Are you using AI at work?

[GoGoJasonWaterfalls]

I work in Comms & Marketing for a tech start up (think SaaS but not quite). I'm 41 so experienced in what I do. Founders are early 30s. I'm in a one person role and, as such, have been 'enthusiastically encouraged' to use AI to increase productivity (writing content, repurposing that content into social and email etc...)

From my cursory - so far - exploration, it seems very much quality in = quality out.

Is anyone here using AI successfully in their roles? How easy are you finding it? Is it really the force multiplier it's being sold as?

Yes, I use it a lot to draft documents. I then edit them and rewrite parts as the content can be too generic.

Yep loads of free stuff about

use it to start then edit and personalise

We are using it minimally and watching with som hesitance. But I work in info security so very different applications.

Garbage in = garbage out is a huge part of the hesitancy. There is a general expectation from those who haven't been beyond a cursory understanding, that you just buy some software, install it, and it's ready to go. No comprehension that before it's ready to go, you need to first teach it everything, accurately, using accurate data, and with up to date process flows, that are very specific and have provisions for every possible outcome, that you've thought through, mapped and verified with all current users..............

Are you just meaning the AI chatbots?

I feel really uncreative when I hear the news about AI etc because I just struggle to see how it’s going to change things so much!

If machine learning and chat bots count, we’re using it a lot more at work, but there’s problems with needing the governance and oversight to catch up. Plus the outputs of machine learning seem not very useful yet, but I think that will change in months.

We work in universities.
Journals (scientific paper types) are saying we can use AI to "improve" an article. We had an AI engine go thru & suggest lots of grammar changes on one draft submission. Colleague thought the improvements were great. I pointed out that the new version was too verbose, we have strict word limits, and we might need to rephrase some parts to satisfy journal scope or tick the 'novel research' box. The AI didn't know about British spelling.

Colleague says he is using AI to help write grant proposals, I didn't ask for details. I imagine he writes bullet points, or messy sentences, and then asks AI to rewrite it more coherently. Then he has to review & revise. He's very happy with that, but I'm skeptical that AI saved much time.

In academia, AI is famous so far for making up references &/or citing them incorrectly (the citation is correct, but doesn't say what the AI claims it said).

On positive note, I like some of the auto-suggests for email replies. Except we normally top & tail emails with lots of salutations, so not really that time saving after all.

The AI doesn't know how to plan in detail we need.

We've actually been told not to use it, IP risk amd all that

we are not allowed (free) ai apps.
they usually work by loading content onto a (public) cloud.
many are not gdpr compliant and data security is questionable.

check company policy.

I’m marketing/comms in professional services. I’ve used it experimentally in the last month to write social posts and internal comms emails and then massively edited - sort of how I would if I had an assistant/intern write for me and then amending for tone, detail etc. Have also used it to help me amend code for our website but I’m not a digital specialist so I can’t say how much time I’ve saved there, it has however saved me a bit of money through not consulting our web providers for very basic coding changes.

Definitely not perfect but it allows me to not start with a blank piece of paper as I usually do so I rate it in that respect.

As above though, haven’t used it for anything that is privileged, anything that could be a DP breach etc

My company hasn’t even made a policy about it. But yeah, we don’t use it for this reason. I use it on my phone for advanced googling/patent searching

Yes I do and it's changed my life haha.

I use it to write content, ebooks, marketing strategies, to brainstorm ideas etc

I think that’s the major issue going forward for eg grant proposals etc. You’re feeding a machine what could be your win themes for a proposal. That data (your specific usps) could then get spat back out to one of your competitors.

I tried a couple of ai proposal tools. It gave building blocks but the whole point of writing a good proposal is minimising waffle. Wonder where it’s going to go in terms of proposals/tenders

There are different types, the stuff in the news at the moment like Chat GPT is causing a storm because it's accessible to everyone and swizzy, but AI in a work context has been around for a while.

Most organisations have email gateways for example that scan for virus's and phishing emails and block any content that raises flags. That software learns constantly based on threat advisories and people reporting phishing scams, so it gets better and detects more and so on. That is machine learning which is AI and it's widely implemented.

@GoGoJasonWaterfalls
Mid journey is very popular for people using it for eg marketing, product design etc.

Chatgp

Is popular too, yes you still need to reread and edit but overall they are becoming the next must have tools.

I work in marketing and comms in a specialist role that only I do and have been using chat gpt to draft things for me, I’ll put in the content I want in bullet list and ask it to incorporate into a chapter etc. Or I’ll put content in and ask it to make it more succinct. I love it as I am often a bit lonely in my role and have to start from a blank page - much nicer to feel like I have an assistant getting the ball rolling for me. Also means I have more time to go out and DO things for my role, engage stakeholders etc rather than always just reporting.

Interesting. Confirms what I thought that it isn't advanced enough to be useable yet.

oh yeah, I spoke to an App developer, who basically says he gives the AI a chunk of code and asks it to change one bit of the code. I guess in theory AI should make programming hugely easier, all those fiddly syntax errors gone. However... I am using code language that isn't mainstream, I suspect the AI won't know it, and the tricky part is the query I use, and how that fits with my modelling, and the subset of records I need to query. By the time I explain all that to the AI, I can probably just write the code command myself.

yes it is a great help for disabled people like me who may struggle to articulate themselves in emails or other writing.

I've used it just out of curiosity really to help me write blog and social media posts. I find it useful to help me get started if I'm struggling to put pen to paper and can help provide a basic structure. But find it generates a lot of waffle and seems to repeat itself but just saying in a different way. Plus it can't write to my style or tone. I also used it to wrote a mock essay just out of interest and the references it used were very old. So I'd say it's a good tool for helping get started but that's it.

@Crinkle77 can I ask which AI you're using for blog writing?
Ive tried a few and like you am finding them to just be a little off and unable to replicate a human tone.

@growgrowinggrown I use ChatGPT

I use ChatGPT 4 many times a day for creating first drafts of content.

You need to think about how you frame questions...it isn't Google and using it like that won't get you brilliant results.

Examples of what I might say are

"Imagine that you're a <my role> working in a <certain type of company> and that you need to draft a <whatever you need>.

Make sure you include <anything that's a must have>.

Use a <professional but approachable> tone of voice and UK plain English."

You can get it to edit it's own work too...so you can check the first draft and say something like

"Can you rewrite this - take out the bits about XYZ and add some content about ABC. Also make it a little shorter"

It can critique its own work too...so you might say "Imagine you're an expert in <this area> and you review the draft just wrote to critique it. What are your conclusions?"

It will tell you its conclusions and automatically does another draft taking them into account.

You can also ask it "Is there anything else you need to know from me to make this draft even better?"

It will tell you what questions it would like to ask and then when you answer them it will redraft again.

I save prompts like this in OneNote so I can copy, paste and tweak rather than write out from scratch.

I still have to make little tweaks as it tends to have a tone of voice that is 'a bit much' for English sensibilities but it cuts my writing time in half, if not more because all of the work above (including all the research I might have done before a first draft) is reduced to a few minutes of my time.

I don't tend to sit and wait for it to answer...I'll usually be asking it questions for a future piece of work in between working on something

I would recommend trying GPT4 for one month and focusing on getting good at working out how to ask questions in a way that gives you something close to what you need. It's $20 but you can always cancel before the month is up (I highly doubt you will though! This is the only thing I've ever paid for myself).

GPT4 is significantly better than GPT3.5 (which is the free one).

As for corporate policies - register in your personal email account. Never include any company information or keep it so generic that it doesn't count as company information and never share any company documents with it.

That means you won't breach any policies.

Some other examples of wording you can use in your request...

"Use professional voice and tone. Use industry-specific language and terminology, provide detailed and accurate information, and support your argument with statistics, research, and expert opinions."

"Write an email to Dave/Sharon and ask him/her if he/she <can do whatever>.Use conversational voice and tone. Imagine you’re talking to a friend and use natural language and phrasing."

I always use Dave and Sharon in my email drafts so I'm not using any colleague's names

"Use a humorous voice and tone, include jokes, and write with irony when appropriate."

"Use a formal and academic tone, advanced vocabulary and grammar, and provide a thorough analysis of the subject matter. Explain complex concepts clearly and use examples from various fields. Present counterarguments objectively."

Research AI prompt engineering for other tips...