In Search of Great Automations

I’ve been thinking a lot about automations lately.

Not in the abstract “AI will do everything for us” kind of way. More in the very practical, slightly boring way. What annoying things do I do every week? What information do I keep looking up? What decisions could be easier if the right context was already there?

This is one of the reasons I am excited about OpenClaw , Codex Automations , and tools like them. I also wrote a short OpenClaw deployment guide because it feels like we are getting closer to the point where I can have agents help with more of the background work of life and projects.

But there is one problem.

Agents are only useful when they have the right data.

Sherlock Holmes put it well in A Scandal in Bohemia: “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.”

This sounds obvious, but I think it is the main thing. If an agent doesn’t know what is happening in my life, it can’t really help. It can write a nice generic answer, but it can’t notice the thing I forgot, connect two events together, or remind me about something that is quietly becoming a problem.

That is why I liked playing around with OpenBudget . The idea is simple: give AI tools access to your finance data, and then ask questions about it in normal language.

Personal finances are a perfect example of data that already exists, but is usually painful to use. I don’t want to spend a Sunday exporting CSVs and looking through bank statements. I want to ask:

• What did I spend more on this month than usual?
• Which subscriptions are still active?
• Did I get charged for something I thought I cancelled?
• Are there any refunds I should follow up on?
• How much did I spend on a specific project or merchant?

This is exactly the kind of thing I want an agent to help with. Not because it is impossible to do manually. It is possible. It is just annoying enough that I won’t do it consistently.

The more interesting part is the broader pattern. OpenBudget gives agents better data around finances. What are the other versions of this?

This is where things get exciting to me.

I don’t think the future is just “use ChatGPT more”. I think each of us will have some version of an AI agent that knows enough context to be useful. Maybe it is one main agent, maybe it is a bunch of small agents, but the point is the same: they will need good tools and good data.

So if you are building projects, I think this is worth paying attention to. Tools that make life easier for humans are great. Tools that make life easier for humans and their agents might be even better.

I am very interested in finding more of these.

What other tools are good at giving agents data about the things that already happen in life? Calendar, email, finance, health, documents, notes, browser history, subscriptions, family logistics, anything.

If you know something useful, please send it my way.