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Good morning. Today is all about letting AI read your inbox, and doing it with your eyes open. Scammers have found a way to talk to your assistant behind your back. Then I'll show you how I caught up on three weeks of newsletters in about 20 minutes.
AI INSIGHT - SCAM WATCH
The Email You Ignored Is Back. Thanks to Your AI.
You spot a sketchy email and leave it alone. Good instinct. Then you ask your AI assistant to summarize your inbox, and that same email shows up near the top, marked urgent.
Security researchers at Barracuda flagged this trick in October. Scammers hide instructions inside emails that you can't see but an AI can read: invisible text, notes buried in the email's code, even characters with no width at all. The instructions tell the assistant to call the message legitimate, or to add a "priority" task like changing a vendor's payment details.
As Malwarebytes explains it, the scammer isn't just asking you anymore. They're trying to make the request sound like your assistant's idea.
"They haven't learned to distrust their AI assistant." -- Apollo Raines, quoted by Malwarebytes |
If ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini can see your email, three habits cover most of the risk. When a summary says pay, wire, update account info, or share anything sensitive, open the original email first. Confirm any payment change using a phone number you already have. And let your assistant read and summarize, not act on its own.
The catch: Looking more carefully won't help here, because the hidden text was never meant for your eyes. The real fix has to come from the companies building these tools.
Go further: Someone just tried to scam me. I think.
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AI TUTORIAL
Catch Up on Weeks of Newsletters in 20 Minutes
I got back from a two-week trip to hundreds of unread emails. Buried in there were 43 newsletters I subscribe to and actually like. So I had ChatGPT, connected to my email, pull every one of them from the senders I named and summarize the best of each. Almost three weeks of reading, caught up in about 20 minutes.
Since you're reading this, I'm guessing you subscribe to a few newsletters yourself. Here's how to do the same.
✓ Connect your email. In ChatGPT's settings, find the connected apps section and connect Outlook or Gmail. It needs a paid plan. Claude and Gemini can connect to your email too.
✓ List your keepers. Write down the newsletters you actually read. The sender names as they show up in your inbox are enough.
✓ Ask for a roundup, not a summary of everything. Use the prompt below, with your date and senders filled in.
✓ Read the winners. Open the two or three issues it flags as worth your time. Let the rest go.
The same move works beyond newsletters: every email from your kid's school this month, all the back-and-forth with a contractor, or every receipt from one store before a return deadline.
Try This With AI What it does: Turns a pile of unread newsletters into one short briefing you can read over coffee.
"Act as my personal reading editor. Search my email from [date you left] to today for newsletters from these senders: [list of senders]. For each one, give me the single most useful item in two sentences and tell me if anything needs action from me. Group them by topic, then name the three issues most worth reading in full."
Customize it: Swap in the day you left for [date you left], and paste sender names exactly as they appear in your inbox for [list of senders]. |
If it does not work: If it finds only a handful of newsletters, the search is too narrow. Ask it to "search by sender name and by subject line," or run one sender at a time. If the summaries come back vague, reply: "Give me the specific fact or tip, not a description of the newsletter."
What this doesn't fix: It's great for reading, not for deciding. Anything about money, deadlines, or your accounts still gets opened and read by you, for the reasons in today's lead story.
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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.
🛡️ Google's Gemini Will Now Screen Your Scam Texts. A new opt-in Android setting has Gemini size up texts from unknown senders and check sketchy links before you tap. Finally, a bouncer for your text messages.
✈️ Southwest Is Now Bookable-ish Inside ChatGPT. Southwest's new ChatGPT plugin lets you compare fares and dates mid-conversation, then sends you to Southwest.com to book. Points, seats, and extras stay on Southwest's site.
📉 A Nobel Economist Pushes Back on AI Job Optimism. On 60 Minutes, MIT's Daron Acemoglu said unemployment could triple within a decade if nothing changes. Tech leaders keep promising AI will mostly create jobs.
🎓 Teachers Say AI Is Buying Them More Time With Kids. Nearly 3 in 5 teachers used AI last year, Gallup found, and most of them say it frees time for students. Biggest users? Teachers in their 40s.
🎬 Andrew Garfield Plays Sam Altman in a New Movie. "Artificial" dramatizes the weekend OpenAI's board fired, then rehired, Sam Altman. It premiered at the New York Film Festival and hits theaters Christmas Day.
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.
🛒 Becky F. from Lake Alfred, Florida, runs purchases past her AI, which she calls Chatty, before buying, and her husband loves it. When she was ready to buy a course, Chatty pointed out she could teach that course herself. When she eyed another image generator, it listed the tools she already owns that do the same job. When she almost bought a set of prompts, it offered to do everything those prompts could do, then did it. The money stays in her pocket and the work gets done.
READER POLL
Would you let an AI assistant read your email?
TOOLS FOR YOU
📥 Tool Spotlight: SaneBox
If today's tutorial made you wish the newsletters never piled up in the first place, SaneBox handles that part. It works quietly inside the email you already use, Gmail, Outlook, or iCloud, and moves anything unimportant into a separate folder so your inbox shows what matters. Drag a sender once and it learns. Newsletters wait in one place until you're ready. Free trial, then paid. Try it here.
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