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💦 Welcome to your weekly AI briefing. The robots had a busy week. Again. Come on in and make a Splash. Did someone forward this to you? Sign up here, it’s free.

HERE’S WHAT’S IN THIS ISSUE:

🤖 Get paid to teach robots how humans do chores.
💸 Find the money hiding in your employee benefits.
📡 Your smart appliances are very, very chatty.
🗣️ Rehearse the phone call with AI.
🐟 China’s robot fish swims on its own.

But first, some trivia. Remember when ChatGPT popped up and everyone acted like Google was about to pack a cardboard box and leave the internet? The search bar has seen a lot. Dial-up, that little Ask Jeeves moment and your aunt typing full questions into Facebook. 

🔍 Since ChatGPT arrived, what’s happened to the number of Google searches? A) Cut in half, B) Down about 10%, C) Actually up, by about 20% or D) They all moved to “Hey, Google, is this rash normal?” Take your best guess. The answer’s waiting for you at the end.

⚠️ One app. The whole crew. Zero data sold. Your kids hate being tracked. Your spouse never texts after landing. Your mom lives alone across town. HeyPolo covers the whole crew. It’s the family location app I use, and your location is never sold. Your teen can share an exact spot or go fully private. You get arrival alerts for late commutes, and Mom gets one-tap SOS. One plan covers everyone, no per-person fees. Go to HeyPolo.com/kim: just $2.49 a month, plus for a limited time get six extra months.* — Kim

I have a bad habit of treating open enrollment or insurance benefits PDFs like terms and conditions for an air fryer. Employees get the 40-page packet. Retirees get the plan booklet. People on a spouse’s insurance get forwarded a document with zero explanation. 

Most of us skim, pick what looks familiar and move on. That can be an expensive skim. I found a perk in my own plan last year I’d been paying for and never used.

You might be skipping far more than insurance options. Depending on your job, health plan, Medicare coverage, retirement benefits, spouse’s plan or professional association, you could have reimbursements and perks you’ve never used. 

Think tuition help, certification fees, wellness stipends, mental health support, gym memberships, hearing and vision benefits, caregiver resources, transportation help and other goodies hiding on page 31.

Download whatever applies to you (your employee benefits guide, health insurance booklet, Medicare or retiree plan documents, etc.). Remove Social Security numbers, employee IDs, medical details or anything sensitive. Then upload the files into your go-to chatbot and paste this:

Double-check every finding against the source document. Some reimbursements require approval before you spend a dollar, which is a lovely detail to discover after buying a $900 course.

I was telling the kids about the health benefits of eating dried fruits recently. It’s really all about raisin awareness.

Your move this week: Pick one plan, contact whoever administers it and get the process started.

📩 Send this to someone who immediately stuffs benefits paperwork in that “read later, probably never” mental drawer.

📺 WATCH ON YOUTUBE NOW OR LATER

Your washer knows your delicates-to-towels ratio, knows there’s a kid in the house from all the sports gear and can guess practice is on Tuesday. Your fridge just wants you to stop buying kale. Consumer Reports found basic smart appliances sending the data equivalent of up to 135,000 texts a week. Each.

This week, we break down whether AI is really racing toward superintelligence or whether the companies warning us just need someone to step in before the IPO.

Also: Facebook ads install fake Google Play stores wired to offshore casinos, Tesla’s update drives the car back to the dealership when you skip a payment, a $16,500 companion robot that’s only a torso, and New York’s robo-toilets open the door on you at 10 minutes, ready or not.

Plus, a son who rebuilt his late father from 17,500 pages and four voicemails into a hologram, a Miami caller SIM-swapped out of $200,000 and a Montana woman who fought off a charging moose with bear spray.

Hit play below, so you know what’s listening, what’s lying and which appliance is texting behind your back. 👇

▶️ Superintelligence warnings, chatty appliances and hologram dads →

🎧 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.

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🛣️ Drive on over: Dozens more auto finds are parked at my Amazon storefront.

I found a better use for drive time: Rehearse the conversation you keep avoiding.

ChatGPT’s new GPT-Live voice mode can listen while it talks, which means you can interrupt naturally as it plays the cable retention agent, a hiring manager or the person hearing your apology. 

Keep your hands on the wheel and treat it like an actual call, not a screen.

Setup takes about a minute, and my walk-through, the exact prompt and the privacy fine print are one tap away.

⏱️ Do the 60-second setup →

Remember those robotic fish swimming around mall toy store tanks in the 2000s? China must have looked at those and thought: Give it autonomy, and imagine who we could spy on.

The BG-5 Golden Dragon Fish was shown off in a tiny tank at a Beijing trade show, where the 6.6-pound robo-arowana swam using a multi-jointed tail. It dodges obstacles on its own and can dive about 16 feet. 

Check it out here. This is off the scale.

Share this now:

Here’s your haul for today. You learned how to get paid to teach robots household chores, uncover benefits you may be leaving on the table, find out how much your smart appliances are talking and rehearse awkward calls with ChatGPT. And you met a robot fish that swims on its own. Not bad for five minutes of reading. 

⚡ The answer: C) Up about 20%. Yep. Google handles more than 5 trillion searches a year, its biggest number ever. 

So what did AI kill? The click. Sixty-eight percent of Google searches end without anyone clicking a single result, up from 60% two years ago, because Google’s own AI answer sits at the top of the page. Total clicks to websites are down 23% since 2024. 

Translation? You’re searching more and leaving less. The web’s still there. Google just built a lobby you never walk out of. 

My tip: When the AI summary says something about your money or your health, click the source anyway. The summary is a guess. Google’s AI answers everything, like my uncle at Thanksgiving. About as well sourced, too.

😡 Here’s something that’ll make your blood boil. Some family tracking apps have sold location and driving info to data brokers. Insurance companies buy that stuff. Slam the brakes one time, and your premium could pay the price. That’s why I love HeyPolo. Your location is never sold. No advertisers. No insurers. No data brokers. Here’s the deal: just $2.49 a month, and you get six extra months free. Go to HeyPolo.com/kim now to claim this amazing offer. Marco? HeyPolo!*

💡 You don’t have to be first to AI. You have to be curious enough to try it once. Forward this to ONE person who needs to be with the AI program. Thanks for diving in, see you next time! — Kim

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

Photo credit(s): ChatGPT/Kim Komando, Instawork, REDTIGER, @bricsinfo via X

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