Newsletters, writing, lost contacts: three ways AI earns its keep

The more I learn about AI, the more I feel I'm falling behind. That's the irony of a field moving this fast.

Do you use AI? I spend hundreds a month on AI tools, and here are three ways they've helped me.

Automating my newsletter

To understand the ins and outs of AI coding, I started building apps earlier this year. I currently have more than half a dozen repos in my GitHub account.

Here's one example. I send out an email newsletter every week with a personal commentary and my stories from that week. Though I designed a fuss-free process, it still took almost two hours every weekend.

So I created an app that converts my LinkedIn posts to blog format, posts them to my Ghost blog via API, assembles my newsletter, and submits it to Kit. Now, the whole thing is just a few clicks of the mouse.

Sharpening my writing

I've been writing professionally since 2008, so to say that I was worried about AI is an understatement. It's also why I keep experimenting with it.

Now, I probably dislike slop more than most people. It jumps out at me and I struggle to read it. Instead, I use AI to understand new technologies, find the right words, proofread content, and critique my long-form work, among other things.

While I still write all my content "by hand", I will profess that I now feel out of sorts without access to AI tools.

Finding a lost contact

I'm still experimenting with AI agents, but a recent incident made me appreciate just how powerful they are.

I needed to text someone, but I hadn't saved his contact. And because everyone addresses him by his initials, the WhatsApp search box yielded nothing.

Fortuitously, I had recently built an MCP interface. I typed in a query to search, keying in his initials and seeding in some topics I'd discussed with him previously. Voila: a few minutes later, the agent found his number.

What's next

I believe we're only scratching the surface of AI. For instance, a PR agency owner told me they have embraced Copilot at work for its governance and integration.

When I read up on it, I realised Copilot is more than a chatbot. I can build my own Copilot Studio agents, connected to my M365 apps, files, emails, and meetings. I can use pre-built agents to automate tasks and workflows in a way that respects organisational permissions and policies. And I can access leading OpenAI and Anthropic models from within Copilot itself.

Tomorrow's world will look very different because of AI. I can't predict exactly how, so I keep learning. In fact, I'll be attending the Microsoft AI Tour Singapore at MBS on 12 October 2026 to learn more about Copilot, building agents, and enterprise integration.

Are you going? Link

Anyway, the more I learn, the more there is to learn. So I'll keep at it.