ChatGPT isn't going to steal your job—but people who know how to use it effectively just might. Learn how to leverage generative AI tools to enhance your professional performance (and slash the number of tedious, mundane tasks in your day for a real mood booster while you're at it).
You may have seen this post from Aku Nikkola making the rounds on LinkedIn. In it, he highlights the exciting and affirming results of a study from the Harvard Business School, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and paper author Ethan Mollick.
The key takeaway: Generative AI improves the speed, volume, and quality of work we can achieve with even an introductory understanding and implementation of tools like ChatGPT-4.
So, let's get started with that introductory understanding.
- Scalable: It can handle tasks at a volume that would be impossible for a single human to manage, like analyzing massive datasets to identify trends or even diagnose evasive illnesses.
- Data-driven: Generative AI relies on large datasets to train and improve, making it more accurate over time.
- Versatile: It can be applied across various industries, from healthcare to marketing to entertainment, in various ways.
- Time-saving: It helps automate repetitive tasks, allowing human workers to focus on more creative and complex problems. I don't know about you, but I'm not complaining about doing less menial busywork.
- Adaptive: AI models are capable of learning from new data and improving their performance.
- Collaborative: AI works best as a tool in the hands of skilled professionals, enhancing rather than replacing human capabilities.
- Customizable: It can be fine-tuned to meet specific needs or solve particular problems unique to a business or industry.
- Infallible: It's prone to errors and biases present in the training data.
- Creative: While generative AI can generate content, it doesn't possess creativity for original or nuanced ideas in the human sense.
- Self-aware: Regardless of what our favorite sci-fi flicks might suggest, it lacks understanding or consciousness; it doesn't "know" what it's doing.
- A replacement for human expertise: AI still cannot replicate the nuanced decision-making and emotional intelligence of a human.
- Fully autonomous: AI models typically require human oversight for training, maintenance, and interpretation of results.
- Ethically neutral: The way it's used can have ethical implications, such as data privacy concerns or perpetuating biases. These must constantly be discussed and addressed by human morality and controls.
- A one-size-fits-all solution: Different applications and industries require specialized AI models and approaches.
If you aren't already leveraging generative AI tools in your day-to-day work, here are a few ideas to get started:
- Ask
ChatGPT
to explain the steps to write a complex Excel formula in a spreadsheet, scan your code snippet for syntax errors, or double-check your math before shooting off an email to your boss about the results of your latest project.
- Upgrade to ChatGPT Plus to access ChatGPT-4 and the beta library of developer plugins for specific tasks, like Webpilot.ai to browse and interact with webpages, SmartSlides to quickly create impactful PowerPoint presentations, or
Zapier
to interact with and automate tasks in 5k+ other business applications.
- Search Google using the
Google Chrome
browser to get AI-powered overviews of results and ask follow-up questions—here's how to enable Search Labs and Search Generative Experiences (SGE).
- Draft multiple versions of your marketing copy to run A/B testing or write targeted blog posts for your audience with Jasper.
- Leverage
Grammarly Business
to perfect your sales emails to customers or generate a job description for the role you need to hire.
- Let the
Otter.ai
assistant join your meetings to take notes, generate a call summary, and track action items automatically.
Share this article and tell us how GenAI has transformed your work, what your favorite tools are, and the best tips & tricks you've learned so far.
