AI Newsletter | 8/22/26

🛒 I don't know about you, but it seems like every time I go to the grocery store, I spend at least five minutes searching the aisles for some item I don't usually buy but need for one special recipe. And don't even get me started on trying to find anything in Home Depot! Costco is a magical playground where dreams come true, but it might also be where you'll get lost forever if you're not careful.

Well, not anymore. While the feature doesn't work 100% of the time, using AI to look up where items are in a store and if the store has them in stock at all has saved my bacon more times than I can count (okay, I can't count very high, sue me) over the past few weeks. If you're also prone to bouts of getting lost in the supermarket, you'll love this one, too.

All you have to do is:

1. Open ChatGPT or your AI assistant of choice. While we used ChatGPT to demonstrate, most chatbots will be able to perform these tasks.
2. There are a few ways to ask ChatGPT about products. The first way is to ask about which aisle you can find an item on. In ChatGPT's response, you can find helpful details about where to find the product.
3. Another way is to tell ChatGPT a specific product you're looking for and ask if there are any stores nearby that have it in stock.

To read the rest of the how-to and see each step in detail, click here.

I would not recommend trying to make AI your best friend. But there's nothing wrong with making it talk like one! One of the most fun parts of using an AI assistant is training it how you want it to interact with you, which is highly customizable. Some folks (like me, personally) might prefer for their AI assistants to be professional and efficient, like a capable executive assistant-bot, but others (*cough*Olena*cough*) might want a more personable, friendly-sounding AI.

And that's not all you can do to train your AI assistant to be the best help to you it possibly can be. The aforementioned, illustrious Olena Kagui, Feature Writer here at iPhone Life, goes over the eight crucial steps you need to take to onboard your perfectly customized AI assistant.

She'll even show you how to put your assistant—and her own advice—to the test.

To read more about onboarding your perfect AI assistant, click here.

🍎 Is Siri AI Really Good Enough to Pay For?

We've all known and—questionably—loved Siri for years. It's our bumbling little virtual pal who occasionally adds things to our grocery list for us and can usually be counted on to set a timer. But with iOS 27, Apple promises Siri is about to take a big leap forward and compete with the AI powerhouses like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. And all this AI power might just end up costing. TechCrunch reports on Tim Cook's hints that Apple could charge extra to Siri's "power users."

🦴 Ancient World 🤝Modern World 💻

We hear a lot about our technological age in conflict with Mother Nature, so sometimes, it's nice to hear something about how one can enhance the other. Researchers in the Netherlands developed an app to help amateur archaeologists (e.g. you, if you like to collect shells on the beach) identify the fossils they've found. Read more at Nature Today.

🔥 23 Humanoid Robots Vs. 1 Fire

Firefighters are among our most uncontroversial heroes: Who doesn't love a person carrying babies out of burning buildings and rescuing cats from trees? Well, what if that "person" were an AI-powered robot? Gadget Review reports that 23 teams in China recently set out to answer that question, sending their robots to douse one manmade fire. Only three robots successfully completed the challenge—but then again, could three out of 23 humans put a fire out? I guess it depends on the kind of folks you hang out with.

That's it for this edition of AI for Humans! We'd love to hear from you. Please email us at aiforhumans@iphonelife.com and let us know how you've been using AI recently, if you have any tips and tricks you think we should know about, what burning AI questions you have, or if you have any feedback for us.