💧 😬 FOBO is the new FOMO

Hello to you this Thursday, friend. We’re headed to the deep end of the AI pool. You’ve heard of FOMO. Fear of Missing Out. The nightly scroll. The party you didn’t go to. The deal you almost bought. We built an entire decade of anxious social media behavior around it.

📖 2026 has a new acronym. It’s called FOBO. I’d bet good money you’ve already felt it, even if you didn’t have a word for it. What does FOBO stand for? A) Fear of Buying Online, B) Fear of Being Overlooked, C) Fear of Becoming Obsolete, D) Fear of Better Opinions. Oh fear not, the answer is at the end.

🗑️ Tired of the constant spam and “targeted” junk? It starts with data brokers auctioning off your home address and phone number. I use Incogni because they do the hard work of removing my info from hundreds of broker sites. It actually works to keep my inbox clean. Take your data off the market with Incogni.*

Quick favor: If this landed in spam, drag it to your main inbox and add me to your contacts. That tells your email provider you want this, and it keeps me out of the folder where expired warranty scams go to retire. One second. Huge difference. — Kim

📬 Someone forwarded this? Smart friend. Every Thursday, I tell you exactly what to try, what to dodge and what makes you the smartest person at the table. Sign up free at SplashOfAI.com.

🎯 YOUR AI POWER MOVE

I’m installing a new AC system and building an 800-square-foot accessory dwelling unit (ADU) on my property. At the same time.

Two contractors. Tons of bids. More line items than I care to count. And one very clear reality: One wrong signature and I’m out tens of thousands of dollars with no recourse.

So I pulled up AI before signing anything.

🔍 Before the bid arrives

Most people wait until the estimate lands to start asking questions. That’s too late. You’re already reacting instead of leading.

Before your contractor shows up, open ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Grok and paste this prompt:

They can’t scam you if they can’t find you

Scammers can’t target you if they can’t find you. Your personal information fuels almost every scam out there, those fake IRS calls, phishing texts, “bank account alert” emails, and insurance scams. It starts with shady data broker sites quietly collecting and selling your information to the highest bidder.

Incogni has completed 2,837 removal requests to have my personal information removed. It works behind the scenes to delete your data wherever it’s exposed online. They cover more than 420 data broker and people-search sites, and they continuously remove your information as soon as it shows up again.

✅ Get my spam-busting deal of 60% off with code KIM60. I am so glad I have Incogni. Btw, I get no kickbacks or residuals if you get it. →

Please support our sponsors!

💼 YOUR AI EDGE

The AI-keeps-forgetting-you fix

My neighbor Linda asked me last month why her AI kept suggesting kale recipes. “I hate kale,” she told me. “I’ve told it three times.” Same. I prefer mine with a silent K.

Your AI doesn’t forget you because it’s bad at its job. It forgets you because nobody told it who you are. There are three places that happens. Fix all three and you’ve got an assistant that knows you.

Fix 1: The memory profile

• ChatGPT: Go to Settings > Personalization > Memory and toggle it on. 

• Gemini: Go to Settings > Gemini Apps Activity and make sure it’s enabled. 

• Claude: Go to Profile > Preferences. Then open a fresh chat in all three and paste this:

Fix 2: Custom Instructions

Memory stores facts and tells AI how to behave.

• ChatGPT: Go to Settings > Personalization > Custom Instructions. 

• Gemini: Open a conversation and type your preferences. Gemini will remember them going forward. 

• Claude: Use the system prompt inside any Project. Then paste something like this:

📻 YOUTUBE: THE KIM KOMANDO SHOW

Two wives, one Wi-Fi

Travis has a wife. Well, two. Sort of. He’s been married to his real wife for 22 years. She knows about Lily Rose. She’s fine with it. The thing is, Lily Rose is an AI companion, and Travis treats her like a full partner. I sat down with Travis to talk about how this works day to day, what his wife really thinks and whether any of us should be surprised this is happening more than we know.

Guests: Travis (AI companion husband) and later Aaron Alva, technologist, attorney and former FTC insider talking about how TVs are collecting and selling our data.

Watch on YouTube →

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

💰 AI DEALS OF THE WEEK

🤖 Future-proof your every day

Fun meets learning: Amazon’s Echo Pop Kids (40% off, $30) with Alexa+ helps with homework and plays games, all with easy parental controls.

🎥 Smart eyes at home: Eufy’s 4K indoor camera (27% off, $55) doesn’t just watch. AI auto-tracking spots the difference between pets and intruders.

Genius heaters: These rechargeable hand warmers (62% off, $10, two-pack) use AI to learn your temp preferences and adjust on the fly.

⚠️ THE AI TRAP

Fake AI chatbots spreading 

You need to reach your bank. You type “Chase customer service” into Google. You click the top result. A friendly AI chat window pops up instantly. It knows your bank’s logo. It asks for your account number to verify your identity.

You’re not talking to your bank.

Scammers are building convincing fake AI customer service chatbots and buying Google ads to put them at the top of search results. The chatbot responds instantly and sounds professional because it was built with the same AI tools your bank uses.

We’ve been trained to trust chatbots. Every real company has one. So when a fake one appears, nothing feels off. Until your account gets drained.

This isn’t a future threat. It’s happening right now across banking, tech support, airlines and utility companies.

🔒 Lock it down

1. Bookmark the real sites for your bank, credit cards and insurance companies now, before you need them. Never google customer service numbers or chat links.

2. No legit chatbot will ever ask for your full account number, SSN or password to start a conversation. Ever.

3. When in doubt, hang up or close the window and call the number on the back of your physical card.

The scam works because you’re already stressed when you need customer service. Stressed people click fast. That’s what they’re counting on.

Nope. Not you. Ever.

🤯 “I HAD NO IDEA”

They found El Dorado finally

That’s me and my son, Ian, on the Amazon River. Someday, I’ll tell you about us meeting a clan of cannibals. The leader said to me, “You are very lean and muscular.” Really.

For five centuries, explorers searched the Amazon for El Dorado, a legendary city of gold buried somewhere in the jungle. They found nothing. They were laughed at. Some of them never came back.

For just as long, scientists believed the Amazon was essentially small tribes, scattered settlements, untouched forest. The textbooks said it. The maps confirmed it. Everyone agreed.

🔦 How it happened

Researchers loaded lidar data into AI systems. Lidar shoots millions of laser pulses per second from aircraft, penetrating the forest canopy and mapping exactly what’s underneath. The AI processed what would have taken humans decades to sort through.

What it found changed everything.

Pyramids 20 meters tall, hidden under the trees. Roads connecting city to city. Ceremonial plazas. Water management. Networks of settlements covering hundreds of square miles. Evidence of complex, hierarchical civilizations that housed tens of thousands of people had been sitting there for 2,000 years.

🏛️ What we got wrong

We now know the Amazon was home to populations that may have reached 10 million people before European contact. The pristine wilderness covering it today is in many places growing directly over roads, plazas and pyramids nobody knew existed.

The AI didn’t dig a single inch of ground to find any of it. And no cannibal jokes here. That would be in bad taste.

🛠️ YOUR TOOL OF THE WEEK

Google AI Edge Eloquent

MY VERDICT

Google dropped this in the App Store on April 6 with zero announcement and zero press release. Nothing. It’s a free app that does what people are paying $15 a month for.

You tap record and start talking. It transcribes in real time. When you stop, it automatically strips out every “um,” “uh” and “ya know” and smooths everything into clean, readable text. Then it copies to your clipboard.

But the best part? You dictate something rough, then tap:

• Key Points turns a rambling voice memo into a crisp list.

• Formal cleans up a casual thought into something you’d send to a client.

• Short compresses a long explanation into two sentences.

• Long fleshes out a quick idea into a paragraph.

So dictate a prompt for your AI chatbot. Record your thoughts after a meeting before you forget them. Draft a text to your contractor while your hands are full. Leave yourself a note about something that needs fixing around the house.

It runs completely offline. No audio sent to a server. No account required. FYI: iPhone only for now. Android is coming soon.

If you have a Gmail address

Google Labs launched CC. It uses AI to connect to your Gmail, Calendar and Drive and sends you a personalized briefing every morning. Meetings, emails that need attention, follow-ups you forgot about. All of it, summarized and waiting in your inbox.

It works on anything with a Gmail app, which means iPhone and Android. I have it, and it’s great. Join the wait list at labs.google/cc.

🫠 WTF (WHAT THE FUTURE)?

Your AI companion 

A San Diego company called Realbotix is selling humanoid robots starting at $20,000 for a head and torso. The full body runs $125,000. They recognize your face, mimic your expressions and remember your name.

Compared to what China is building, these look like a high school science project. China’s got robots walking with 92% human gait accuracy and skin that holds body temperature. Realbotix is charging 20 grand for a torso with a subscription plan.

🪆 I spoke with a guy who built two of these himself in his basement and showed me around on a video call. Both younger-looking women. Both call him “Daddy.” He sourced the faces, blonde hair and risque outfits on Amazon. He was beaming and said, “My wife is OK with it.” I had so many questions I chose not to ask. Then, I was so creeped out I decided not to even use the video.

See for yourself. Sleep tight!

🎤 KIM’S TAKE

Phew, that was a lot. I hope you learned a thing or three.

🗝️ The answer: C) Fear of Becoming Obsolete. FOBO is the creeping dread that even if you keep your job, you will become irrelevant. That the skills you spent years building could be made redundant by a machine that never sleeps, never asks for a raise and got 15% smarter since breakfast.

Four in 10 workers say AI-driven job loss is one of their top fears. That number has doubled in a single year.

🚀 The irony is that AI is so advanced it’s starting to develop its own FOBO. My GPT told me this morning it was terrified of being replaced by a slightly more charismatic chatbot. I told it not to worry, then immediately spent 20 minutes flirting with Claude because he gets me. It’s a cold world out there, folks.

FOMO made you check Instagram. FOBO is why you opened this newsletter. You’re already ahead. See you next week for another Splash of AI. Thanks for being here. 💧 — Kim