Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 1/12/26

The New York Times ran a piece this week about “The Tech That Will Invade Our Lives in 2026.” The author aims to sort out which innovations will be impactful and which are fads that can be ignored.

Item number one on the list is, “We’ll finally be talking to our computers.” It’s more focused on having AI chatbots represent themselves with humanlike voices than on having them be able to better interpret conversational prompts, unfortunately. If we can get to the place where AI assistants act more like the computer in “Star Trek” and less like a recalcitrant middle schooler, I’ll be pleased.

Another item on the list refers to the search for “a successor to the smartphone” and offers smart glasses as an option. I don’t necessarily need a successor to the smartphone, but what I’d like to see is the ability to broadly operate smartphone apps on my laptop.

As an example, many of the hotels I frequent have begun providing menus of services via a QR code in the room. That’s great, but I would rather not read those documents on my phone when I have a perfectly good laptop right there on the desk. My workaround is to scan the code and send the link to myself so I can open it on the laptop, but that’s a nuisance.

I don’t know why the hotel can’t display that information from a link on its website. That would be ideal not only to enable guests to use their devices of choice, but also to allow travelers to get the information they need before they reach the hotel room.

I have my own personal list of tech I wish would invade the workplace.

• Let’s start with the ability to ask Microsoft Windows to find a setting for you that used to be easy to find prior to Windows 11 and now is in some obscure place with an obscure name.
• I would also like to be able to ask an AI assistant to do things like, “Find me that email that was sent by a member of the training team within the last three weeks that was talking about some weirdness with one of the clinical alert popups” when I accidentally file something in the wrong folder and can’t remember who sent it.
• Maybe we can get the ability to set up an automatic reply to emails where people ask you about meeting at a specific time and neglect to mention which time zone is in play.
• Just as a nice-to-have, I’d like a rule to highlight meetings in a particular color based on whether there are external attendees on the invite list rather than having to do it manually as meetings come in or as a retrospective exercise.
• Last but not least, at the top of my wish list are upgrades that don’t break user workflows. I know that’s a lot to ask for, but a girl can dream.

What are others looking for in an AI tool? I did some casual investigation and found strong sentiment for pushing AI to handle mundane or data-heavy tasks rather than creative pursuits. “I want AI to balance my checkbook and categorize all my expenses, finding the problem when things don’t match up. That will give me more time for my hobby of photography. I don’t want AI making pictures for me.”

One person I spoke with wanted to be able to adjust the AI behind social media algorithms. She wants to stop seeing things that she doesn’t want to see and see more of those she is missing. That led to a conversation about why algorithms work the way they do.

I was surprised by this person’s lack of understanding of how social media platforms make money. It made me wonder how many other people out there have the same knowledge gaps. 

One person I spoke to was excited about self-driving cars, especially for individuals as compared to the taxi-style use case. “I was in Europe earlier this year and made good use of their robust rail infrastructure. Now that I’m back in the US, I realize how pathetic the long-distance options are if you’re not on the east coast. We have several major cities in my state that are all about 90 miles apart, but there is no easy way to get to them other than driving your own car.”

One of my snarkier colleagues commented, “If it’s so easy to use AI to write code, why can’t Microsoft figure out how to get feature parity between new and classic Outlook, or between either of the desktop versions and the web version?”

Another noted that he wasn’t against AI innovation, but felt that advancements were coming so quickly that there wasn’t enough time to process how they might be useful in the workplace or at home. He said he was reluctant to get excited about anything because once you do, it’s already been surpassed and you have to adjust to something new. That’s a valid point.

I was surprised at the response from one of my junior colleagues who said he felt that he was late to the game for actually caring about or using AI, and that, “It’s getting added into everything but not necessarily for good reason.” He uses it to help summarize documents, write letters of recommendation, and build patient education content for his niche specialty. He hasn’t found many other good uses for it.

One of my IT colleagues said that he wishes it was better at manipulating data, along the lines of “Find the data in spreadsheet A that corresponds to spreadsheet B, and append spreadsheet A with the values for X, Y, and Z.” He also had me chuckling with his request for calendar management tools that will automatically reject meetings that are sent without agendas.

One of my foodie friends had an item on her wish list. “I’d like AI to keep track of everything that’s in my pantry, refrigerator, and freezer and cross index it with my recipe files and a list of what I’ve cooked recently so I can ask questions like ‘I’m in the mood for pasta, what can I make with ingredients that are on hand that isn’t similar to anything I’ve made in the last 30 days?’” In addition to helping people reduce waste with outdated ingredients, it might contribute to the household harmony where staring at each other and asking what to have for dinner is the norm.

I’m sure we have all heard that adage that today’s AI is the worst it’s ever going to be. Although blips exist, it will continue to evolve.

What do you wish AI would do for your workplace or in your personal life? Leave a comment or email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.