We see impressive demos of AI building full-blown games or websites. That's one side of it. But for many of us, the more immediate use is simpler: needing a small, specific tool for a particular job, something you can get working quickly. This is what we mean by a "digital jerry-rig." It doesn’t need to be perfect or polished for the whole world; it just needs to work for you.
Here are eight examples of digital jerry-rigging:
➤ Think about your own daily tasks or interests. There’s often something small that could be a bit smoother. For instance, if you handle customer feedback that arrives in all sorts of messy formats, imagine a little form you have open in your browser. You'd paste in the text, and this tool – which you guided an AI to build – could pull out the main keywords, maybe guess the sentiment, and summarize each piece of feedback neatly. It might save you just an hour each week, but that's a good, practical jerry-rig.
➤ Or perhaps you're a photographer. Instead of a static gallery, you could create an interactive element on your website. Visitors could select from a few photo filters you’ve defined and see them applied live to a sample image. It’s a small, creative experiment, built quickly with AI, that adds a bit more engagement than just plain pictures.
➤ Quick builds are also useful for explaining things. If you want to show someone how compound interest works, an AI can help you put together a simple app. They type in a starting sum, interest rate, and time, and it visually shows the growth year by year. Much clearer than just a list of numbers.
➤ Little solutions for little annoyances can make a difference. That recurring discussion in your small team about whose turn it is to make coffee? A tiny web app, prompted into existence, can assign it randomly each day and perhaps draft a plain, direct reminder.
➤ Maybe there's a personal habit you're working on, say, tracking how many days you don't check work email after 6pm. A custom-built tracker focused only on that, with a simple visual you find satisfying, can be more effective than a complicated app with features you don't need.
➤ Hobbies, too, can benefit from these custom tools. If you're a keen birdwatcher, you might build a straightforward app to quickly log sightings with a note and location, saving it all in a simple file (JSON) on your device. No complex database, just a personal log.
➤ Sometimes you just need a specific calculation that standard software doesn't quite offer. If you're a home-brewer, a little utility to calculate the exact amount of priming sugar needed for bottling, based on your beer style, current temperature, and desired carbonation, would be quite handy—especially if you’re trying out something experimental.
➤ This "jerry-rigging" approach is also valuable when you have a bigger idea but aren't sure it will fly. You might have a concept for a service, say, matching local gardeners with people who need help with their plants. Before trying to build a full platform, you create a very basic version—not an 'MVP1', not necessarily even a 'prototype' but a mere 'mock-up'—and get feedback from the gardeners and potential clients.
The aim with these AI-assisted "digital jerry-rigs" isn't usually to launch the next global software product. It’s more about personal empowerment and practical problem-solving. It's using AI as a capable assistant to quickly build tools that serve your specific purpose.
Minimum Viable Product