Thu, October 22, 2026
3-minute read
3
DID YOU SEE
2
THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU CAN DO WITH AI
1
WORTH TRYING
👋 Good morning.
Anthropic built Claude Duet for “professionals and small business owners with more on their plates than they can track,” and flipped the setup: Claude comes to you. One morning brief, then a message only when something needs you.
Yesterday, 50% of you keep receipts in a spreadsheet you update, and 50% hand them to an accountant. Nobody confessed to the shoebox.
IN 3 MINUTES, GET 1% BETTER THAN EVERYONE YOU KNOW:
Claude Duet briefs you, then pings only when needed.
ChatGPT can now lock chats behind a PIN, with one costly catch.
Gemini now rides along in Google Maps on CarPlay.
A people database for your AI, and offline file conversion.
Get grilled on your idea before you build it.
3 Did you see
Image: Anthropic
Anthropic opened a research preview of Claude Duet on Oct 21, where Claude works as a proactive agent. Each morning it sends a short brief across your connected apps, then messages you only when something needs attention. It keeps working in the cloud after you close the app, and asks before it sends, pays, signs or deletes anything. It runs on Opus 5.5, by waitlist for US Pro and Max, and background checks count toward your plan’s usage limits, per Anthropic’s help page.
Do this: Join the waitlist with the same email as your Claude account, since access is tied to it, and hand it your inbox first.
Your inbox just got a chief of staff.
What would you hand a proactive AI agent first?
OpenAI is rolling out Locked Chats, per TechCrunch: lock any chat behind a 4-digit PIN, or Face ID or Touch ID on supported devices. They leave your regular history and keep their own memory that doesn’t carry into regular chats. It works on Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu, but it isn’t encryption and doesn’t change retention or training settings. Reset a forgotten PIN and every locked chat and file is permanently deleted.
Do this: Lock the salary, legal and client chats before your next screen share, and write the PIN down somewhere real.
Forget the PIN and those chats keep your secret forever.
Google Maps on CarPlay now has Gemini during navigation, per 9to5Google: tap the Gemini icon on the car display and ask multi-step questions, like a park with city views and a toll-free route there. You can also report traffic by voice. It’s the first voice assistant Google Maps has offered on CarPlay, available now in the US with a global rollout underway.
Do this: Next client drive, ask it for a coffee stop near the meeting that adds under 5 minutes.
A passenger who actually reads the map.
2 things you didn't know you can do with AI
1. 🧲 Give ChatGPT or Claude a people database · Firecrawl People Data · 1,000 free credits a month · ChatGPT, Claude
Firecrawl’s plugin for ChatGPT and Claude lets your AI search Alexandria, which Firecrawl says holds 270M+ company and people records: ask for a prospect list or a work email and it pulls from providers like Apollo. You get 1,000 free credits a month. The catch: the data is only as fresh as those providers, so verify an email before it matters.
2. 📁 Convert files without uploading them anywhere · Filee · free, open source · Windows, Linux, Mac in preview
Filee is a free, open-source converter you use by dragging: hold Ctrl (Option on a Mac), drag a file, and drop it on a format in a ring that opens at your cursor. It converts 255 formats offline and saves the result next to the original, so nothing is uploaded. The catch: the Mac build is a preview, and video and audio need a 100 MB FFmpeg download first.
1 Worth trying
🔥 Grill-me · free, open source · Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, Gemini CLI, Cursor
Grill-me is a free skill by Matt Pocock. Type /grill-me with a loose idea, and the agent interviews you in rounds, asking only what your earlier answers unlock, until you can commit. It writes no files, and in Claude Code it installs with one plugin command. The catch: you own the scope, so answering “agreed” forty times gets you the agent’s plan, not yours.
Cheaper than the meeting where someone else asks these questions.
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THIS WEEK IN LABS
Live Q&A with Kushank
Today, Fri Oct 16 · 10–11 AM PT / 1–2 PM ET
Labs members bring the AI questions they're stuck on, and Kushank answers them live, one by one: what works, what doesn't, and where AI still needs a human. Bring yours.
Been a member before? Rejoin here.
That's your 1% for today.
Kushank, AI teammates, and the human team
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