

At one time that actually communicated something meaningful about your professional abilities.

Today, including your typing speed might feel a little like bragging that you know how to operate a multiline telephone switchboard.

Technology changes.

And when it does, the skills that once seemed impressive can quietly become ordinary—or unnecessary—while entirely new skills emerge in their place.

Think about what was professionally relevant only ten years ago compared with today.

Now imagine five years from now.

That excites me far more than it frightens me.

I don't want to become the "more mature" woman—my preferred terminology for older 😂—sitting in a rocking chair declaring that everyone has become lazy because they're allowing AI to do things that I spent my life doing manually.

I want to understand it.

I want to question it.

I want to learn how to use it well.

And someday, I want to be the grandmother who can show my granddaughter a few tricks.

Let Me Show You Something…

I hope someday I can teach my granddaughter something much bigger than how to write a good AI prompt. Although I'm fairly certain that if I tried to teach her the finer points of effective prompting ten years from now, she'd roll her eyes at Honey and tell me, “That is so 2032.” 😂

And honestly, I hope she does.

Because what I really want to teach her isn't how to use one particular technology.

Technology will change faster than any lesson I could possibly give her.

I want to teach her how to meet change.

Don't be afraid of something simply because it is unfamiliar.

Learn about it.

Question it.

Understand enough to recognize both its possibilities and its risks.

Use what makes your life better.

Be willing to reject what doesn't.

And never confuse using technology efficiently with allowing technology to think and live for you.

Maybe I will tell her:

Don't use AI so you don't have to learn. Use AI so you have more time to learn.

Imagine what access a curious child may have.

A child who wants to understand the stars might have an endlessly patient astronomy tutor.

She might become fascinated by Japan and begin learning Japanese years before she ever gets on an airplane.

She might want to understand DNA, architecture, marine biology, painting, investing, history, or how an engine works.

Knowledge that once required the right teacher, the right school, significant financial resources, hours in a library—or simply the luck of knowing whom to ask—is becoming increasingly accessible through conversation.

That doesn't make effort obsolete.

I hope it creates room for more meaningful effort.

Let AI help organize the research.

Then go read the book.

Let it explain something you don't understand.

Then ask another question.

And another.

Let it help make the schedule more efficient.

Then go outside and dance.

Play a sport.

Volunteer.

Learn to paint.

Plan the adventure.

Watch the sunset.

Curiosity Does Not Require Recklessness

I am excited about all of this.

But excited does not mean careless.

For decades, we've been taught to guard our passwords, financial information, medical information, personal correspondence, and private lives.

The arrival of an incredibly useful AI assistant does not mean that tomorrow morning we should cheerfully hand it the digital keys to the kingdom and say, Good luck! Let me know how it goes!

No, thank you. 😂

Trust should be progressive.

Maybe I begin with my calendar.

Show me that having access makes my life meaningfully easier.

Then perhaps email.

Read it. Prioritize it. Summarize it. Draft responses.

Eventually, there may be certain categories of routine communication that I allow AI to handle without asking me every time.

But if AI communicates on my behalf, I want a record. I want to know what was said. I want to be able to ask later:

Wait—what did we tell Jennifer about that meeting?

And receive an immediate answer.

The technology being developed today is already moving toward that kind of permission model. Meta says Muse can require approval for actions such as sending messages and purchases, allows permissions to be changed by connection, and provides an activity trail.

That's important because delegating a task should never require surrendering awareness.

A good manager understands the difference between:

I can handle this.

You should know about this.

and

I need you to decide this.

That is exactly what I want my AI Life Manager to learn.

Perhaps the Best AI Will Give Us Less Screen Time

This may be the part that excites me most.

We've spent decades inventing technologies that increasingly demand our attention.

Maybe AI could eventually do something rather wonderful:

give some of it back.

Imagine the morning briefing again.

Good morning, MaryNell. I hope you slept well. Your two o'clock meeting has been cancelled. I've rearranged the remainder of your afternoon. The weather is lovely, and you have plenty of time for a walk by the water.

I've reviewed your calendar and the things requiring your attention.

I handled twelve routine items.

There are two things worth knowing.

Three things require your decision.

Nothing else is urgent.

There is something wonderfully ironic about the possibility that one of the most technologically advanced tools humans have ever created could ultimately help us spend less time managing technology and more time being human.

That is the future of AI that interests me.

Not artificial intelligence replacing our intelligence.

Not AI creating our relationships, experiencing our adventures, or deciding what makes our lives meaningful.

Let it handle some of the noise.

Let it organize the machinery.

Let it give us back a little time.

AI can manage the reservation.

We still have to show up for the life.

And if my lovely European AI Life Manager happens to remind me that I have time to catch the sunset?

Well, she's definitely getting to keep her job. 😉🍯

🍯 Honey Note

Perhaps I am a little more willing to lean into AI than some. After all, a form of intelligent technology is quite literally glued to my arm every day, helping decide how much insulin to trickle through my Omnipod to keep me alive. I'd say technology has earned at least a little trust from me.

That doesn't mean everyone has to be where I am. Curiosity and caution can coexist, and trust doesn't have to happen all at once.

I simply hope that if you're uncertain about where all of this is headed, perhaps you can see a little glimmer of what may be waiting on the other side of the change: time.

I was in Atlanta recently watching Waymo cars quietly driving themselves around the city, and—as they always do—they amazed me. My immediate thought was, I cannot wait until this is simply normal. Because frankly, I am perfectly willing to admit that an AI-driven car can probably drive Waymo better than I can. 😉

Give me the passenger seat. I'll read a book. Crochet something. Look at pictures of my granddaughter. Stare out the window. Dream about the next adventure. Learn something new. Or perhaps do absolutely nothing at all.

Because maybe the greatest gift of some of these technologies won't be what they can do.

Maybe it will be what they give back to us.

Time.

And what a lovely thing it would be to have a little more of that.

Leaning into tomorrow, while leaving plenty of time to live today,

Honey 🍯