this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2026
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I've struggled to understand the value of this product. I know everyone has to do stuff they don't exactly enjoy doing but how is putting this thing in charge supposed to make life that much easier? One small excerpt that indicates possible uses:
I'm not risking a problem with a flight of all things due to laziness leading me to put a bot in charge. Ridiculous. Grocery shopping? How much time is putting that thing in charge going to save me? If i ordered grocery store delivery all it's going to do is take my shopping list and hopefully relay that info to the grocery stores site and schedule delivery and pay for it with my bank account. How much time is it saving me by automating it? A min or 2? I'm ok with ordering my groceries myself, most of the info will already be sitting there on my shopping list... going the "last mile" of ordering the stuff (as the bot could do) would be helpful i guess, but not revolutionary and ultimately something else i would simply rather handle myself. Why risk a problem just to potentially save a min or 2? And for what cost, at that?
The people that need a personal assistant can pony up the $ to pay one. I don't see this being an effective stand-in for one, but maybe I'm wrong. To me, this is perhaps the most egregious example of a "solution in search of a problem" because I'm still not having that moment of clarity where it's like "Ooooooh, that's why there's so much hype surrounding this tech"
Yeah, booking a flight is only difficult because I make it difficult by deciding about how I feel about cost versus layovers versus time of departure/arrival.
For grocery shopping, I'm very specific in what I want, and it's easiest just to pick them specifically. For a lot, I'd rather just go in person to the store to look over things. In fact, whenever I spend money I'm pretty specific in what I want and I don't want something to "improve" things by letting me be more vague.
As a point of comparison, fast food ordering. Apps and Kiosks were actually a step up for me, because it was easier and quicker for me to see what the options are and select precisely what I want. AI order taking would be a huge step backwards from there. Even when ordering from waitstaff at a restauraunt, I always like to have my finger clearly pointing to the menu for what I want to order.