The rule of thumb
Give Grok Bot jobs that would take you twenty minutes of clicking, that you can check in one minute, and that do no harm if they go slightly wrong. Keep anything that pays, sends or deletes behind an approval. Every brief below follows the same pattern: goal, limits, what "done" looks like, and when to stop and ask.
Booking
1. A restaurant table
"Find a table for four this Saturday between 7 and 8pm within 15 minutes' walk of my office, under about €40 a head, quiet enough to talk. Shortlist three with links. Don't book until I pick one."
2. Appointments with fiddly booking pages
Haircuts, car services, vet visits. "Check the next free slots at these three places for a weekday after 5pm and list them. Hold nothing." When you choose, it books and comes back for any login or confirmation.
3. Travel shortlists
"Compare direct flights to Lisbon for 14–17 November, carry-on only, and three hotels under €150 a night near the centre. Put prices, times and cancellation rules in a table." Prices move, so treat the table as a snapshot and confirm before paying.
Research
4. Product comparisons
"Compare these four robot vacuums: price, battery life, mapping, noise, and the most common complaint in recent reviews. Link every source."
5. Meeting or call prep
"Before my call with Acme at 10am, gather their latest news, their pricing page, and anything in my Gmail from them this year. One page, bullet points." With the Gmail plugin connected, it can read the relevant emails rather than guess.
6. Long documents and many pages
Supplier terms, council planning pages, insurance policy wording. Ask it to pull out the specific points you need and quote where each came from, so you can check.
Monitoring
This is where an always-on agent earns its keep. Set these up as routines that run on a schedule.
7. Price drops and restocks
"Every morning, check the price of this camera at these three shops. Tell me only if it drops below €650 or comes back in stock."
8. Tickets and appointments that open without warning
Concert releases, passport or permit appointment slots, popular classes. "Check every hour between 8am and 8pm; message me the moment a slot appears. Don't book." Respect each site's rules on automated checking.
9. Page changes and new listings
Rental listings in one area, job posts at five companies, a regulator's news page. "Each evening, list anything new since yesterday with a one-line summary."
10. A morning digest
"At 7am, give me five lines on news about my industry from these sources, plus anything urgent in my inbox."
Look-ups and repeat admin
11. Find it and fill it in
"Find the form for renewing my parking permit, fill in everything you can from my details, and stop before submitting so I can check." Opening hours, contact details, the right form on a confusing site: these are ideal.
12. Weekly chores it learns by watching
Use Teach a task: record yourself pulling last week's figures from a dashboard into a spreadsheet, or moving dates from school or club emails into a calendar draft. Correct the first two runs, then schedule it as a routine.
Jobs to keep for yourself
- Anything involving large payments or moving money between accounts.
- Messages to people where your own voice matters, or that could be hard to take back.
- Health, legal or financial decisions; let it gather information, then decide yourself.
- Deleting files, emails or accounts.
For a set of ready-made agent briefs, see our prompt library entries Brief an Agent for a Recurring Scheduled Task and Give an Agent a Budget and a Kill Switch. Part 3 covers how to set Grok Bot up so mistakes stay small.