Article Summary

In this article, Byrne Hobart explores the challenges and opportunities of using AI to optimize face-to-face meeting scheduling during business trips.

He complains about the inefficiencies of traditional trip planning, such as juggling meetings across multiple locations and managing schedules manually, which often requires high-priced assistants or meticulous organization. These challenges are compounded by the complexity of coordinating with other people's availability and locations.

AI agents / assistants should be able to streamline this process.

Hobart believes we will eventually be able to describe goals in natural language, generate a list of potential meetings, and have AI agents negotiate schedules with others' agents. Such a system could optimize meeting arrangements by bundling them around meals or factoring in personal fatigue limits. While basic tools for this already exist, the real challenge lies in integrating data from diverse sources like email, messaging apps, and location services.

He sees three possible outcomes for AI-driven scheduling systems:

1. Dominance by platform companies like Apple or Microsoft, leveraging their operating systems as central hubs for data integration.

2. Ecosystem consolidation, where users rely on fewer apps to ensure seamless communication between AI agents.

3. Emergence of a standalone agent, capable of managing life seamlessly across platforms, though such solutions face scalability and monetization challenges.

Face-to-face meeting scheduling is an ideal use case because it complements AI’s strengths in the IT world to let the human have more time in the real world.

Further, these AI assistants could democratize access to high-level organizational capabilities previously reserved for the wealthy with personal assistants.

Ultimately, while incumbents like tech giants may benefit most from these advancements, AI-driven scheduling has the potential to equalize access to efficient time management, offering benefits akin to those enjoyed by society's upper echelons.