Video: What I actually do with AI every day

| In Tech
| 3 minute read |by Constantin Gonzalez
A screenshot from a video showing a thermal POS printer displaying a list of AI-related examples. The printout shows items 6 and 7, including 'Shell Game Podcast' and 'This Video Itself,' with descriptive bullet points about each. On the right side is a close-up of Constantin, looking directly at the camera with a slight smile. Large purple text at the bottom reads '7 ACTUAL EXAMPLES.' The overall layout suggests this is from a YouTube video discussing real-world applications or examples of AI technology.

Here’s a video I just uploaded to YouTube, walking through 7+1 examples of how AI has woven itself into my daily life — from the mundane to the surprisingly useful. No demos, no hypotheticals, rather what an actual week with AI looks like for me.

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Here are the examples I cover, with links to everything mentioned:

  1. Thermal Printer CLI — I bought a cheap POS thermal printer (~€70 from Amazon Warehouse Deals) and used Claude Code to build a command-line tool that prints Markdown files and Apple Notes on thermal paper. I use it for show notes, recipes, our weekly Asian takeaway orders, fortune cookies, my AI-generated news briefing, random notes and much more.
  2. Claude Code Web Portal — While building a web portal with Claude Code, I noticed it started volunteering learnings about AWS Cognito quirks and other issues it solved. I had it capture those in a LEARNINGS.md file — essentially creating new knowledge that wasn’t in its training set. I’ll think about the best way to publish these.
  3. Vacation Stalker Bot — We booked a vacation home but spotted better ones that were taken. I used Claude Code to build a serverless system (AWS Lambda + EventBridge) that checks availability hourly and emails me if someone cancels. Fingers crossed.
  4. Handwriting → Calendar — My wife gave me a handwritten list of ~20 upcoming dates. I photographed it, handed it to Claude, and had it create all the calendar entries automatically. Then she emailed another 15 — same workflow, plus conflict detection. Over an hour saved.
  5. Perplexity for Video & Images — Perplexity isn’t just a search engine — it’s also a gateway to multiple models, including some image and video generation models, like Google’s Veo. I used it to create B-roll clips for several of my videos. Free, licensed, no stock footage hunting required.
  6. Shell Game Podcast — Not an AI use case of mine, but a fascinating listen: journalist Evan Ratliff built an AI voice clone of himself and tests it on scammers, hotlines, therapists, and family members. Highly recommended. Learn more on the Shell Game Podcast website.
  7. This Video Itself — The shooting notes I used were structured collaboratively with Claude using a custom YouTube production skill I built. AI-assisted, not AI-generated.
  8. Bonus: Claude Code → Clockify — I had Claude Code analyze its own session logs to figure out how much time I spent coding, then integrate with Clockify for automatic time tracking. One prompt, instant tool integration.

The pattern here is: AI isn’t one thing or a specific use case or something “for work” — it’s woven into everything I do.

Before starting a task that takes more than the proverbial 2 minutes, ask: could AI help with this?

The answer is surprisingly often a yes.