One Voice Note, Many Possibilities: Unleashing the Power of AI as Your Co-Intelligence Partner

Are you ready to move beyond generating funny poems or cat pictures with AI? Let's explore how AI can be a powerful co-intelligence partner in your professional work. This is a recent example of how I used AI to take a three-minute voice note, turn it into several outputs, and save myself a lot of time in the process.

The Experiment: One Voice Note, Three Outputs

Recently, I conducted an experiment showcasing AI's true (current) potential in professional settings. I didn't think much of this experiment since it's just how I naturally use AI. But, after telling a few folks about it, they suggested I share it because it's helpful for people less familiar with AI to hear use cases like this. So, here it is!

During my morning routine, I had a few thoughts about the bigger-picture uses of AI and the role of independent consultants. How could we protect our right to use AI to improve our work and efficiency while protecting our clients' data and interests and abiding by any policies they may have for AI use by consultants/contractors? How should we be navigating AI use in our projects and contracts in a way that is transparent and fair?

I didn't want to lose track of my thoughts, so I recorded a quick voice note in Otter where I just verbally dumped everything I was thinking of. I then realized this is something I'd like to take in several different directions: an issue to check with my lawyer about incorporating into my contracts, a topic I'd like to learn from my fellow consultants how they are handling, and a conversation I'd like to have via my blog and social media.

Could I take this one voice note and use AI to quickly reshape my ideas for these different audiences?

Starting with a single (3 minute) voice note (created with Otter.ai ), I collaborated with Anthropic 's Claude.ai to produce:

1. An email to a topical interest group leader proposing a new discussion topic

2. A detailed email to my lawyer about updating contract templates for AI use

3. Ideas for a blog post, complete with thought-provoking questions

The output in Claude (Sonnet) was excellent. The two emails were 90% there. With minimal editing, I was able to send them off. I created the email for the topical discussion by giving it a little context for the group and asking it to shape my ideas around key topics and ideas to discuss for the group. I created the email for my lawyer by prompting it to take the same voice note and consider how to raise the topic with my lawyer. Bonus content came from me asking it what else I should consider related to this topic. For the blog post, I asked it to generate a list of hooks and ideas. I then chose the three that resonated with where my brain was heading and asked it to serve as an interviewer and generate questions for me to respond to that we could use for a blog post with my own voice (I have yet to answer those questions and craft the post, but stay tuned!).

All in all, my ideas remained true, were expertly expanded, and reshaped for different audiences, which were then sent to those audiences in a matter of minutes.

The Power of Co-Intelligence

In my opinion, this process exemplifies Ethan Mollick 's concept of co-intelligence (I just finished the book and I highly recommend it!) Here's why:

1. My Original Ideas Remain Golden: The initial voice memo represents my unique insights and intellectual property. Those are my core, authentic ideas.
2. AI as a Thought Partner: AI helps reshape, repackage, and expand my ideas in ways I might not have considered. A key challenge of getting ideas to gain traction is effective communication, and AI can help bridge different audiences.
3. Efficiency in Lower-Stakes Work: By offloading some of the "packaging" work to AI, I could focus on high-level thinking and decision-making. What did I want to do with these ideas that could advance my work and the work of others?
4. Expanding Your Professional Reach: This approach allows me to explore multiple angles and outputs from a single idea, potentially increasing my impact.

Why This Matters

Many professionals aren't yet leveraging AI to its full potential. A key barrier to this is not fully understanding the various use cases for utilizing AI collaboratively. By viewing AI as a co-intelligence partner, you can:

• Amplify your ideas
• Explore different perspectives
• Increase your productivity
• Focus on what truly matters - your unique insights and expertise

The Takeaway

AI isn't just for summarizing meeting notes, crafting emails, making silly jokes, or generating images. It's a powerful tool that can help expand the reach of your ideas beyond what you might accomplish alone in a reasonable amount of time. When used strategically and creatively, it can increase not only your efficiency but also your effectiveness.

How are you leveraging AI in your professional life? Are you ready to explore its potential as a co-intelligence partner?

#ArtificialIntelligence #ProfessionalDevelopment #Productivity #CoIntelligence #FutureOfWork #AIfornonprofits