Can You Transform Your Work Day With Generative AI?

Most people are interested in saving time and doing things smarter and faster. When you’re driving to your destination, and your GPS tells you there’s a route that’s eight minutes faster, you’re probably going to take it.

AI can be similar to taking a shortcut—there’s a lot more information, and it can be so much faster than browsing search engine results to find the information you're looking for. However, those shortcuts must be taken responsibly, just like you wouldn’t go through a red light just because it’s quicker. You must rely on your own judgment and experience to decide what to do with the recommendations the device gives you.

If you work on an agile team, there are a few simple agile ways of utilizing AI to harness its full potential. Learn more in AI & Agility: A Comprehensive Introduction. In this free online course, you'll develop the skills and knowledge to lead responsibly in the evolving AI landscape.

AI ideation for product development

This is an area where you can lean into AI for ideation around your product. The tools can help you view market analysis and emerging trends, consumer preferences, and gaps in the market. 

Generative AI models can also be used to brainstorm and generate new product ideas based on existing concepts or features. 

AI information can help you gain better customer insights based on feedback and reviews, enhancing your team’s ability to develop products that customers really want. With AI, you can also quickly access competitor data to identify strengths and weaknesses.

The onset of AI tools is a huge win in the product development space, making it possible for product owners to ideate based on a ton of data rapidly. These tools can do a portion of the work for you, freeing you up to complete additional research, engage with customers, and refine product visions to deliver maximum value and impact.

Getting AI assistance for software development

AI tools can potentially speed up the more mundane coding and testing tasks. Artificial intelligence can help generate code snippets, automate repetitive coding tasks, and assist in debugging by suggesting potential solutions. But they require your human intervention and quality control.

Skilled people remain crucial to developing software. While AI may automate some steps in the software development lifecycle, it takes a capable developer to find creative coding solutions and decipher which tasks can be automated and which ones require human intelligence, and to check any and all outputs for accuracy and effectiveness. Security flaws also remain a factor for these tools. Refer to your company's policy for using AI and approach generated code with a critical, skeptical eye.

Content creation with AI

AI can have a big impact on your content ideation and creation workflows. Text generation tools can help with content ideas and even copywriting for emails, websites, blogs, presentations, training materials, and more. 

However, this is an area where it’s easy to take text verbatim, but it’s critical to have a person editing, fact-checking, and adding real-life experiences to the content. If that human element is not present, the content outputs tend to be obviously computer-generated, which can quickly destroy the image of your company’s brand. The outputs are also highly susceptible to bias and discrimination and outdated and inaccurate information based on the AI's learning dataset. Therefore, it is essential to use those outputs as a starting point and maintain fact-checking and quality control over any final content product.

Skilled content creators will understand how to ethically use tools like ChatGPT to ideate and research story information, similarly to how they’ve used Google in the past, while not losing sight of their own ability to be creative and deliver customer-centric content.

AI visual editing tools

With AI, you can perform an array of visual content editing tasks quickly. You can stitch together short videos paired with music, manipulate and refine images, add AI-generated backgrounds to your designs, and easily edit a wide range of visual content with AI-integrated help. These tools can save you time by automating some of the manual processes involved in image editing.

Even with the help of AI tools, quality control and knowledge of colors, patterns, and spatial relationships are needed to create a final product with the customer in mind. 

Get started with generative AI

Many professions can benefit from generative AI tools. These technologies can save us time by allowing us to outsource certain tasks, freeing us up to focus on creativity, innovation, planning, and ideation. Familiarizing yourself with how they work may be one of the best ways to future proof your work skills.

Don't forget to check out the free online course, AI & Agility: A Comprehensive Introduction. You'll learn how agile practices and principles support your utilization of AI, and you'll earn a certificate at the end to showcase your new knowledge! 

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