The Bot fwd2cal Adds Events to Your Calendar Automatically. Just Forward It an Email Leave a comment

It is one thing we all do a number of instances every week: We manually add issues to our calendar whereas copying particulars over from an e mail. What if a bot might try this be just right for you?

That is the thought behind Fwd2cal, a at the moment free mission by Moe Adham that may parse any e mail with an appointment in it and robotically add it to your calendar. For those who get an e mail with a possible calendar appointment in it—a celebration invitation, a gathering, a coworker casually mentioning you’ll be able to be part of them for drinks after work immediately—you’ll be able to ahead it to the free bot. The service makes use of ChatGPT to parse the e-mail and discover the related bits of knowledge, then flip that info right into a calendar appointment, then add that calendar appointment to your Google Calendar.

“I wrote it as a result of I used to be actually pissed off managing many alternative e mail addresses on totally different platforms right into a single calendar,” Adham writes on the mission’s web site. “It additionally appeared like a activity that machine studying might possibly do reliably.”

I have been testing this for a pair weeks, and thus far I agree: That is one thing machine studying can do reliably. The service could not be simpler to make use of, and the setup course of is not too tough. All it’s essential do is ship an e mail to calendar@fwd2cal.com. You may get a message again, with a hyperlink, asking you to authorize your Google Calendar. You’ll be able to add extra e mail addresses by sending one other e mail to the service—simply put “add” adopted by your second e mail deal with within the topic line and also you’re performed.

After connecting Fwd2cal to your Google Calendar, you can begin utilizing the service. You’ll be able to ahead any e mail mentioning an occasion occurring—the bot will parse the e-mail, flip it right into a calendar appointment, then add it to your Google Calendar. If one thing goes unsuitable, you may get an e mail explaining that. If not, the service will quietly maintain including appointments to your calendar. You’ll be able to even embody directions within the e mail, in order for you, utilizing the identical phrasing you’d use to speak to any AI chatbot. I’ve discovered the bot is fairly good at determining what you need.

This all requires placing numerous belief in Adham, which he acknowledges on the web site. The excellent news is that the mission is distributed with an open supply license, which means the code is offered on-line if you wish to assessment it. The privateness coverage additionally makes it clear that the one info the bot collects is what’s mandatory to supply the service and that no private info is saved long run or used to coach the AI mannequin. The service runs on a mixture of instruments from Google Cloud, OpenAI, and SendGrid.

Fwd2cal is free, although that may change. “If this ever will get too well-liked and it prices an excessive amount of to run, I am going to possibly begin charging for it,” Adham writes on the web site. Within the meantime, it is a service that gives some nice comfort.