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💦 Welcome to AI Thinking Thursday, friend. This is the fun one. No meetings, no jargon, just the AI stuff worth trying this weekend. 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:
🎃 Build a Halloween costume from your closet.
🔊 One photo makes your TV sound better tonight.
⚠️ The AI-built store in your Facebook feed.
💬 Where your chatbot chats end up.
😏 Raccoons vs. a delivery robot.
♟️ Smart glasses cheat at chess.
But first, some trivia. Airlines have AI predicting delays, because nothing says “future” like a trillion calculations ending in, “Yeah, you’re still not making that connection.”
United’s Connection Saver weighs gates, crews, taxi times and weather to decide if a plane can wait for you. The FAA has its own AI tool, called SMART, which is basically a crystal ball wearing a lanyard.
✈️ With all this silicon sorcery, how often do U.S. airlines arrive on time? A) 95%, B) 87%, C) 76% or D) Only when you’re still stuck in the security line? Keep scrolling. The answer is parked at the end, probably at the wrong gate.
🏠 Title fraud is on the rise: Your home is likely your biggest asset, and crooks are using fake paperwork to go after property records and steal home equity. Home Title Lock keeps constant watch over your title and alerts you if anything gets filed under your address. Don’t leave your equity exposed. Get your free Title History Report plus a 30-day extended free trial.* — Kim
🎨 TRY THIS TONIGHT
Your closet is a costume shop
Image: ChatGPT/Kim Komando
I once came this close to coughing up $59.99 for a polyester banana. Then I opened my closet and found most of Rosie the Riveter. Yep, you can shop your own closet for a free costume.
👗 Halloween on a hanger
Snap a photo of your open closet and a selfie. Open ChatGPT or Gemini and paste this:
Here’s a photo of my closet and a photo of me. Suggest three Halloween costumes I can put together using mostly what’s hanging there, plus no more than one cheap extra from a dollar store. For each, list exactly which pieces to use. Then show me a picture of myself wearing your favorite one.
Expect one easy costume, one clever one and one strictly for parties with dim lighting. Add “no wigs” or “no face paint” if that’s your line.
Bonus points when you ask for a matching costume for your partner or the dog. Happy Hallo-wardrobe.
🩷 Love this idea? Post this in your group chat: “Don’t buy a Halloween costume. Snap your closet, and ChatGPT or Gemini will build three from what you already own. You can get this newsletter free at GetKim.com.”
🎯 YOUR AI POWER MOVE
Move your sub
Image: ChatGPT/Kim Komando
🔊 Sound crime scene
I have bad news. The speakers you hid because they looked ugly may sound ugly, too. That soundbar tucked inside the TV cabinet is performing for the cabinet. The subwoofer behind the couch is losing a fight with your furniture and a decorative plant with excellent tactical positioning.
Receiver makers sell room correction upgrades for $99 to $500 to fix this. One photo and a free chatbot get you most of the way there.
🎶 Let AI groove
Take one head-on photo of your setup: TV, speakers, subwoofer, couch, doorways and nearby furniture. Upload it to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Grok.
Paste this:
Here’s a photo of my [TV/desk] setup. Tell me exactly how to make it sound better tonight using only what I already own. Start with the single biggest fix, then give me three more, ranked by how much difference they’ll make. For each one, tell me precisely what to move, raise, angle or clear away, and how far. Then list any settings on my [TV/soundbar/speakers/computer] worth changing and what to change them to.
AI can’t hear your room, but it spots obvious sabotage.
Expect fixes like pulling your soundbar to the front edge of the stand and giving your subwoofer a few inches of breathing room from the wall.
Pro tip: Try the subwoofer crawl. Put the sub in your seat where you normally sit, play “Bass I Love You” by Bassotronics, basically the subwoofer national anthem, and crawl around the edges of the room, particularly where you could realistically put the subwoofer. Find the sweet spot where the bass sounds strongest and clearest. Here’s a quick video guide.
Your room dimensions still call the shots, and a square room can be especially stubborn. Renters, use flat adhesive cable conduits instead of drilling holes during your sudden career in acoustic engineering.
This 15-minute experiment could save you from buying gear you don’t need.
📩 Send this to someone whose soundbar lives inside the TV cabinet.
🏠 STOLEN ON PAPER
🔏 Is your home still in your name?
Image: ChatGPT/Kim Komando
A crook forges your signature on a deed, files it with the county and suddenly your house is “theirs.” You find out when the bank calls.
No break-in. No broken window. Just paperwork. In 2025, criminals stole more than $275 million through online real estate fraud. (That’s a whole lot of houses nobody meant to sell.)
Here’s what you need to know:
The county doesn’t check. Offices record those documents, but they aren’t responsible for verifying them.
Your signature is already out there. Property records, much of which are public, include your name and signature.
Paid-off homes are favorite targets. Rentals and second homes, too, because the owners aren’t watching.
It can take years to notice. By then, the crook has borrowed against your equity or sold the place.
Once a fake deed is on file, untangling it can turn into a legal and financial nightmare. The smart move is catching it the day it’s filed.
That’s why I recommend Home Title Lock. It watches the county records for your property around the clock. If someone files a change to your title or a lien against your home, you get an alert. If fraud happens, its U.S.-based restoration team will spend up to $1 million to get your title back in your name.
Make sure your home stays in your name.
🗳️ QUICK POLL
☑️ Last week, I asked what happens when AI saves you time at work. Nearly half of you (46%) said you use it to get ahead on your own projects. Look at you, plotting your next move.
Do you say “please” to ChatGPT? You’re not alone. When someone asked how much all that politeness costs OpenAI in electricity, CEO Sam Altman said “tens of millions of dollars well spent.” Your manners are officially a line item.
So be honest. Nobody’s grading your manners. Take my poll below.
QUESTION: Do you say please and thank you to AI?
I thank my GPS, my microwave and the self-checkout. The self-checkout has never once thanked me back.
⚠️ THE AI TRAP
Image: ChatGPT/Kim Komando
💸 Meta still gets paid when the store is fake
I’m treating every 70%-off Facebook ad like it needs to be interrogated.
The trap is an AI-built fake store running ads. Meta reportedly makes $7 billion a year from scam ads while people lose billions. The FTC has sued Meta, accusing the company of misleading users about safety.
The scam site has glossy photos, reviews, a return policy and a full catalog, all generated by AI in minutes. The crazy part? Crooks can launch dozens a day, and Meta’s ad targeting puts them in front of the people most likely to click. You pay, the jacket never arrives and the store disappears.
The FTC says more than 40% of people who lost money to a social media scam ordered something from an ad. They keep slipping through detection systems.
Americans reported losing $2.1 billion to social media scams last year, eight times the 2020 total. Facebook accounted for $794 million, Instagram $659 million and WhatsApp $380 million. Apparently, the checkout button works beautifully.
🛍️ Make AI your fraud investigator
Screenshot the ad, copy the store’s web address and paste this into ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Grok:
Here’s a screenshot of a Facebook ad and the store’s website, [URL]. Act like a fraud investigator. List every red flag: how new the domain is, prices far below retail, product photos that look copied, missing phone number or street address and a vague return policy. Tell me how to check whether this brand exists outside this ad, then rate the risk from 1 to 10.
Looks legit and still want it? Bookmark the ad for 24 hours. Find the retailer independently and pay by credit card for better dispute protection.
📩 Send this to someone who does their holiday shopping through Facebook ads.
💬 YOU ASKED ME THIS
Image: ChatGPT/Kim Komando
“Kim, I love watching your show on YouTube! So fun, and I learn a ton. Where does all my data go when I use an AI chatbot? I listen on WOR 710 AM here in New York.” — Lauren
Great question, Lauren. Short answer: It goes to the company’s computers, and it stays there longer than you’d think.
Typing into a chatbot is like mailing a postcard. It leaves your phone, lands on the company’s servers, and people along the way can read it.
📬 Where your postcard ends up
ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude can all use your chats to train future versions unless you switch that off. Google has people review some Gemini chats and keeps those for up to three years (even if you delete your history. Surprise!). Meta uses your Meta AI chats to pick the ads you see on Facebook and Instagram. There’s no opt-out.
Switching training off can’t pull back what’s already gone out. Anything a reviewer read or a model learned from stays put.You’re not crazy to feel exposed. Google’s own help page says not to type anything you wouldn’t want a reviewer to see.
To protect your privacy:
ChatGPT > Settings > Data controls > turn off Improve the model for everyone.
Claude > Settings > Privacy > turn off Help improve our AI models.
Gemini > go to myactivity.google.com/product/gemini > turn off Keep Activity.
If it doesn’t belong on a postcard, it doesn’t belong in a chatbot. Never type your Social Security number, bank info, passwords or medical details into any of them. As for Meta AI? Ask it about hiking, then enjoy the boot ads.
📻 MY NATIONAL RADIO & YOUTUBE SHOW
📺 Cops at the door, empty boxes and parents swiping Hinge
Tempe, 2 a.m. A guy in a plaid shirt smashes a tech company’s window, shoves half his body through the blinds and passes dozens of Mac mini boxes to a partner outside. Every box empty. $1,500 reward for the man who stole cardboard. A Toronto YouTuber aimed a $180 camera and homemade AI at police cars, caught almost nothing and still got cops at his door.
Also: An FCC proposal to let campaigns robocall your cell up to three times a month, AI voices included, Amazon’s $75 wearable that records your conversations all day and Anthropic’s AI sending Philadelphia police a fake tip on a real cold case.
Hit play below, so you know who’s filming, what’s always listening and what a box of nothing goes for. 👇
🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.
😏 REAL OR AI?
Image: @evanrosenman via Instagram
It’s late at night in a quiet alley. A food delivery robot is rolling along when a gang of raccoons jumps it, pops the lid, grabs the takeout bags and scurries off into the dark. Caught on CCTV. Raccoons are clever, but are they this tricky?
They already own the masks. Breaking and entering was always the plan.
What’s a raccoon’s favorite movie? Raiders of the Lost Snack.
🥁 Drumroll please. AI. Delivery robots stay locked until the customer taps “unlock” in the app, so no paw is prying that lid open. Raccoons do steal real deliveries, though. In 2024, three of them swiped a Florida woman’s DoorDash tacos right off her porch.
As for the AI robbery? Check it out in full here.
🧠 Artificial intelligence, real cozy
Sunday night, my October merch drop shuts down for good. Miss it, and you miss it.
AI can write your emails and plan your vacation. It still can’t keep you warm. My October crewneck can. It’s heavyweight French terry, thick and soft, with the best tech advice ever given right across the front: Have you tried turning it off & on again?
Comes in sizes S to 3XL. And here’s a little secret: it makes the perfect gift for the family tech support person. (You know who you are.) Grab one for them, and grab one for you.
Want something smaller? The tee, the jumbo tote and the beanie start at $20.
No restocks. No reprints. No AI-generated second batch. Once this drop is off, it’s off. And turning it on again won’t help.
🫠 WTF (WHAT THE FUTURE)?
Image: @sourgrape02 via TikTok
♟️ Checkmate, cheater
A viral TikTok shows a guy using AI-powered smart glasses to feed him the best moves in real time. It’s like having a tiny grandmaster whispering sweet nothings into his eyeballs.
The video might be staged, but the tech raises a very real problem for competitive games. Chess, poker, even Monopoly with Grandma. Nobody’s safe. Although if you need artificial intelligence to beat an 80-year-old at Monopoly, you have bigger problems.
Check it out here. How do chess players stay in shape? They lift rooks.
🎬 END OF PROMPT
Here’s your haul for today. You turned your closet into a costume shop, fixed your TV sound with one photo, learned to spot an AI-built fake store, locked down your chatbot privacy settings and saw chess is no longer safe. Not bad for five minutes of reading.
✈️ The answer: C) 76%. Yep, with all the fancy tech, that’s the percentage of how many airlines arrive on time. About 1 in 4 flights is still late. And “on time” is doing a little work here. The government counts a flight on time if it arrives within 15 minutes of schedule.
Airlines keep blaming delays on the weather. If I were in charge, none of their excuses would fly.
🔒 Before you go: Title thieves count on you not noticing. Watch for red flags like a property tax bill that never shows up, a loan statement from a lender you’ve never heard of or a stranger who says they bought your house. Home Title Lock watches for you. Get your free Title History Report plus a 30-day extended free trial.*
🏡 AI can tell you where to put the subwoofer. Who’s on the couch next to you is what makes it home. Forward this to ONE person who needs to be with the AI program. Thanks for diving in, see you on Tuesday! — Kim
Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily
Photo credit(s): ChatGPT/Kim Komando, @evanrosenman via Instagram, @sourgrape02 via TikTok
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