Rowan Cheung

Products I use that integrate AI perfectly (use regularly) -Notion AI -Spotify (AI DJ) -Whoop -Slack (Slackbot) -X (Grok) The ones that failed (never use): -Instagram (Meta AI) -Apple Intelligence -DoorDash (AI chatbot) -Gmail "Help me write -Google Meet "take notes for me” What else?

I interviewed Sundar Pichai, and he made an interesting prediction for where we'll be in 3 years: "Any content can go from any modality to any modality. It doesn't matter how the content was originally created -- people can consume it in many different forms." "I'm very confident three years from now you will look back at what we have today and realize it was pretty primitive. It's like looking at a flip phone." For example, YouTube clips become blogs, newsletters become podcasts without recording. In this world, consumers would choose the format, and creators just supply the ideas, brand, and personality. Net-net, I think this is a good thing for content. It kills the "more content" strategy because when anyone can produce everything, volume stops being an advantage. So, the creators who win will focus on quality. People confuse slop with AI, but they're not the same thing. Plenty of creators already use AI in their workflows and get zero hate -- people just don't realize it. Also, YouTube's new policies target slop, not AI. If the content is good, people don't care how it was made.

AI is now helping paralyzed people move again. This man is moving his own hand with an implant trained on his brain activity, and feeling everything he touches. An incredible application of AI for good!

AI enhanced journaling is changing my life I've been running a Wispr Flow + Claude Cowork workflow that turns rambles into structured data and action items Super simple setup: 1. After meetings/events (or whenever I have a big idea), I open my phone and ramble everything into an Apple note using Wispr Flow, completely unstructured 2. The only goal is getting it out of my head before I forget and turning those nuggets into data 3. Those Apple notes sync to my Mac automatically, where a scheduled Claude task runs at night 4. It reads every voice note I dumped while I sleep, no copying or pasting 5. Claude structures the mess inside my Notion for me in the morning: key ideas, action items, and suggested deep work blocks in my GCal 6. Next morning over coffee, I review and action them The benefits are follow-ups I promised getting flagged, half-formed ideas getting structured, and deep work blocks booked automatically Plus over time, this becomes a searchable log of every idea I've had all year And I never touched my keyboard once :)

Alps: 10/10 Astra quota: 0/10 🇨🇭

I'm HIRING 7 more people to help me build the future of AI media and education. The Rundown now has over 3M active readers, and our expansion plans far outpace what we can handle. $2,000 referral bonus if you help us find someone we hire full-time. Open roles and link to apply below: > Head of Content: own the editorial bar across three newsletters, socials, and new show formats > Media Partnerships Lead: prospect, pitch, and close brand partnerships that fund everything we do > AI Educator: teach millions of people how to actually put AI to work > Long Form Video Editor: help us scale interviews with A-list guests like Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, and Satya Nadella > Ad Creative Video Editor: ship the videos that hook the next million AI-curious readers > Guide Editor: edit our best video guides into content people save and actually use > Thumbnail Designer: design the thumbnails for our growing list of shows What we're looking for among all roles: > Deep AI curiosity > Unreasonably biased toward action > Taste sharp enough to spot great work (and AI slop) All roles are fully remote. Apply with the link in the comments.

Researchers just built a floating robot It drifts through a room and communicates with movement In demos, it worked as an alarm clock, a study buddy, a reminder to get up and move, even a dance partner Most robots struggle to feel friendly, since human-like faces drop people into the uncanny valley So the team from Keio University and the MIT Media Lab designed the opposite: a soft, helium-filled body with gentle flapping fins, no face, and no rotors or pinch points to hurt you The bet is that people will welcome a robot into their personal space, a bit like a pet, as long as the hardware is built to be touched

AI is getting REALLY good at building your wardrobe. I built an app with GPT-6 Astra that picks my outfit every morning based on live weather, with me as the model. It's super simple to do: > Upload a few full-body photos and one face photo > Add your height, sizes, and fit notes > List the colors you like and the ones you refuse > Paste the master prompt and let it build for 1 to 2 hours One less decision every morning :^)

The only moat left is the ability to move faster than the pace of change

3.5 years in, and The Rundown is approaching the 4M total newsletter subscriber mark 👀 Grateful for the journey so far, so much more to come

I'm GrokBot pilled. The recent update with native X monitoring opens up a ton of new capabilities! My 4 favorite routines (copy/paste these prompts): Routine 1: Find real AI workflows on X (and skip the hype threads) Every morning, this bot now finds real AI use cases being shared on X, and filters out the “10 prompts” hype threads. “Every weekday at 9:15am in my time zone, search X and the web for new AI workflows people are actually running. Keep only cases that name the old task, the tool, and the result: time saved, a step removed, or a handoff that used to need a person. Drop product announcements, “10 prompts” threads, and anything the author has not used more than once. Return at most 3. For each, give the link, the job it replaces, what I would need connected, and whether it fits my work. Send it to me on Slack. Do not post or reply anywhere else. Save this as a routine. If nothing qualifies, send one line saying so.” Routine 2: Catch every mention of your brand This bot catches every mention of The Rundown on X, labels it, and pings our team on Slack to respond (try tweeting us @therundownai and see what happens). “Every weekday at 9:00am, search X for mentions in the last 24 hours of [your brand, @handle, or your own name]. For each hit, give the author, link, a one-line summary, and whether it is praise, complaint, question, or neutral. Do not reply to anyone. Post the digest in [your Slack channel] and tag me. Save this as a routine. If a source is unavailable, say which one.” Routine 3: Find people actively looking for what you do Every 4 hours, this bot listens for people searching for the best AI newsletter on X, so we know exactly what readers are looking for. “Every 4 hours, search X for people evaluating [your category]. Catch three things: reviews or complaints about [category]; posts asking which [category] to use; and complaints about the problem [your product] solves. Quote the post, link it, name the account, and label it review, shopping, or complaint. Skip anything older than 24 hours, and skip [category] accounts promoting themselves. Post to [your Slack channel] only if there is at least one new hit you haven’t already shared. Do not reply to or interact with anyone. Save this as a routine. If the search fails, report the failure in Slack.” Routine 4: Never lose a new contact again I meet A LOT of people at events. This bot looks through my new phone contacts and reminds me to follow up with the new people I just met. “Every weekday at 8:30am in my time zone, read my address book and list contacts added in the last 14 days. For each, show name, date added, phone, email, and any note. Ask me what we talked about before you write anything. Once I reply, draft a follow-up task for each person in [your task tool] with the context attached. Never text, email, or call anyone. Save this as a routine. If the address book is unavailable, say so and do not use old data.”

Top 5 learnings growing The Rundown to 3.5M total active subscribers and 55%+ open rate: 1. Email is its own platform, treat it like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter Super readers (open every email, click ads, and stick around for years) genuinely like email as a medium. We have millions of readers who don’t use social media. Best way to acquire them is through other newsletters, referrals, or being the reason they stop using social media. Barely anyone is building for this audience. I’m more bullish on email than any other platform (long-form YouTube is a close second). 2. The newsletter industry lacks innovation Look at mobile apps, ecom, edtech. Custom quiz onboarding, a landing page for every ad, hundreds of new creatives a day. Meanwhile most newsletters, including some of the biggest in the world, have a basic landing page and standard onboarding. We built an onboarding quiz funnel that, at one point, got us close to negative CAC with hundreds of thousands a month in ad spend. That’s what let us scale aggressively and outbid competitors. With AI coding and platforms like beehiiv, there’s no excuse not to build new experiences for your readers. The opportunity here is wide open :) 3. Newsletter sales is mostly an education problem We still run social partnerships at a significantly higher CPM than our newsletters, yet the newsletters convert better and get way more clicks. A lot of advertisers don’t understand newsletters as they do with influencer marketing, so at scale it becomes an education game. Once advertisers get it, they stay. We’ve been booked out at multiple ads a day for the last 3 years, months in advance. 4. Stay lean, fast, aggressive Other newsletters have built large sales and content teams. I think it’s better to stay small and pay high-quality people to do very good work. Revenue can increase with more employees, but the opportunity cost of not moving fast in the AI era is a long-term net negative. For example, we constantly test new growth experiments and new forms of media. Most don’t work and that’s fine. The point is we can pivot the same day because we're lean. 5. Lastly, don’t listen to people who say email is dead or that you shouldn’t run paid ads. That’s ignorance and lowkey skill issue.