AI continues to get smarter on a weekly basis and at an exponential rate, but the most important thing for AI to be useful to billions of people is context. I’m not talking about the context length window, but rather context as the data that we input into AI. Every AI has a knowledge cutoff and while the ability to feed real-time search data to AI is helpful, it still lacks the most important context – personal context.

By knowing as much about a person and their work as possible, we can realize a truly agentic future where AI becomes able to execute most of our day-to-day productivity tasks. Personal context is the force multiplier that makes AI agents a reality. I like to think of it as a simple equation:

(LLM capability + tooling capability) * personal context = AI Utility

This goes far beyond a personal assistant, as a human personal assistant is bound by time, whereas software is not. If personal context is a force multiplier, then where can we get it from?

Email. Your inbox is not a list of messages, but an unstructured database chock full of personal information to help AI realize its potential—contacts, documents, personal relationships, meetings, and more. There is no other central repository more important and powerful than an individual’s inbox for both work and personal use. Email's death has been proclaimed many times over the past 20 years, but it has only gotten stronger and more widespread. The problem is the data and personal context inside your inbox has been locked away due to its highly unstructured nature. Thankfully, AI is the perfect solution to working with highly unstructured data.

This is why we built PIE (short for Personal Intelligence Engine)—the DO IT ALL executive assistant powered by the personal context of your inbox. PIE connects to your inbox, makes sense of the unstructured data, and turns it into usable personal context. Email is an interface that everyone uses daily, which means PIE just works in the background when it sees a new email or when you email it directly to complete a task.

As of today, your PIE assistant already has an incredible number of capabilities—with more added all the time. It personally saves me hours every single day. Here are some of my favorite things PIE does:

  • Task Extraction – PIE extracts actionable tasks from both my email AND meetings it listens in on to create an active to-do list. The daily email summary shows my new and outstanding todos, which I can mark as complete from my inbox.
  • 3x A Day Email Digest – Every day at 8am, 3pm, and 9pm, PIE sends an overview email so I don’t have to constantly check my inbox. It includes urgent items, attachment summaries, newsletter highlights, and my full to-do list.
  • Meeting Attendee Dossiers – Before every meeting, PIE sends a detailed dossier with pictures, work history, relevant news, and discussion points about attendees.
  • Making Phone Calls – Email PIE a request, and it’ll call someone for you. One evening, it even ordered pizza for me. Just give it the business name.
  • Deep Research Reports – Whether it’s competitive analysis or travel plans, PIE sends a full report with citations and even an attached PowerPoint.
  • Attending Meetings – PIE can attend any meeting, take notes, and email you a summary, transcript, and to-dos.
  • Scheduling & Calendar Invites – Loop PIE into a meeting thread, and it will send calendar invites with full calendar context.
  • Inbox Cleaning – PIE labels and auto-archives unneeded emails. You can also create Stacks with custom filters (e.g., “Anything related to our Series A round”).
  • Email Writing in Your Tone – PIE analyzes your past emails to build a tone/style guide and uses it to generate drafts with full personal context.
  • Listening to Podcasts – Email PIE a podcast name, and it’ll listen, summarize, and send a full transcript. It’s a cheat code.
  • Receptionist Functionality – PIE has its own number. Use it on forms—PIE will summarize messages and send the contact details. You can also configure call handoff preferences.

These features have been fun to build, and we’ll release more quickly. The end game for PIE is a platform where anyone can extend its functionality using someone’s personal context—whether for private or public tools.

I’m excited to be building PIE not only as a founder, but also as an engineer due to my obsession with email. Over 16 years ago, I wrote a blog post called “Email Is Serious Business” and have been obsessed ever since. Email is also an open protocol, which lowers platform risk and is why it has endured where others haven’t.

Try PIE today: https://mailtopie.com/?share_code=5a3fd605c5ad535d0067a77725f16d6f

Email me: [email protected]
Or call my assistant: (914) 415-5722