Set up an automation that watches your inbox. When someone replies to a specific email with a keyword like "template," the system automatically replies within the same email thread to deliver the lead magnet, bypassing complex ESP sequences.

An international growth PM at OpenAI built Codex automations to manage his core daily workflow. This includes a daily Slack inbox triage that summarizes unread and unanswered messages from key people, as well as a generator for weekly stakeholder updates.

If you struggle to see your work in terms of 'workflows,' try this: at the end of each day, tell an AI like Codex what you did. After a week, ask it to analyze the transcripts and suggest the most repetitive, time-consuming tasks to automate first.

Claude's new "Routines" feature allows developers to trigger actions on a schedule or via webhooks. This elevates the tool from a manual assistant to an integrated component for automating recurring tasks, embedding it deeper into complex development and business workflows.

The concept of an AI 'loop' is an evolution, not a revolution. It applies traditional, time-tested automation triggers—such as scheduled cron jobs or event-driven webhooks—to initiate and control modern AI agents, providing a familiar foundation for developers.

The journey to a comprehensive company operating system doesn't start with a grand design. Instead, identify one highly tedious, repeatable task, like triaging Slack requests, and build a simple automation for it. This creates immediate value and momentum.

Instead of struggling to find use cases for a new AI tool, instruct the agent to analyze your existing workflows in apps like Slack, Gmail, and Notion. The agent can then propose personalized, high-value automations, effectively telling you how to best use it for your specific needs.

Go beyond single-use skills by chaining them together. For instance, a daily 'morning brief' skill can be designed to automatically trigger a 'podcast guest research' skill whenever a podcast is detected on your calendar. This creates complex, multi-layered automations that run without manual intervention.

Codex's new 'Heartbeats' feature allows AI agents to function as a Chief of Staff. These recurring automations maintain context within a single thread, scan sources like email and Slack, and proactively brief users on priorities, moving beyond reactive Q&A to active workflow management.