How Hark suggests things before you ask: reading picks and check-ins

What you can do now: Hark can put suggestions on its Home screen before you ask, as one-tap buttons or small Panels. On Sunday, Hark posted a demo of reading picks, and a user posted a flight check-in card Hark had ready the day before his trip. Below is how those suggestions work according to Hark's own docs, what users say they get, and how to steer it. These are company posts and user reports, not our tests. Hark is Brett Adcock's company; a Business Wire release names him as founder.

What changed#

Hark hasn't announced a new feature. What's new is what Hark and its users showed on Sunday:

• Sunday reading picks (company demo). At 10:12 AM ET Sunday, Hark posted a 19-second video: "Flick through the Sunday reads Hark picked for you." The video shows a stack of cards, each with an article's picture, headline and the publication's name, such as The Atlantic and The New York Times Book Review. Hark didn't say whether every user gets these, how it picks them, or whether they are a Panel. Jonathan Ravasz, whose bio says he is "designing computers @hark_labs," quoted it at 3:24 PM ET: "one of my favorite details" (X). That is a Hark employee, not an independent user.
• A check-in card before a flight (user report). Travis, whose bio says he works at Telnyx, wrote at 2:09 PM ET Sunday: "Flight tomorrow." and "@hark_labs already took care of my pre-flight checklist." His screenshot shows a card with a "Check in" button for his United flights to San Diego, and a reply asking Hark to check him in. Adcock reposted it at 4:41 PM ET.
• Adcock's claim. At 2:23 PM ET Sunday, Adcock wrote: "We have a saying internally: Hark should think ahead of you" and "The more you use Hark, the more proactive it will become as it builds memory and looks for ways to be genuinely helpful." That is the founder's claim, not something we measured. Hark's account reposted it.
• The user post Adcock quoted. Noah Levin, whose bio says he founded Serious People, which helps businesses apply AI, wrote on Oct 21 that Hark "saw that traffic was really bad and told me I should leave 90 mins earlier than planned." The next day, he says, it "noticed that my flight at 6pm was delayed and suggested I take an earlier flight."
• A launch-day purchase (user report). Replying to Adcock at 2:44 PM ET Sunday, LokiTGOM wrote: "I actually used hark to secure my iPhone duo on launch day." He added: "It did the whole thing. I just told it what I wanted." Adcock replied "Love that".
• What a new user sees on day one (user report). Melvin Vivas posted at 1:38 PM ET Sunday that he likes "how it gives some suggestions in panels in the left side." His screenshot, taken after he connected Google, shows cards offering to clear Gmail promotions, compare two cloud storage plans and book a flight search he had saved.

Why it matters#

Our read: most assistants wait for a prompt. Hark's pitch is the reverse, and its March launch release quotes Adcock saying he wants a system that "begins to think like you and sometimes ahead of you." Sunday's posts show what that looks like in practice: a button waiting for you instead of a reminder to do the task yourself. The catch is that the suggestions are only as good as what Hark can see and remember, so the setup steps below matter.

How to use it#

These steps use features from Hark's Using Hark page:

1. Give it something to watch. The page says Action Buttons "are generated from sources like what Hark sees in your email and has learned from your conversations." It gives "Pay" a bill and "Cancel" a subscription as examples. A flight check-in needs the booking email to be visible to Hark.
2. Tell it what you care about. The page says "Hark learns from your conversations, and it applies that context to everything you ask it." Mention upcoming trips, bills and what you like to read in chat.
3. Look at Home. The page says "Home holds Action Cards and Panels for you." Tap the button you want; for a check-in or a purchase, Hark uses Handoff, which "can sign into websites for you and take actions (like buying things and filling out web forms) on your behalf."
4. Ask for a regular feature. Panels are "tiny bits of software built by Hark," and "All you do is ask Hark to build one." Scheduled Tasks can be made "just by asking Hark." Hark hasn't said how its own Sunday reads are built, so asking for one yourself is our suggestion.
5. Prune bad guesses. The page says "Just ask Hark to forget a memory and it will."

A prompt for weekly reading picks (ours, untested):

Every Sunday at 9 AM, pick five long reads for me based on what you know I care about. Show each one with its headline and the publication's name. Tell me which thing you remember about me led to each pick, and skip anything I've told you I don't want.

Good to know#

• Where the reading picks come from is unclear. Haseeb Mir asked Hark at 10:58 AM ET Sunday whether Sunday reads "pull from my own X and Reddit feeds, or only the open web?" Hark hadn't replied when we checked at 6:13 AM ET Monday.
• A new app version shipped Sunday. Apple's App Store listing shows version 2.5.0 with the notes "Clearer attribution. More steady on unreliable networks. And more general improvements!" Hark didn't say what "clearer attribution" covers, so we can't say whether it relates to how reading picks show their sources.
• Proactive work still uses your limit. Hark's pricing page says "All features are offered in all plans. Upgrading your plan increases usage." Check-ins and purchases run through Handoff, and our Oct 21 piece on Hark's daily limit covers how fast that can go.
• Not tested by us. We don't have a Hark account, so we haven't seen Sunday reads or a check-in card ourselves.

What to watch#

Whether Hark explains where Sunday reads come from, adds reading picks or Action Buttons to its Using Hark page, and whether more users post check-in or purchase cards they didn't ask for.

Sources#

• Hark (@hark_labs) on X: Sunday reads demo (company post)
• Brett Adcock (@adcock_brett) on X: Hark should think ahead of you (founder post)
• Travis (@traviscurnutte) on X: pre-flight checklist and a Check in button (user report)
• Noah Levin (@seriouspeopleai) on X: traffic and flight delay warnings (user report)
• LokiTGOM (@harvey62670) on X: used Hark to buy on launch day (user report)
• Melvin Vivas (@melvindvivas) on X: first-day suggestions on Home (user report)
• Jonathan Ravasz (@jonathan_ravasz) on X: one of my favorite details (Hark designer, per his bio)
• Haseeb Mir (@HaseebMir91) on X: where do Sunday reads come from? (user question)
• Hark: Using Hark Pro
• Hark Pro on the App Store
• Hark: Pricing
• Business Wire: Hark launches AI lab (Adcock is the founder)

Last checked: Oct 26, 6:06 to 6:14 AM ET (X posts reopened via the X API with note_tweet and media, Hark's Sunday video frames and the check-in screenshot viewed, hark.com/using-hark, /pricing and /articles, status.hark.com, App Store lookup and listing, Google Play listing, Business Wire founder line). What changed: first published Oct 26; no updates since.