The most practical ways to use Claude

Real workflows you can start using today.

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What's Up in AI
July 22, 2026

In partnership with

Hey there, AI Geek!

☀️ What's Up in AI Today It's Sunday night, fourteen tabs deep, half of them price trackers for a couch you're still not sure you want, and you just remembered you never replied to Thursday's meeting request. Sound familiar? Today we're fixing that. We ran 4 experiments to see how far Claude Connectors can actually go.

The stack: Google Calendar, Gmail, Booking.com, TripAdvisor, StubHub, and Apify, working together instead of piling up as 14 more browser tabs.

The promise: each connector below is live in under 5 minutes.
The catch: you actually have to connect one and try it.

  • Exp 1: Planning a trip without touching five browser tabs

  • Exp 2: Cleaning up an inbox that never stops refilling

  • Exp 3: Catching a price drop before it's gone

  • Exp 4: Job hunting without refreshing LinkedIn all day

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What even is a Claude Connector?

It's the set of keys you hand Claude for one specific app. Connect Gmail and Claude can read and draft in your inbox. Connect your calendar and it can check your free time and book a slot, all without you touching the app yourself. Under the hood it runs on MCP (Model Context Protocol), an open standard Anthropic built so any AI can plug into any app the same way, no custom bridge needed per app, people call it "USB-C for AI." You approve each app once, then just ask Claude for what you want in plain English.

Experiment 1: Planning a trip

We connected Google Calendar, Booking.com, and TripAdvisor, then gave Claude one line: plan a 4-day trip to Lisbon next month, budget $1,200.

Claude checked our calendar first and quietly ruled out the week we already had two calls booked. Then it pulled hotel options from Booking.com and built a full day-by-day itinerary using things to do from TripAdvisor. We didn't open a single tab ourselves.

It won't book anything without asking first though. Which, fair.

  • Settings > Connectors, connect Google Calendar, Booking.com, and TripAdvisor

  • Tell Claude your destination, dates, and budget

  • Review the itinerary it builds

  • Approve before anything actually books

Experiment 2: Inbox cleanup

Gmail and Google Calendar come built into Claude already, so this one's just a login. We asked Claude to find a 30-minute slot with someone next week and draft a reply to a routine email sitting unread.

It checked the calendar, found the gap, and had both ready in under a minute. Nothing sent without us seeing it first, and if you want that locked in as a hard rule, there's a permission setting for it.

  • Settings > Connectors, connect Gmail and Google Calendar

  • Ask Claude to find time or draft a reply

  • Want a guarantee nothing sends unapproved? Set Gmail to "Needs approval" under Tool permissions

Experiment 3: Catching a price drop

This was the one that got us. We connected StubHub and told Claude to watch a concert we wanted tickets for and flag us if prices dropped under $80.

We genuinely forgot about it. Three days later, Claude pinged us, tickets had dropped to $72. We'd have missed that window entirely just refreshing the page manually, which is exactly what we'd been doing before.

Worth flagging: general retail tracking, like Amazon, isn't in Anthropic's official directory yet. StubHub for events and Instacart for groceries are, so that's where this trick works today.

  • Settings > Connectors, connect StubHub or Instacart

  • Tell Claude the exact condition, "under $80" beats "let me know if it's cheaper"

  • Ask it to check back periodically

  • Get pinged the moment it hits

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Experiment 4: Job hunting

This one takes an extra step since it's not a one-click app like the others. We added Apify as a custom connector, a scraping platform rather than a single job board, then asked for marketing manager roles in Austin, posted that week, $80k and up, no agencies.

Claude ran the search across job boards through Apify and handed back a shortlist in one shot. No tab hoarding, no forgetting to check back on a Tuesday.

  • Settings > Connectors > Add custom connector

  • Add Apify's MCP server, log in with your Apify account

  • Tell Claude the role, location, salary floor, and how recent

  • Get your shortlist

The Bottom Line

None of these four things are new. People have always booked trips, answered emails, hunted deals, and applied for jobs. What's new is Claude doing the legwork inside the actual apps instead of just telling you what to go do yourself.

Worth trying at least one of these this week.

And that’s a wrap!

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