It's Sunday. This week's deep dive is an upgrade, not a warning: AI just went from answering questions to running errands. Here's what changed, the two assistants worth knowing, and five errands you can hand off this week.
Last week’s deep dive: 5 Tests for Longevity
DEEP DIVE
The Assistant That Texts You First
Kevin Rose didn't want another AI app. Then a friend sent him an invite to Instinct, an assistant you text like a person.
On Tim Ferriss's podcast this month, Rose said it started texting him first:
It flagged a DocuSign he'd missed for days.
It told him a prescription was ready, and when to leave to grab it and still make his flight.
It booked a hard-to-get restaurant table the moment reservations opened, then added it to his calendar.
"It's magic," Rose said.
Ferriss saw it coming. The 4-Hour Workweek made the virtual assistant famous, and the preface to his upcoming book is a "letter from the future" predicting AI assistants would handle 99% of that work. Rose's reply: it already has.
Why it matters: Since August, three launches moved AI from chat to action.
xAI's Grok Bot arrived Aug. 11: a team of AI bots that sign into your apps and keep working after you close your laptop.
Meta's Muse launched Sept. 8 and hit No. 1 on the App Store within 10 days, ahead of ChatGPT.
OpenAI's Dots arrived Sept. 29: always-on ChatGPT agents you can text or call.
Rose's Instinct is still invite-only, so this week we're focusing on two you can use now: Muse and Grok Bot.
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ZOOM IN
Muse: The Fast One
Meta's assistant is the easiest to try. Sam Parr of My First Million says it's like Instinct, "but it's snappier."
Mark Zuckerberg uses it as an MMA coach: it watches his sparring footage and gives notes between rounds. He says the skill Meta trained hardest is discretion, like booking a restaurant around your allergy without telling the restaurant why. The catch: it's built to remember you, so decide what it gets to see.
The cost: No subscription to start, with a paid tier for harder tasks.
Best for: Shopping, bookings and everyday errands.
Grok Bot: The Team
Elon Musk's xAI lets you build a roster of bots, each with a name, one job and its own cloud computer.
Parr has a "tax guy" that stays on top of his tax mail and files, a "health guy" that tracks his progress and a social media bot. The catch: it's still in beta, and Parr says it can feel like "this whole separate thing to manage."
The cost: From $200 a month.
Best for: A team of bots, each with its own job.
Dots: The One Inside ChatGPT
OpenAI's version lives inside ChatGPT and connects to more than 4,000 apps.
Kevin Rose called his live on Ferriss's show, and it read back his recording slot: 12:30 to 3:30. He says you can call from the car to move a meeting or follow up on an email. The catch: the more it remembers, the harder it is to leave. Rose says that's OpenAI's plan.
The cost: Comes with ChatGPT Pro ($100 a month) and some business plans.
Best for: Errands across apps you already use.
TAKE ACTION
5 Errands to Hand Off This Week
You don't need an invite or a $200 plan. These work in the standard versions of ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Muse. The formula from our My First Million summary: give it an outcome, your limits and permission to follow through.
Dinners for the week. "Plan five weeknight dinners my kids will eat, 30 minutes or less, and give me one grocery list sorted by aisle."
The email you've been avoiding. Paste the thread and ask: "Summarize what they want and draft a short, friendly reply." You still hit send.
Your next big purchase. "Compare the three best [item] under [budget]. Make a table of price, warranty and the most common complaint in reviews." Then click through and check its sources.
The subscription audit. Paste last month's card charges, minus the card number, and ask: "Which of these are recurring, and what do they cost per year?" Cancel the ones you forgot about.
A weekend away. "Plan a two-night trip within three hours of [city] in November for a family of four, under [budget]. Include a rainy-day backup."
Run your own business? Try: "Turn these notes into a one-page proposal for [client]."
Kevin Rose’s “Blast Radius Rule”
Before Rose handed his Gmail and Google Drive to an AI, he asked one question: what's the blast radius if something gets hacked? Your rules:
Start small. Connect a calendar before a bank account.
Keep sensitive files offline. Tax returns and IDs don't belong in a drive your AI can read.
Never paste a password or card number into a chat. Rose gave his OpenTable login through a secure vault, not a text.
Write the rule into the job. Grok Bot's setup guide suggests a standing instruction like "Never send external messages without approval." Muse asks before sensitive actions, and you can revoke its access anytime.
Know what it remembers. TIME called Muse a dossier on you. Meta says it "remembers what matters most to you."
What's Next: Shopping Without the Store
In September, Amazon blocked Muse from its site. A day later, Shopify opened checkout to it across its stores. The fight is over who controls the checkout.
Zuckerberg's case for letting agents in: they create shopping that wouldn't happen otherwise. He rarely used Instacart before Muse. Now his 3-year-old daughter dreams up baking projects with it, and every Saturday the ingredients show up on time.
Rose thinks that's where shopping is headed. You'll ask your AI for towels, and it will ask whether you want Walmart in two hours or Amazon for $2 less tomorrow.
OUR TAKEAWAY
Start With One Boring Errand
Shaan Puri of My First Million says agents give everyone "access to things that only rich people used to have." The fanciest versions are still invite-only or $100 to $200 a month. The useful part is already in your pocket.
Pick the errand you dread most this week, hand it to an AI and check its work. That's how you find out what's worth handing off next.