Twelve ordinary ways AI helps around the house and with family

Most of what is written about AI assumes you want it for work. Plenty of people do not. They want to know whether it is any use for the ordinary business of running a home and a family.

It is. Here are twelve things people actually come back and tell me they used it for.

1. Understanding official letters

The one that surprises people most, and probably the most useful thing on this list. Letters from the council, HMRC, a hospital, a pension provider, an insurer.

Type it in and ask three things: what is this actually saying, what do I have to do, and by when. Then follow up. "What should I ask when I ring them?" For anyone helping an elderly parent with paperwork, this alone is worth learning it for.

2. Planning a trip that suits everyone

Describe the group honestly. Four adults, two children, one who cannot walk far, a week in September, this sort of budget, a mix of proper rest and one or two days out. You get a plan you can argue with, which is far more useful than a blank page.

3. The daily food question

List what is actually in your fridge and cupboards. Ask for five meals and a shopping list for the gaps. Add the real constraints: twenty minutes maximum, a teenager who will not eat anything green.

4. Days out with grandchildren

Ask for six things to do with a five-year-old and a nine-year-old on a wet Saturday, using things you already have in the house. Ask for the version that does not involve a screen. Ask for one that teaches them something without them noticing.

5. Helping with homework you do not remember

You do not have to pretend you still know how long division works, or what the Corn Laws were. Ask for the explanation, then ask for it again in a way a twelve-year-old will follow, then ask what question to ask them to check they got it.

6. Writing the message you have been putting off

The complaint to the builder. The note to the neighbour about the hedge. The email to the school. The polite but firm chaser to someone who owes you money.

Say what you actually want to happen, ask for three versions at different levels of firmness, and pick the one that sounds like you.

7. The garden

Describe your soil, your aspect, how much sun that corner gets, and how much time you are honestly willing to spend. Ask what to plant and when. Ask what is wrong with something that is not thriving, and what to check before assuming the worst.

8. Making sense of things written for experts

Insurance policies. Terms and conditions. A medical leaflet. The manual for something you have just bought. Ask for the plain version, then ask what you should be paying attention to.

On anything medical or legal, use it to understand the shape of the thing and check the specifics with a professional. It is a translator, not an adviser.

9. Learning something without signing up for anything

You can ask about anything, at any level, as many times as you want, without the small social cost of admitting you do not understand. "Explain compound interest as if I know nothing." "Right, I followed that, but why does the second part matter?"

No tutor has that patience. Nobody is sighing at you.

10. Getting organised without a system

Talk through everything rattling round your head, messily, and ask for it back sorted into what needs doing this week, what can wait, and what is not actually your problem. Half the value is just getting it out of your head.

11. Occasions

The speech at the wedding. What to write in a condolence card. A toast. The eulogy, which people find impossible and which nobody teaches you. Tell it about the person, properly, and use what comes back as a starting point you make your own.

12. Preparing for appointments

Before the doctor, the solicitor, the accountant or the bank. Describe the situation and ask what questions you should be asking, and what you would regret not raising. You get more out of a twenty-minute appointment when you know what you came for.

Two rules for the ordinary stuff

Do not trust the specifics. Dates, prices, dosages, legal deadlines, opening times. It will produce these with complete confidence and it is sometimes wrong. Check anything that matters against the original source.

Do not type in what you would not want on a screen behind you. Bank details, medical records, other people's private information, your national insurance number. Take the identifying details out first. The answer is usually just as useful without them.

Where to begin

Take the next letter that lands on your doormat and confuses you. Type it in. Ask what it means.

That one exchange tends to do more to remove the wariness than any amount of explanation, because you get something immediately useful out of it and nothing about it required you to be technical.