Someone just tried to scam me. I think.

Good morning.
Someone called me this week and I was not sure if it was my bank or someone pretending to be my bank. It turned out to be my bank. But for about eight seconds I was genuinely unsure. That eight seconds is exactly what AI-enabled scammers are counting on now. It is worth understanding why. More on that inside.

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FEATURED POST
Before You Move That Money, Ask AI This First

Most financial decisions feel urgent until they don't. Someone calls with a tip. The market moves. A bill comes due and you're not sure which account to pull from. The pressure to act fast is almost always the wrong reason to act.

Before you do anything with your money, there is one step most people skip: ask AI what you might be missing. Not for the decision itself. For the checklist you're too rushed to build on your own.

Last Tuesday's post walks through exactly how to do that. The prompts are practical, the scenarios are real, and the five minutes it takes could be the most financially useful thing you do this week.

Read the full post here 👉 Before You Move That Money, Ask AI This First

HELPFUL EVERYDAY PROMPTS
DO Try This at Home
Just copy-and-paste into your favorite AI tool. Remember to edit any brackets, then follow up with clarifying questions until you get a response that works for you.

Monaco Grand Prix (June 4–7)
🏎️ Race Day Visualization. "Act as a professional AI image generation specialist. Write me a detailed prompt I can paste into ChatGPT or Midjourney to create a dramatic aerial view of the Monaco Grand Prix circuit at golden hour, with Formula 1 cars rounding the famous hairpin bend, yachts in the harbor below, and city lights just coming on. Make it feel cinematic."

D-Day (June 6)
✍️ A Letter Worth Writing. "Act as a veteran history teacher who specializes in World War II. Help me write a short, heartfelt tribute to the soldiers who landed at Normandy on June 6, 1944. I want to share it with my family or post it today. Keep it under 150 words, factually accurate, and right for all ages."

National Higher Education Day (June 6)
🎓 The Honest College Talk. "Act as a college admissions counselor with 15 years of experience at selective universities. My [son/daughter] is starting the college search process. Give me 10 questions I should be asking them right now, and 5 things parents do that accidentally hurt their child's application."

FIFA World Cup (Starts June 8)
⚽ World Cup Ready. "Act as a sports travel expert and food enthusiast. The FIFA World Cup starts in North America on June 8. I want to host a watch party but have no idea where to start. Tell me which group stage matches are worth clearing your schedule for, what food fits each region playing, and two fun games my guests can enjoy during the match."

Because you subscribe, you have access to more than 600 Prompts, our Learning Center, Pro Tips and Recommended Tools for home use – Just click Here.

REAL WORLD
How We Used AI This Week
Real people, real uses—here’s how AI is quietly making life better, one small win at a time.

🎣 Hillary, subscriber. Hillary was planning a sailing charter through the Bahamas' Exuma Cays. She uploaded her itinerary and asked AI to map out the best bonefishing spots along her route. It came back with a stop-by-stop breakdown, a clear warning about a strict no-fishing zone inside the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, permit requirements, tide timing, and local guide contacts for Staniel Cay. She had all of it before she ever left Arizona.

💄 Gabriela, from The Rundown. Gabriela wanted to know her best colors. She uploaded selfies to ChatGPT, got a full color palette analysis, then extended it to hairstyles and outfits based on face shape and measurements. She turned those results into custom instructions and built a dedicated Style Project. Now she uses it for daily feedback on outfits, haircuts, and new purchases. She says she feels more confident and more herself.

👉How do you use AI at home? Tell us here.

FEATURED STORY
AI Fraud Is Now Big Enough for Its Own FBI Category

The FBI does not create new reporting categories for small problems. This year, for the first time, the agency broke out AI-related fraud as its own line item: 22,000 complaints, $893 million in losses.

Those numbers sit inside a broader crypto fraud total of $11.3 billion. AI fraud is a fast-growing piece of it. The most common delivery methods are voice cloning calls that sound exactly like someone you know, deepfake video fraud, and AI-written phishing that no longer reads like obvious spam.

These are not sophisticated attacks on security professionals. They are targeting people who answer the phone, click on links, and trust familiar voices. That is most of us.

The defenses are not complicated: awareness, healthy skepticism, and strong, unique passwords. On that last point, if you are still reusing the same password across accounts, that is an open door. 1Password is built for exactly this problem. For a closer look at what AI is doing to trust and conversation, read The Best Listener You've Never Paid For.

READER POLL

NEWS YOU CAN USE
This Matters at Home
Short, practical summaries to help you stay updated on recent AI news—and what it means for everyday life.

🌍 ChatGPT Hit 1 Billion Monthly Users. ChatGPT reached 1 billion monthly active users last month, moving faster than TikTok or Instagram ever did. Claude grew 640% in the same window. Your neighbors are just starting to ask about the tools you're already using.

🛒 Amazon's New Alexa for Shopping Knows What You Buy, What You Said, and What You'll Need Next. Amazon merged Rufus and Alexa+ into one AI shopping assistant. It tracks purchases, watches prices for a full year, and can auto-buy when items hit your target price. No Prime required.

🧠 Claude Opus 4.8 Is Here. Anthropic upgraded its top model with sharper judgment, improved honesty about its own mistakes, and a new effort dial you control for each task. Fast mode now costs 3x less than before.

🎬 YouTube Will Now Catch Undisclosed AI Videos. YouTube is moving AI labels to a more prominent spot on videos. If a creator forgets to disclose AI use, YouTube's detection system will add the label automatically. Better to know what you're actually watching.

💸 Meta Goes Full Subscription Mode. Instagram Plus and Facebook Plus launched at $3.99/month. WhatsApp Plus is $2.99/month, with analytics, profile customization, and themes. No ads in the paid tier. Free still works. For now.

💰 OpenAI Is Putting $250 Million Behind the "What Happens to Jobs" Question. The OpenAI Foundation announced $250 million for grants and research focused on workers, wage loss, and economic security as AI reshapes jobs. They're worried about what they built. Which is either reassuring or not.

🍽️ AI Taught Itself What Makes Food Taste Good — And It Actually Gets It. Researchers trained an AI on millions of recipes and food chemistry data. It independently learned 15 dimensions of flavor, including taste, texture, geography, and culture. A chef's instincts, basically, minus the ego and the 14-hour shifts.

🧹 A Startup Will Clean Your Home for Free. The Catch Is a Camera on the Cleaner's Hat. NYC startup Shift sends human cleaners wearing head-mounted cameras to your home at no charge. Your bathroom becomes training data for future cleaning robots. Worth knowing before you sign up.

🐢 A 15-Year-Old Built an AI Robot Turtle That Detects Ocean Threats. Canadian high schooler Evan Budz built BURT, an AI-powered robotic sea turtle that detects coral bleaching, invasive species, and microplastics with 96% accuracy. Your kid can't find their homework, but okay.

TOOLS FOR YOU
Tool Spotlight: TopResume

If your resume still looks like it was built for the job you left five years ago, that is probably exactly the problem. TopResume works with professional writers who will actually read your background and help you reframe it for the role you want next. Not a template. A real person, working on your specific story. If your resume is overdue for a proper rewrite, start here.