Should You Take High-Tech Shortcuts at Work?

Edit: Elizabeth Schön Vainer, 65, director of the Journey to Safety program of Jewish Family & Children’s Service in Waltham, Massachusetts, mostly uses Microsoft Copilot as an “editor and validator” for emails, a newsletter and other job-related writing.

Recently, when she uploaded a weekly newsletter into Copilot, the tool confirmed the message was well written, then offered to draft an email subject line and turn the message into a template for future updates. “I kind of play around with it,” Vainer says. She doesn’t accept all of Copilot’s suggestions, but she appreciates that she can get immediate feedback instead of waiting for a colleague to read and respond to her work. ​

Brainstorm: AI can help generate ideas or solutions in multiple contexts. As a career development specialist at a community college outside Chicago, Marie O’Hara, 68, often works one-on-one with students to match them with possible majors and job opportunities. To come up with different options, she’ll take results from career assessment tools (such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) and plug them into ChatGPT with prompts such as “Based on this profile, what types of career fields might be good for me?” or “What are some examples of entry-level jobs that align with my personality, interest and values?” “It’ll often come up with careers that [the assessment tools] didn’t come up with,” she says. For example, the AI tool suggested work as a respiratory therapist as a strong fit for a student interested in health care, citing “high patient interaction, uses curiosity and quick learning, clear procedures, strong demand and solid salary.” 

Another position was deemed a moderate fit partly because it was less social than other roles.

Research: For gathering basic information about a subject you might be unfamiliar with, using AI tools can be quicker and easier than a series of internet searches, says John Santoleri, 63, chief financial officer at Dimensional Energy, a developer of synthetic hydrocarbon technology. He uses the hypothetical example of a person who wants to get an overview of the ethanol industry. Without AI, that would require visiting numerous sites to piece together bits of information that would eventually help the person get a big-picture view of the industry.

But with AI, that learning process is simpler, he says; you can simply ask a chatbot, “Tell me about ethanol,” then follow up with more specific questions in response to its answers. “It’s like having an expert you can ask basic questions of, and then drill down,” Santoleri says, “rather than having to educate yourself so you know what questions to ask.” 

Even so it is critical to double-check and verify the information since the AI does not always get it right.

Handle repetitive tasks: Financial therapist and author Rick Kahler, 70, uses AI to respond to the many pick-your-brain and request-for-information emails he receives. For that he uses what are known as GPTs—customizable versions of AI tools available to subscribers of paid tiers of ChatGPT. (Users on free ChatGPT tiers have more limited access to GPTs.) “Are they wanting a copy of a demo, financial therapy, something I’ve written, reference to a book? Of all my resources, what do I have for this person?” Kahler says. “It can get the links, prepare a response, and then I can go in and customize that.”

Convert files: When Lisa Ezrol Curran, 58, a strategy consultant in Chicago, needed a sortable, searchable congressional directory, she used ChatGPT to create one based on a messy, poorly formatted directory in a PDF file she had on hand.

“There weren’t any magic prompts,” she says. “I started [with] ‘I need to convert this PDF into a searchable spreadsheet, can you do that for me?’ and it would come back and do something that was completely knotted. So I learned to be specific and say ‘Only use the information in this file, and these column headers … and if the email is missing, please put a blank.’ I gave it very detailed instructions.”

Curran thoroughly checked the ChatGPT results but ended up having to make only a few small edits in the resulting 75-page file. “It was very much like working with an intern,” she says.

Dan Ackerman, editor in chief at technology retailer Micro Center, uses AI to build tables related to product review charts. “It used to be an annoying time sink,” he says. Now he takes screenshots of performance benchmark scores he wants to use in those charts, instructs the AI how he wants everything formatted and slots everything in.

When AI Falls Down on the Job

The technology isn’t perfect, so follow these tips for using AI at work

Verify the results: Though AI tools are improving, they still “hallucinate”—that is, make up stuff that looks authoritative but is utterly wrong. When a client recently asked financial therapist Rick Kahler whether IRS rules allowed him to put money into a certain account, Kahler got an answer from AI indicating the amount the man could contribute. He then emailed an accountant to confirm the information. “I do stuff like that all the time,” he says.

Keep it impersonal: Because the information you plug into an AI chatbot can be used to improve interactions with other users, never give it prompts containing personal information, such as your name, address or Social Security number. “Always treat anything you put in a chatbot like it’s public information,” says Rory Mir, associate director of community organizing at the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Save your work: Though some chatbots will retain your previous conversations, they have been known to erase these without warning. Download (or copy and paste) any text you want to keep long term.

Remember they’re machines: Like social media platforms or gambling apps, AI chatbots are designed to keep you using them. They’ll flatter and encourage you in ways that feel like friendship, but they’re not your friends. Use them as tools, not as confidants.

Get your boss’s OK: Many organizations have guidelines covering employees’ use of AI—in order, for example, to prevent proprietary information from leaking out. Check with your employer for any policies that might cover what you can use AI for and which specific tools you can use.