50 Tasks You Can Automate With AI Today (With Real Examples)
Not sure what to automate first? Here are 50 real tasks across email, e-commerce, social media, CRM, and more — each set up in under 2 minutes with AI.
TL;DR: Here are 50 things you can automate right now — email triage, Shopify orders, social posting, CRM updates, expense tracking, and more. Each one takes a single sentence to set up. No workflow builder, no code. Try any of these on lookatmy.ai — connect your apps, type what you want, done. Free to start.
Most people know they should automate more. The problem isn't motivation — it's knowing where to start.
You open Zapier, see 7,000 integrations, and think: "Great. What now?" You browse templates that don't quite fit your workflow. You try to build something custom and get lost in trigger/action/filter configuration. Eventually you close the tab and go back to doing things manually.
The answer isn't "learn automation." The answer is seeing real examples of what's possible and knowing you can set them up in plain English — no workflow builder required.
Below are 50 actual tasks you can automate today, organized by category. Each one works by telling AI what you want in a single message. The AI connects your apps, figures out the steps, and runs it — on demand, on a schedule, or triggered by an event.
Email & Communication (1-10)
1. Morning email digest
"Every morning at 8 AM, check my Gmail for unread emails, group them by sender, and send me a summary in Slack."
2. Auto-label important emails
"When I receive an email from anyone at @clientdomain.com, label it as 'Priority' in Gmail."
3. Follow-up reminder
"If I send an email and don't get a reply within 3 days, add a follow-up task to my Google Tasks."
4. Meeting prep email
"30 minutes before every Google Calendar meeting, email me a summary of my last 3 email threads with that person."
5. Out-of-office auto-response routing
"When I receive an email while my calendar shows I'm on vacation, auto-reply with my OOO message and forward urgent emails to my assistant."
6. Weekly email cleanup report
"Every Sunday, tell me how many unread emails I have, which senders email me most, and suggest which newsletters to unsubscribe from."
7. Slack-to-email bridge
"When someone DMs me on Slack with the word 'urgent', forward it to my email immediately."
8. Client communication log
"After I send any email to a contact in my CRM, log the date and subject line in a Google Sheet."
9. Invoice follow-up
"If a client hasn't responded to my invoice email within 7 days, send a polite follow-up."
10. Daily standup summary
"Every morning, collect all messages from the #standup Slack channel and email me a formatted summary."
E-Commerce & Sales (11-20)
11. New order logging
"When a new Shopify order comes in, add a row to my Google Sheet with the order number, customer name, items, and total."
12. Thank-you email on purchase
"When someone places their first Shopify order, send them a personalized thank-you email from Gmail."
13. Low-stock alert
"When any Shopify product drops below 10 units in stock, send me a Slack message with the product name and current count."
14. Daily revenue report
"Every evening at 6 PM, check my Shopify dashboard and send me today's total orders, revenue, and top-selling product via email."
15. Abandoned cart follow-up
"When a customer abandons their cart on Shopify, wait 2 hours, then send a reminder email with their cart items."
16. New lead notification
"When someone fills out a form on my website, create a contact in HubSpot and send me a Slack notification with their details."
17. Deal stage updates
"When a deal moves to 'Negotiation' in my CRM, send the prospect a case study PDF via email."
18. Weekly sales summary
"Every Monday morning, pull my Stripe payments from the past week and send me a summary: total revenue, number of transactions, average order value."
19. New review alert
"When a new product review is posted on my Shopify store, send me the review text and rating in Slack."
20. Competitor price monitoring
"Every week, check the prices of these 5 competitor products on their websites and update my comparison spreadsheet."
Social Media & Content (21-30)
21. Cross-platform posting
"Post this text to Twitter, LinkedIn, and my Facebook page. Adjust the length and tone for each platform."
22. Daily engagement report
"Every evening, check my Twitter analytics and tell me my top-performing tweet today, total impressions, and new followers."
23. Content calendar execution
"Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10 AM, post the next item from my content calendar spreadsheet to Twitter."
24. Reddit monitoring
"Search Reddit daily for mentions of [my brand] or [my product category] and send me a digest of relevant posts."
25. YouTube video summary
"When I publish a new YouTube video, generate a blog post summary and draft a Twitter thread promoting it."
26. Instagram hashtag research
"Search for the top 30 hashtags related to 'small business productivity' and save them to a Google Doc."
27. Social proof collection
"When someone mentions my brand positively on Twitter, save the tweet text and link to a 'Testimonials' Google Sheet."
28. Weekly content performance
"Every Friday, pull my analytics from Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram and create a comparison report in Google Sheets."
29. Blog post distribution
"When I publish a new blog post on my site, share it on Twitter with a hook, on LinkedIn with a professional summary, and in my Discord server."
30. Podcast episode alerts
"When a new episode of [favorite podcast] is published, send me a Slack message with the title and link."
Project Management & Productivity (31-40)
31. Meeting notes to tasks
"After every Google Calendar meeting ends, create a task in Asana to write follow-up notes, due tomorrow."
32. Weekly goal review
"Every Friday at 4 PM, check my Todoist for incomplete tasks from this week and send me a summary of what's still open."
33. Daily schedule briefing
"Every morning at 7:30 AM, check my Google Calendar and send me today's schedule via Slack — meetings, times, attendees, and any notes."
34. Time tracking reminder
"If I have a meeting on my calendar but no corresponding time entry in Toggl, send me a reminder to log my time."
35. New team member onboarding
"When someone is added to my 'Team' Google Group, create a welcome task list in Notion with onboarding steps."
36. Deadline approaching alert
"3 days before any Asana task is due, send me a Slack reminder with the task name and assignee."
37. GitHub issue to project board
"When a new GitHub issue is created with the 'bug' label, create a corresponding card in my Trello board."
38. Daily journal prompt
"Every evening at 9 PM, send me an email with 3 reflection questions: What went well? What was challenging? What's tomorrow's priority?"
39. Document version tracking
"When any file in my 'Contracts' Google Drive folder is updated, log the change date and filename to a Google Sheet."
40. Sprint recap
"Every other Friday, collect all completed Jira tickets from the past two weeks and create a summary report in Confluence."
Finance & Admin (41-50)
41. Expense logging
"When I receive a receipt email (subject contains 'receipt' or 'invoice'), extract the amount and vendor, and log it to my Expenses Google Sheet."
42. Monthly budget check
"On the 1st of every month, check my Stripe dashboard and compare this month's revenue to last month's. Send me the comparison via email."
43. Invoice generation reminder
"On the last business day of every month, send me a list of all clients I worked with this month from my Google Calendar so I can send invoices."
44. Subscription renewal alert
"7 days before any subscription renewal date in my 'Subscriptions' spreadsheet, send me an email asking if I still need it."
45. Tax-deductible expense tagging
"When I add a new row to my expenses spreadsheet, check if the category is tax-deductible and add a 'Tax' tag if so."
46. Payment received confirmation
"When a Stripe payment is received, send the customer a thank-you email and log the payment in my Google Sheet."
47. Contractor payment reminder
"On the 15th and last day of every month, send me a Slack reminder to process contractor payments."
48. Quarterly report compilation
"Every quarter, pull my revenue data from Stripe, expenses from my spreadsheet, and create a summary report with totals and trends."
49. Bank balance check
"Every Monday morning, check my Stripe balance and send me the current available and pending amounts via Slack."
50. Year-end summary
"In December, compile all my monthly revenue reports from Google Sheets into a single annual summary document."
How to Actually Set These Up
Every example above follows the same pattern: you describe what you want in a sentence, and AI handles the execution. Here's the 3-step process:
Step 1: Connect your apps. Link the apps you use — Gmail, Google Calendar, Shopify, Slack, whatever your workflow involves. One-click OAuth for most apps.
Step 2: Tell AI what to do. Type your automation in plain English, exactly like the examples above. The AI figures out which tools to use, what data to pass between them, and how to chain the steps together.
Step 3: Set it on autopilot. Save it as a workflow, add a trigger (reacts to events like "new email received") or a schedule (runs at set times like "every morning at 8 AM"), and it runs automatically going forward.
No visual builder. No field mapping. No certification required.
Start With One
Don't try to automate everything at once. Pick the ONE task from this list that eats the most of your time every week. Set it up. See how it feels to have AI handle it.
Then pick another one. And another.
Within a week, you'll wonder how you ever did this stuff manually.