How to use ChatGPT to increase productivity

By Daniel Nobre

In the article The Age of AI Has Begun, Microsoft founder Bill Gates rambles on the importance of AI and how the evolution of OpenAI‘s ChatGPT was so fast and fascinating and how it can help solve severe problems of humanity, such as childhood malnutrition in developing countries or protect the environment from man-made devastation. However, here we will pay attention to a topic further ahead in his article: productivity enhancement.

Gates discusses how Microsoft incorporates ChatGPT AI to create a powerful virtual assistant product. In the case of Office, it was renamed co-pilot. The idea is that AI will help with various tasks that previously required spending many minutes or hours, such as making a PowerPoint presentation. We’ve already seen examples of how this will be, and it was a fantastic advance.

Using GPT logic, you will get the finished presentation after asking the AI by giving it a document or guidelines. After the PowerPoint is done, you will logically adjust the text and images and improve what needs to be improved, but this will save you a lot of time.

Other activities that this co-pilot will do will be helping to read and answer emails and control your appointments, adjusting them within your pre-existing agenda and even denying those that would clash with previously confirmed ones.

To understand better how ChatGPT can help to improve productivity, I spoke with two professionals already analyzing ChatGPT’s movements and using its facilities daily: Sergio Frias and Alyson Darugna. Sergio Frias is CEO of CX HUB and former vice president of Contracts (Executive Jets) at Embraer (Brazilian Aeronautics company), and former vice president of Services Contracts at Bombardier Canada. Alyson Darugna, Content Marketing Specialist for small businesses. 20+ years of experience as a copywriter and video editor.

Darugna believes that ChatGPT and similar AI tools can be game-changers for professionals in many fields, like content marketing. “They handle repetitive tasks, spark new ideas, and speed up the creative process. This helps save time and energy, giving us more space to focus on other essential tasks,” he said.

Darugna still uses the ChatGPT daily to brainstorm ideas, expand concepts, and try new angles on topics I’ve worked with for years. “The best part? It’s user-friendly and doesn’t require advanced technical skills.”

Frias said that ChatGPT-like tools could help professionals increase productivity because of their capacity to create content based on data and guidance by the user, coupled with their research capability. “This capacity is absolutely mind-blowing. The tool has a very objective and encompassing way of collecting data and displays great summaries of the research material found, giving the tone or using the angle to the topic requested by the user. Instead of spending a few hours researching and thinking about the text to be written and later spending even more time reviewing it to eliminate vices and less-than-optimum ways to express an idea, the tool can do it by itself and much faster than a human,” Frias adds that human will need to analyze the material before uses to check the quality of the content. 

Frias believes that the flexibility of the tool allows the use for many different applications, such as questionnaires, poetry, songs, adds, articles, essays, summaries, bios, manuals, email answers, customized marketing materials and communications, Customer support activities, like chats, automated answers, triage, routing, classifications of any sort, and many other applications. 

“Another important aspect is that, due to the access to a vast spectrum of sources of information and the endless possibilities to recombine knowledge the tool can provide, it is possible to find connections between different disciplines and come up with new approaches to any subject,” he said. Frias adds that appropriately using the tool opens new doors to organizing knowledge.

Risks

When we think of AI, the first idea comes from movies and books about the domination of the human race by machines powered by AI. But it is fiction. However, there are some risks in this process. To Darugna, there are a few risks we should be aware of. “For one, leaning too much on AI-generated content might make our work less original and engaging. AI tools can sometimes produce biased or inappropriate content, so we still need a human touch to fix those issues. And let’s not forget that job displacement could be a concern in some industries as more tasks become automated.” he explained.

Frias believes that there are two possible risks in using AI in productivity. “The first is the tool’s misuse to fake the authorship of content created, disguising the competence of the self-proclaimed author, who used AI-based tools to create texts and other content. A version of this problem is using the tool by students to create school essays without putting on the effort. The second risk is creating content based on fake news or unreliable information sources, causing the result to be flawed, biased or incorrect. Several software applications that detect ChatGPT written texts can mitigate the first risk. The second is still a problem to be solved.” he said.

Industries changes

Frias believes that all industries that create content and exchange information will have to re-evaluate their staff capacity and capabilities and their output quality and understand what kind of human-created content can be easily replaced by ChatGPT-like solutions. “However, a very rigorous analysis must be done so that core principles of those companies can be preserved and that the right humans will remain as the main sources of insights and decisions of what the society needs, to be researched and curated, to be shared with conscientious respect for the company’s values, mission, vision, strategic plans, goals and most of all, code of conduct.”

The CEO thinks the industries need to adapt to this new reality. Most industries may not pose such a massive task if they understand its appropriate use. “The risk is to irresponsibly fully depend on the tool to create content that represents their brands, and when they realize, the brand may have been totally deconstructed or distorted. After the problem materializes, then the effort would be huge. On the other hand, if the discussion about the proper way to use the tool happens in advance and strategies are created and implemented, the effort may not be that high.”

Darugna believes that adapting to the AI-driven world means industries must invest in employee training (consider prompt engineering a great example), embrace new tech, and rethink their processes. “Flexible industries like tech, marketing, and media might find it easier to roll with the punches. On the other hand, industries that stick to traditional methods or face regulatory constraints – think law or healthcare – might have a more challenging time making the switch.”

Frias adds another industry that will face difficulty adapting to this new reality: education. “I believe it is already overdue for a complete revision of its means to transfer knowledge and educate the younger generations. This new reality of AI and ChatGPT-like tools will further accelerate this search for more effective and engaging ways to get the right knowledge to the right people at the right time. This tool will put the current way of teaching in check, mate, as it will be more and more difficult to evaluate how the students learned what they should.”

ChatGPT is an allied

At the end of the day, ChatGPT is an ally, but we need to know how to use it. We need technology as a partner, not an enslaved person, to do our work for us. AI may replace some technical positions, but the art of thinking and creativity is, until now, the difference between us and AI. How long will we have this advantage? Maybe decades, maybe years. So we need to use it while it’s still our asset, but not afraid of what’s to come. And yes, knowing how to use it best: for the good of humanity.

Main image by Lukas from Pixabay