From tinker tool to daily assistant: AI’s quiet rise – The Times of India

BENGALURU: For much of 2025, artificial intelligence did not enter people’s lives through dramatic product launches or viral demos. Instead, it slipped in quietly, taking over small, repetitive tasks that many users barely noticed. What began as casual experimentation with chatbots has, for many, evolved into a set of everyday tools that now handle remembering, planning, drafting and filtering information in the background.One of the most common uses of AI today is as a personal memory and life ledger. Hyderabad-based AI product manager Saumya Shikhar uses ChatGPT to log work achievements, skills he is building and challenges he encounters on the job. He also maintains separate chats to track RBI interest rate movements that affect his loan repayments, and another to record his health history. “That way, I feel like I have personal assistants with infinite memory and quick wisdom all the time,” he said.

Others are embedding AI even more deeply into their daily recall. Vignesh Ramakrishnan, founder of a Bengaluru-based AI consulting firm, built a WhatsApp-based AI assistant that acts as his operational memory. The system logs voice notes, handwritten notes, calendar entries and client conversations, and can retrieve details weeks later on request. “Earlier, client details were scattered across chats, notes and spreadsheets,” he said. “Now I just ask one place.”Another widespread shift is the use of AI to filter signal from noise. Instead of scanning crowded inboxes or unread newsletters, users increasingly rely on AI-powered curation tools. Dr Sneha Jain uses Readerwise and Pocket to curate and prioritise what she reads during the week. “I start each morning by scanning only high-signal insights instead of wading through inbox noise,” she said, adding that saved articles now resurface during short breaks between meetings, turning idle minutes into focused reading time.Drafting and structuring work remains one of the most common daily uses of AI. Tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Copilot are now routinely used to turn rough thoughts into first drafts of emails, notes and long-form documents. Newer tools like Gemini’s Nano Banana and Gamma are increasingly being used to generate presentation visuals and slide decks from basic prompts. Meeting-focused tools such as Granola are also gaining traction for recording conversations and auto-generating summaries and action points. Founder and author Pavan Govindan said the biggest change has been the removal of thinking friction. “AI hasn’t replaced judgment or creativity,” he said. “It has replaced the blank-page problem.”