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💦 Welcome, friend. AI got busier again this week, and you’re right on time. Come on in and make a Splash.

HERE’S WHAT’S IN THIS ISSUE:
🛋️ AI redesigns your room before you spend a dime.
💼 Use AI to dig deep for your performance review receipts.
🗣️ Google’s AI turns messy speech into clean text in 85+ languages.
🚁 Amazon’s delivery drone mistakes a hot tub for a porch.
🎆 A showdown between robot dogs and drones.

But first, some trivia. Grab your coffee and your emotional support “attached is my résumé,” because today we enter the hiring circus. 

Kickresume sent 204 applications into the corporate abyss to discover which résumé style made employers go, “Ah yes, this human may exchange labor for currency.” 

📃 Which got the most replies? A) A polished two-column résumé with a skills sidebar, B) A generic AI-written résumé, C) A simple, human-written single-column résumé or D) An AI résumé packed with keywords from the job listing? For the record, I guessed D, and I was wrong. The answer is hiding at the end like a recruiter after salary questions.

⚠️ Right now, somewhere, a stranger is buying a list. Data brokers sell lists named “Suffering Seniors,” “Recently Widowed” and “Bad Credit: Card Declines.” One even sold a list of sexual assault survivors. $79 per 1,000 names. And nobody ever asks the buyer why. I use Incogni. It sends removal requests to 420-plus data broker and people-search sites, then keeps following up. Get 60% off using promo code KIM60.* They can’t harm you if they can’t find you. — Kim

Three years ago, I dragged an armchair into the corner of my living room to balance the space. It hasn’t moved since. Nobody sits in it. The dogs won’t even get in it. Every few months, I look up interior designers, see the rates and decide the chair can stay in jail a little longer.

Paying $150 to $300 an hour for a designer isn’t cheap. The friendlier online services aren’t free either. Havenly plans run $159 to $499. None of that includes furniture. The average single-room refresh lands north of $1,200. 

Many designers earn commission on the products they recommend. I still have six gorgeous leather chairs and a snazzy dining room table I bought on final sale because a designer said they would work in my new house. They didn’t. Here’s a pic in my temporary house till the new build was done, let me know if you’re interested. On the other hand, me and my recliner go way back.

This is amazing. Two or three photos, taken from opposite corners. One photo hiding half the room, and AI will confidently plan around furniture it can’t see. 

Upload the pics to ChatGPT. It does the best job for this task. Use this prompt:

Ask ChatGPT to create a demo photo with the changes made:

You get to preview the verdict before you throw your back out moving a sectional.

Pro tip: AI can’t judge comfort, so if it says sell your couch, sleep on that for a night. Maybe literally. Also, its resale price guesses are pure fiction unless prompted correctly. Check Facebook Marketplace yourself before you list anything.

Send this to someone who’s been rearranging the same living room since 2019. Use the links below.

Performance review season has a funny way of erasing your memory. Suddenly, your manager asks what you accomplished this year, and the only thing your brain can produce is, “Well, I attended a lot of meetings.”

Meanwhile, the proof is all over: email, Slack, Teams, project notes, calendars, quarterly reports and documents you haven’t opened since February.

AI is very good at turning that pile into evidence.

HR’s got logs, dashboards, rankings and budget targets you’ve never seen. You’re basically bringing a messy scratch pad to a spreadsheet fight. “I helped on a bunch of stuff” isn’t a strong start to “please pay me more.” 

Documented outcomes > good intentions.

If your company allows it, connect Gmail, Google Calendar and Drive to ChatGPT or Gemini. It’s pretty risky doing that. Your AI has access to everything, and I mean everything.

Otherwise, export selected emails, calendar entries and files, strip out private client or employee information and upload only what you’re authorized to share. Then, paste:

Your move this week: Save the result as a Google Doc. Then set a calendar reminder for the first of every month and run the exact same prompt again. It says “past 12 months,” so it never goes stale. Each run catches the wins you’ve already forgotten. Verify every claim before it goes in the file, because the AI will hand you a beautifully formatted list, and one wrong number is all it takes to lose the room.

Come review time, you’re not digging. You’re printing.

💡 How would you write “I changed a light bulb” on your review? Single-handedly managed the successful upgrade and deployment of a new environmental illumination system with zero cost overruns.

📩 Send this to anyone who rarely takes credit for their best work. 

📺 WATCH ON YOUTUBE NOW OR LATER

A woman went out back to watch Amazon’s drone delivery land. It cleared her front door, her house and dropped the package in her hot tub. Amazon calls it Prime Air. More like Prime Swim.

This week, we break down the moment the surveillance backlash started winning. Tempe pulled its Flock cameras, and a guy in a hoodie took down the one on my street in Santa Barbara. Twice.

Also: Meta settles for $18 billion after designing its apps to hook kids, AliExpress listens to your keystrokes, Delta prepares to price your seat on whatever its algorithm thinks you’ll tolerate, and your router notices which chair you fell asleep in.

Plus: Lori Schott on losing her daughter Annalee and what she read in Meta’s own emails at trial, and my AI email assistant sent one radio executive four separate dinner invitations.

Hit play below, so you know who’s watching, what’s tracking and why a drone mistook a hot tub for a porch. 👇

▶️ Pool-diving drones, Flock pushback and AI that won’t stop emailing →

🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.

As an Amazon Associate, some links pay us a commission at no extra cost to you. Keeps this newsletter free. Thank you.

🤖 More than a number: Etekcity’s smart scale (17% off, $20) also tracks body fat, BMI and muscle mass. Bonus: FSA and HSA eligible.

💡 Lights that think for you: Plug-in night-lights (42% off, $7, two-pack) flip on at dusk, off at dawn. No switch, no thinking required.

Where’s the remote? Right here, in a faux leather caddy (20% off, $16). It keeps controllers, pens and other small stuff tidy.

💻 Find your next machine: Check out my top laptop and desktop picks before you buy.

This week: Gemini actually listens

I retain roughly 14% of anything a doctor tells me once I’m sitting on that little paper-covered table.

Google gave Gemini two genuinely useful fixes for that problem.

One is for the stuff you’ll need to remember later from a doctor, meeting or contractor. The other is for finally talking to someone you’ve spent years smiling and nodding at.

Both take about a minute to try. I’ve got the setup, my prompt and the privacy stuff you should know before hitting record. I couldn’t fit it all here so click the link below.

Robot dogs and drones have moved past fetch and aerial photography straight into a neighborhood arms race.

A viral clip shows a four-legged robot blasting fireworks at a hovering drone, which circles overhead and shoots back. The dog pivots, moving through the sparks like a Boston Dynamics demo directed by Michael Bay.

The weird part? Both bots are commercially available tech being explored by militaries. Today, it’s Roman candles. Tomorrow, your Roomba calls in air support.

Check out the firefight here. I’ve watched this clip six times. I’m rooting for the dog.

Share this now:

Here’s your haul for today. Save yourself a decorating bill with an AI room redo, turn a year of work into promotion-ready receipts and make Gemini clean up conversations. Plus, robot dogs are fighting drones with fireworks. Not bad for five minutes of reading.

📝 The answer: C) A simple, human-written single-column résumé. Yep. Out of 204 job applications sent by Kickresume, the plain résumé pulled a 31% positive response rate, body-slamming the polished two-column version at 12% and the generic AI-written one at 10%. 

Also, 78% of employers who responded did it within three days. So if it’s been over a week and your inbox is giving haunted house energy, that application may have gone to the great recruiting portal in the sky.

🚩 Still on the list? Your name, address, age, income and health problems are for sale: $79 per 1,000 names, and the broker never asks who’s buying. A scammer? Someone looking for your mom? You can’t stop the list. You can get off it. Incogni sends removal requests to 420-plus sites, then follows up to keep your info off them. Get 60% off today. They can’t harm you if they can’t find you.* 

Thanks for spending your Thursday coffee with me. Now go stand in your living room and look at it like a stranger would. Forward this to ONE person who needs to be with the AI program. See you next time as we dive deeper into AI that you can use! 🤿 — Kim

Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily

Photo credit(s): ChatGPT/Kim Komando, Incogni, Amazon, Govee, @aicouncillor via Instagram

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