Overview
The real payoff of AI tools is making the boring parts of life run themselves. This session covers workflow automation (triggers, actions, and glue tools like Zapier), plus the AI copilots showing up inside everyday software. In lab, you will build a working automation, such as an AI email assistant.
Pick your targets carefully. The right things to automate are the ones that eat time without deserving it: sorting, formatting, chasing, copying between apps. The wrong things to automate are the parts where a person is supposed to be paying attention to another person. Every hour you claw back here is an hour you can spend on the second kind.
Learning objectives
- Describe workflow automation in terms of triggers, actions, and conditions.
- Use a no-code tool (e.g. Zapier) to connect two apps you already use.
- Explain what AI copilots add on top of plain automation.
- Judge which tasks deserve automation, and which need a human paying attention.
- Build and test a simple AI-powered workflow end to end.
Session agenda
- 0:00 – 0:10Warm-up
Ethics case-study takeaways.
- 0:10 – 1:15Lecture: Workflow automation, Zapier, and AI copilots
Trigger–action thinking; a live Zapier build; copilots in mail, docs, and code; when automation is worth it, and when it is fragile.
- 1:15 – 1:25Break
- 1:25 – 3:00Lab: Automate a chore
Build a simple AI email assistant workflow, or automate a repetitive task from your own life; test it with real inputs and document what it does.
- 3:00 – 3:10Wrap-up
Demo two builds; introduce the capstone project.
Materials
- Free Zapier account (or an equivalent no-code automation tool).
- A repetitive task from your own life you would love to stop doing.
Homework
Sketch your capstone project idea in a paragraph: what you will build or make with AI, who it is for, and which tools from the course you will use. Bring it into Module 8.
Detailed slides, lab worksheets, and demos for this module are in progress and will be posted here as they are written.