Are using AI for day-to-day work?

Question

As a serial entrepreneur and side-hustler, I've always juggled multiple gigs. I know AI can be immensely time-saving, but I haven't figured out how to integrate it into my life. How are you currently using AI to lighten a workload? What platforms do you use to reduce time/energy/hiring freelancers/workload?

Answer 1

I use ChatGPT daily for emails (including this one), content creation, video scripts, brainstorming ideas, and even for some random stuff (like debating with a friend). You can also use the voice option, which is pretty impressive for answering any kind of question. It's a bit scary because it sometimes makes me lazy to think or create on my own, but my productivity has probably increased by 200-300%.

https://meetcody.ai/

Basically, you can "teach" Cody any documents you want, and it will create content based on those sources. However, now that I'm paying for the new ChatGPT version, the answers are actually just as good, if not better. The only real advantage Cody has is that you can organise your conversations, customize the "voice and tone" of emails or any other text you’re trying to create. I'm learning about what is API and how to use it right now because it seems to me that we could greatly benefit from this to delegate small and time-consuming tasks. 

from my understanding this is the future of automatization

Answer 2

Hi Stacey,

I've been using AI in my business for a few years now - for context I have a direct-to-consumer company selling fine shortbread & savory snacks where I've expanded into more wholesale business. In addition to my primary business I also do some private consulting work, food styling and recipe development.

I use Claude.AI as I've found it to have a writerly voice that I like (I started originally a few years back using ChatGPT but find Claude better for items that require the softer skills like writing copy and handling customer service inquiries).

What I use it for:

• Drafting and responding to initial business inquiries - I have since saved a lot of these initial responses in a document draft that I can just now plug and send to quickly respond to things that I often get asked
• Responding to customer service inquiries - AI has helped immensely come up with some quick solutions to issues that folks I work with encounter - whether thats a simple "where is my package" or a more complex - I simply download the email chain, feed it into the AI, add a little context and then refine my response
• Responding to difficult clients - I used to get so thrown off when I had a challenging exchange with a client, it's hard not to take things personally, but now I actually just download those email chains, drop them into AI and respond from there - for instance I had a client who was really dragging their feet earlier this year and then showed up to the table ready to take me up on something that I could no longer deliver because of the timeline - in the past responding to them would have taken me hours and I would have probably given so many concessions - instead I once again put the email chain into Claude, gave a little extra context, said what I was willing and not willing to concede on and was able to get an email out within a half hour or less
• Drafting marketing plans, emails, etc.
• Writing or drafting initial action plans - this has been great for my business or individual client work - I often have AI help me generate an initial framework when I begin working with someone new or a new project, then I flesh it out, and feed it back into AI and go back and forth that way to refine it
• Writing job descriptions for hiring

I'm sure there are other ways that I'm using it! But these are the ones that come immediately to mind and have been most helpful in cutting down time. I also think I'm way faster at responding to inquiries, which is great because a lot of times in freelance it does feel like it's all about hitting the timing!

Comments

I think everyone is using it or if not they should be.

Key is to use it as a tool or assistant not for everything. Some of the other comments are spot on

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Hey Stacey - Fred, Laurie, and Smithie are spot on. AI has so much potential to make our day to day less hard and it's definitely worth figuring out how it can work for you.
I've only started embracing it for marketing-related work (example, I'll write one cold email and then have an AI solution create 3-4 variants and follow up messages). Could I do this without AI, yes? Is it nice that it takes 3 minutes instead of 3 hours (I'm bad at marketing content generation), yes.

It's important to remember that we're in the Lycos/Ask Jeeves phase of AI, not the Google phase. We're all still learning...even the self-proclaimed experts.

-RP

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I use it a lot for brainstorming -- help me think of a title for this, hash tags for that.  Often, the answers aren't great, but they help me think of something I like better.  Because it's so generic, I also use it to get a better sense of what the general thinking is on some subject so that I can take a different tack.  Lastly, it's really good for things that would previously have taken multiple google searches.  Let's say I want to research providers of a certain service.  Instead of googling a list of them & then researching each, I can ask AI to provide a list with a brief description of each.