There's nothing like beating The New York Times' daily crossword puzzle. You get a buzz, a jolt of pride that makes you feel like you could banter with the best of them. You're a genius, AI-enabled gadgets and glasses are wasted on you, and it's all you can do to keep yourself from bragging for the rest of the morning.
Yes, the delicious taste of a well-won victory against the Times' daily puzzle-makers. Matched only in sourness by the crushing despair of defeat. Wordle, Strands, Spelling Bee, Connections, the new Midi Crossword and all the other daily games across multiple outlets have claimed the dignity of many a puzzle master.
If you're tired of missing out on clues and have begun to suspect your vocabulary may be lacking in the face of daily puzzles, this guide is for you.
Here's how to use AI to get good at daily puzzles.
Attack the data
There are only so many words in the English language and so many ways to set up a clue in these daily puzzles. Common threads abound, but finding them on your own as a casual player is like looking for a needle in a stack of riddles about needles.
AI tools can parse through the massive archives of daily word puzzles to isolate specific throughlines that can serve as a guiding light when you're lost in the sea of scrambled letters.Â
I used my New York Times Games subscription to look up the answers to The New York Times Daily Mini Crossword for January this year (you're welcome).Â
Google's AI tool Gemini gave me a sweet breakdown of key points from this data that I wouldn't even have known to look for, which can help me better understand the structure and DNA of the puzzles themselves.Â
My prompt: "If I provided you a PDF document which included the filled-in Mini Crossword puzzles from the NYTimes with the clues and answers, would you be able to review them for commonalities and metrics which might help me learn to be better at solving them in the future?"
Here's what Gemini came back with:
I then uploaded the PDF file and asked if Gemini could "generate metrics which might help me learn to be better at solving them in the future."
Gemini said it analyzed the vocabulary, clue styles and structural patterns used by the Mini Crossword puzzles to generate insights on how to improve my puzzle-solving abilities:
Get passive-aggressive
Some people think you can absorb information in your sleep, or that even passively interacting with something can have learning benefits. There's no doubt that the more familiar you are with certain words and concepts, the better equipped you'll be to understand them when you have time to focus fully.Â
I used what Google Gemini had put together to write a script based on some previous New York Times daily crossword puzzle clues. I then dropped the script into ElevenLabs, an AI text-to-speech generator, to create a 5-minute audio file I could listen to while I did other things like gardening and cooking.Â
The expectation is that, over time, a tough clue or a confusing cluster of letters will be less intimidating when encountered in the wild, and your vocabulary will naturally grow by listening to the explanations in the background.
ElevenLabs' AI will read out loud any script you upload into it.
Play the game
Puzzles in big books you normally find at airport magazine shops are one thing, but the challenge of word puzzles that change daily is another. If you're feeling stumped by today's Wordle or Spelling Bee, tasking an AI tool with creating an easier version using the day's theme can be a welcome respite.
I used Anthropic's Claude AI to create seven simpler versions of The New York Times Mini Crossword puzzle, which restored my confidence after I whiffed the real thing, keeping my spirits up and my interest piqued.
As always, double-check that AI isn't hallucinating and is giving you legitimate strategies that make sense. This is a pretty low-stakes way to test out AI's chops.Â