Skill Up: How I am Actually Using AI
Everyone is still talking about AI. Everyday. All the time. So I thought I’d level set and talks about how I am using AI as these tools become more integrated into my life. In future, maybe a year from now, I’ll come back to this topic to create a comparison of how my use of these tools has evolved. This is a brain dump of my current experience to help you consider how AI may fit into your daily routines.
Microsoft Copilot is my go to at work because it’s embedded in my daily tools
Tool: Microsoft Copilot in the context of work
Communications: Drafting emails to large groups of people for change management.
Data Entry: Counting characters in text and summarizing text to defined limits for data entry tasks.
Communications: Preparing for meetings by creating talking points and summarizing documents.
Upskilling: Creating training plans for upskilling myself and others in different software.
Upskilling: Preparing training plans for soft skill practice.
Data Analysis: Understanding Python, R, DAX and SQL.
Communications: Tailoring communications to different audiences.
Summarization: Getting quick summaries of industry trends in data management, leadership, data analysis and data science. Using AI to project the outcomes of those trends in the next 1-10 years.
Data Quality: Checking data quality, looking for outliers and generating simple analyses.
Upskilling: Questioning my biases by asking AI to provide alternate opinions on projects or ideas.
Summarization: Summarizing articles, meeting notes, task lists, pretty much everything, for quick reading.
Tool: ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot in a personal context
I find ChatGPT most helpful for supporting with home management administrative tasks
Social Media: Drafting social media posts and captions when I’m not feeling creative.
Finances: Understanding financial planning, various investment options and creating savings projections.
Recreation: Exploring travel itineraries and finding flight deals.
Household Management: Prioritizing lists of household management tasks based on criteria around my personal goals.
Household Management: Summarizing household budgets, receipts and financial statements by extracting text from images.
Summarization: Summarizing articles for quick reading.
Apply these skills when exploring generative AI tools:
Stop and think before you enter personal information. Don’t include personal data like SIN, address, email or phone in chats generative models.
Question whether repeatable daily tasks can be automated. Why spend time manually managing budgets, lists and calendars when AI can help you speed up the inputs and outputs to keep things organized?
Watch out for the “echo chamber”. AI can very easily reinforce our own biases or judgements. Be careful to look for other perspectives and practice questioning your thinking when using these tools.
Think critically about all AI assistant outputs and use judgement. AI is generative and often provides incorrect information. It can hallucinate and it makes mistakes all the time. Thoroughly review all outputs before using the information.
Focus on what’s important to you. AI may not need to be a part of your life. If you don’t see the need to use the tools, there’s no real pressure to do so. Choose the systems and processes that best support your needs.