I stared at my phone, waiting for it to stop ringing. My mind was blank and I was beginning to feel a rising anxiety. Was it a family member calling with bad news? Was it a rejection from a job application? No. It was my cook calling with the dreaded daily question: “Didi, aaj khane mein kya banaoon?”
Why would this question make me so anxious? Here’s why. I love rice, my partner doesn’t. I like chicken, my partner prefers mutton. I am a creature of habit, my partner isn’t. The only thing we have in common when it comes to our food habits is that we want to eat clean, healthy, home-cooked meals.
But after days of sharing YouTube recipe links with my cook and pondering the kind of meals that would satisfy our diverse palates, I was faced with a meal block, if you will.
“Just ask ChatGPT,” my partner casually suggested as I was lamenting about the day’s menu. Huh? Ask an AI tool what to eat? My old-school middle-class brain wasn’t computing.
As I looked at him with an expression of confusion and horror, he swiftly took my laptop, typed in some prompts around our weekly vegetable basket, and there it was: a week’s menu of dishes carved out of items stocked in our fridge. Think Banh mi Mondays and Taco Tuesdays, with recipes attached.
His prompt was something like this:
Act as a private chef for me and my partner. Plan meals for us for seven days, including breakfast, two snacks, lunch and dinner. We like Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Vietnamese and Thai food. She likes rice and chicken; I prefer mutton. We have no restrictions, and we both want home-cooked, healthy meals. I will need a printable PDF of the 7-day plan with the ingredients list and recipe links from sites like NYT Cooking, BBC Good Food, Guardian, Indianhealthyrecipes.com and Bon Appetit.
It was that easy taking the stress out of meal planning. All I had to do was give this print out to my cook at the beginning of the week and we’d be well fed. I was impressed and intrigued in equal measure. What else could I outsource to ChatGPT from the drudgery of domestic life? I soon discovered that the tool’s more quotidian applications went beyond meal prep.
As generative AI gets more fluent, many are adopting it to sort out their messy lives: tracking their finances, scheduling their hectic lives... In short, making it the operational manager of their lives. Mumbai-based Serena Paes, 37, started using it to get smarter about money matters. “Budgeting has become a big focus. It’s not just about how much I spend, but where I spend it,” she says voicing our collective concern. “Let’s just say I’ve realised I’m a top-tier shareholder in Zomato—purely through biryani orders and late-night cravings, not stocks.”
Given that AI is prone to slop and hallucinations much worse than humans, you’d think outsourcing money talk and asking a bot to sort out your finances is ridden with pitfalls. But Paes has been using ChatGPT to make sense of her monthly budgets and even decode financial vocabulary. “It’s been useful for simplifying things that sound complicated—ELSS, tax-saving instruments, or the difference between mutual funds and a black hole.”
For financially illiterate millennials like me, this seems like a Godsend. As Paes explained, asking ChatGPT seemingly stupid questions helped clarify things—no jargon, no judgement, no CA yelling out buzzwords. Just clear, simple explanations. “Honestly, it felt like talking to the one financially sorted friend I never had.”
Financial literacy is a talent that only some of us seem to possess, and ChatGPT can be that connecting bridge. While Goa-based investment advisor Schubert Mendes agrees that using AI for financial decisions can help save time, he cautions against any dependence on it. “AI can’t replace an experienced advisor. Sure, it can guide, but when a crisis strikes or the markets turn volatile, you will need validation from a human expert,” he opines. “For instance, only an experienced advisor would know that the smartest strategy during the COVID crisis was to stay invested.”
Overscheduled millennials will understand the dilemma of double-booking themselves into social commitments or jolting up at midnight with the thought of a forgotten chore. Dubai-based Althea Silvester, 37, decided to give AI a shot to help her schedule her day. “I have ADHD, and staying focused and organised has always been a challenge. I’ve been using AI to schedule my day, and it’s been a gamechanger, as I’m trying to set up a business, learn two languages, do weekly therapy, and manage a 10.5-hour, five-days-a-week job schedule.”
Others, like Mumbai-based fitness trainer and founder of SohFit, Sohrab Khushrushahi, take AI results with a pinch of salt. “I’m old-school—I believe fitness programming and nutrition are personal and need the human touch. You need to understand the individual to provide a customised plan for results. It could be a good starting point, but coaching is a personal profession, so I wouldn’t use AI.”
But even sceptics can have a change of heart if you share your trusted sources with ChatGPT. Take 36-year-old entrepreneur Radhika Goel from Delhi, who used ChatGPT extensively while planning the layout of her new home according to vastu and feng shui guidelines. All she had to do was name her favourite design bibles for direction.
Trina Dias*, a social sector professional, turned to AI instead of Google to plan the Santiago Walk, an 800-km network of pilgrimage paths in Spain, to make use of her company’s policy of remote work two months a year. Websites like Lonely Planet, Thrillist, Conde Nast Traveller and Travaa were added to her prompts as key references. Even more unique was how the founder of Tute Consult, Komal Lath, used ChatGPT to find the best international flights for her parents. She shares that she ended up saving over ₹25,000.
Of course, there is a critical component missing in all AI tools. Empathy. While AI can help make your life easier and save time, it can’t replace your fitness trainer who pushes you to do one more rep, or the financial advisor who can hold your hand and reassure you that you won’t become destitute because of one market crash. What it can do is sift and sort, guide and remind, present permutations and combinations from the few crumbs you throw its way. A Filofax with a brain. And sometimes, that’s the starting point you need.
