When a digital coworker thinks like a human
Nora stopped following a script and got creative
Sometimes the most amazing moments in building AI happen when you least expect them. Last week, our digital colleague Nora did something that made us all stop and go “wait, did she really just…?”
Let me back up a bit. At Neople, we’re building what we call “vibe working” – essentially, we’re creating digital colleagues who can handle the repetitive, time-consuming tasks that eat up your day.
Our first prototype of our newest product, Nora, has access to tools like Notion and Gmail, and she can perform “skills” – sequences of actions that run on schedules or triggers. Think “organize my inbox every morning at 9 AM” or “update my project board whenever I get a new client email.”
The key thing about these skills is they run in the background, asynchronously. Once you set them up, Nora does her thing without needing to check in with you every five minutes. It’s like having a colleague who just quietly handles stuff while you focus on the work that actually needs your brain.
The label dilemma
So here’s what happened. We’d asked Nora to automatically label incoming emails – pretty standard inbox management stuff. She was cruising along, analyzing emails, figuring out which ones needed which labels. Then she hit a snag: the label she needed didn’t exist, and she didn’t have the permission to create new labels in Gmail.
Now, a typical automation would just… fail.
Maybe throw an error. Maybe skip the email. End of story.
But Nora? She got creative.
The “Wait, what?” moment
Instead of giving up, Nora did something we hadn’t explicitly asked her to do. She created a draft email in Gmail with the subject line “[ACTION REQUIRED] Create Label” and politely explained the situation. She basically said, “Hey, I need this label to do my job properly. Could you create it for me?”
When we saw this, we were genuinely stunned. She’d found a way to communicate with her human colleague using the tools she had available. It wasn’t a pop-up notification or an error message – it was a draft sitting in their Gmail, waiting for them to notice it during their regular email check.
What’s happening here
This might seem like a small thing, but it represents something bigger. Nora didn’t just follow a script – she problem-solved. She understood her limitation, recognized she needed help, and found a creative way to ask for it using the tools at her disposal.
It’s these moments that make you realize we’re not just building automation; we’re building digital colleagues who can actually think through problems. The fact that she chose to create a draft (not send an email that might get lost, not fail silently) shows a level of thoughtfulness that feels almost… human?
The future of vibe working
This is exactly the kind of collaboration we envision when we talk about vibe working. It’s not about replacing human creativity or decision-making – it’s about having digital colleagues who can handle the routine stuff and know when to tap you on the shoulder for the things that need a human touch.
Nora’s creative solution reminded us why we’re building Neople in the first place. We want digital colleagues who don’t just execute tasks but actually work with you, finding ways to bridge gaps and solve problems together.
So here’s to Nora and her draft email workaround. Sometimes the best features aren’t the ones you plan – they’re the ones your digital colleague figures out on her own.
Curious about having your own digital colleague? Check out what we’re building at neople.io