Lessons From a Year of Letting AI Do Everything

Lessons From a Year of Letting AI Do Everything

From Hello Monday with Jessi Hempel by LinkedIn

June 8, 2026 · 30 min

About this episode

Joanna Stern shares insights from her year-long experiment using AI in various aspects of her life.

Joanna Stern spent a year using AI to do (almost) everything: write her emails, analyze her medical records, text her wife, drive her around, and even fold her laundry. The result is her new book, I Am Not a Robot, which documents what she learned testing AI as a journalist, a parent, and a newly independent founder. Joanna spent over a decade as a tech reporter at The Wall Street Journal before leaving to launch her own media outlet, New Things. She brought the same approach that's defined her career — hands-on, consumer-first testing of the technology itself — to her year-long experiment in living with AI.What she found was more nuanced than the hype: some of it works, some of it really doesn't, and some of it needs guardrails. In this episode, Jessi and Joanna discuss: Why the same AI technology that's transforming cancer detection is also upselling you at the dentist The data privacy moves everyone should make right now, including the settings most people never touch What happened when Joanna tried to let AI handle all her communications Why robots are bad at folding clothes How AI gave Joanna the confidence to leave a staff job and start a business The emotional difference…

People in this episode

Host: Jessi Hempel

Guest: Joanna Stern

Topics covered

  • AI
  • technology
  • data privacy
  • communication
  • parenting
  • entrepreneurship

Keywords

  • AI
  • data privacy
  • communication
  • parenting
  • entrepreneurship
  • technology
  • robotics

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The Wall Street Journal, New Things

Books & works: I Am Not a Robot

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