Ford policy – At 4 a.m., Whitney Stefko Dover’s family already has a “Daily Dover” briefing—assembled by an AI assistant she built using Anthropic tools. The system scans emails and calendars, drafts reminders for her husband and their au pair, and nudges her into a less re
It’s 4 a.m. in Scottsdale, Arizona, and the day’s work is already moving—before Whitney Stefko Dover herself has fully woken up.
Her family’s “chief of staff” has sent the daily briefing.
It’s called the “Daily Dover.” Each morning. the assistant scans Stefko Dover’s emails and calendar apps to map out what the day holds: school schedules. au pair or babysitter coverage. camp drop-offs. travel plans. family birthdays. recycling-bin reminders. and anything else that might otherwise sit in the back of her mind until it’s handled—or forgotten.
At the bottom of the email. the AI drafts two quick texts: one to her husband and another to Sara. the family’s au pair. The texts also include affirmations. “It sounds so silly, but it has really improved my marriage,” Stefko Dover told Business Insider. “I don’t feel resentful now around having to carry around these additional mental tasks.”.
Stefko Dover is a director and senior counsel of policy and legal operations at Ford. She built an assistant named Claudette using Anthropic’s tools, including Claude Code and Claude Cowork.
For her husband, who already uses AI to build apps to track his supplements and finances, the impact has been equally clear. He also told Business Insider it’s been a lifesaver.
The method is simple in description, but sweeping in effect: instead of writing code line by line, Stefko Dover describes the tasks she wants her agents to perform in plain English—a practice she calls “vibe coding.”
“Let me figure out how to automate that. ” she said. describing how her idea took shape during a trip in March. While she was away from the family home, her husband asked her to make a to-do list. Between coordinating babysitters. tracking soccer schedules. and laying out daily logistics. Stefko Dover said it all felt like too much to keep straight while she was not even at home.
That week, she used her $17 a month Claude Pro subscription. She described which apps the tools should monitor and what should be included in the daily email. Then she shipped the first version of Claudette.
Early drafts weren’t quite right. Her assistant sent text messages that were far too detailed—hour-by-hour reminders that ran past what the family actually needed. One prompt, for example, reminded her husband when the children should brush their teeth.
Stefko Dover kept adjusting the system. She also used voice reminders on her Claude app on her phone so the assistant would tell the family what it needed. and only when it mattered: when Dover was on duty. when the au pair was taking over. which appointments or school events mattered. and what was coming next.
She said she uses Claude enough that she often bumps into the AI plan’s token limits. She still acts as Claudette’s “human in the loop. ” editing the system when necessary—mostly to fine-tune the affirmations into her voice. But she added that the system is improving, and she may need fewer edits going forward.
A May 21 message drafted by Claudette to her husband began with bright, almost unforced energy: “Good morning. It’s going to be a glorious day, day two of summer, and it’s really heating up.”
Then it shifted into the practical details. It noted that it was his mother’s birthday and advised he send a quick text or flowers. It also flagged recycling the next morning.
Stefko Dover said Claudette could see, via access to her Gmail, that she had recently purchased new furniture. The items arrived in large cardboard boxes that needed to be broken down and discarded. And Claudette said it plainly—“Your wife really has a shopping problem,” according to Stefko Dover. She kept the line in.
Stefko Dover said Claudette organizes two main family frontiers: birthday parties and school emails. “There’s just 9 million birthday parties every weekend. It’s a lot to manage manually,” she said. Reminders of birthdays alone have “probably saved our marriage.”
Even so, she doesn’t have a plan to share Claudette broadly. If she were to make it available, she said she would open-source the prompts so other families could build their own scheduling tools.
“This has been one of my greatest hacks,” Stefko Dover said. “It’s made things so much better, and really has alleviated a lot of the mental load I have at home.”
There’s still a final step. Stefko Dover has to make the final call on what gets sent to the people in her life. But by 4 a.m., her “chief of staff” has already organized the day’s priorities. All that remains is to review the slate and press send.
Ford Whitney Stefko Dover Claude Anthropic Claude Pro Claudette vibe coding Daily Dover AI assistant au pair family scheduling mental load automation legal operations