🔴 For full Show Notes
https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/747 

Hosts: Mark Smith, Meg Smith

Personal automation that works now. Real examples beat agent hype: observe tasks, optimise setup, and automate recurring work. Scheduling with ICS, daily briefs, shopping lists, and one-off searches show clear time savings and control.

Join the private WhatsApp group for Q&A and community: https://chat.whatsapp.com/E0iyXcUVhpl9um7DuKLYEz

🎙️ What you’ll learn

• Spot hype and choose automations that save setup time.
• Use observation and RPA-style recording to find repeatable tasks.
• Build simple, personal apps for health and routines.
• Auto-schedule learning, news, and entertainment with ICS and prompts.
• Aggregate niche purchases and compare options without bias.

✅Highlights

• "we're in agent slop land"
• "they require me to do a whole bunch of work to save myself a whole bunch of time."
• "It should save me time and that's the time to set it up as well."
• "an alongside helper that's always looking at how it can make my life more friction free"
• "that requires you to give over a lot of control"
• "I built an app that allows me to carry out my fasting"
• "AI is going to allow people to build the TikTok themselves"
• "created ICS files for three to four sessions a week"

🧰 Mentioned

• Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
• Signal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Foundation
• Meredith Whitaker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredith_Whittaker
• Rebel Finance School https://rebeldonegans.com/finance/rfs/
• Kimi https://www.kimi.com/en/

👉 Connect with the hosts

Mark Smith:  
Blog: https://www.nz365guy.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nz365guy

Meg Smith:  
Blog: https://www.megsmith.nz
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/megsmithnz

Subscribe, rate, and share with someone who wants to be future ready. Drop your questions in the comments or the WhatsApp group, and we may feature them in an upcoming episode.

✅Keywords: 
personal automation, agents, rpa, observation, fasting app, kimi, gemini, ics files, camper van search, news brief, scheduling, privacy, perplexity, whatsapp 

Microsoft 365 Copilot Adoption is a Microsoft Press book for leaders and consultants. It shows how to identify high-value use cases, set guardrails, enable champions, and measure impact, so Copilot sticks. Practical frameworks, checklists, and metrics you can use this month. Get the book: https://bit.ly/CopilotAdoption

Support the show

If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.

Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith