Essential AI tools for better work 💫

Today’s post grew out of a lively conversation I had with Mahan Tavakoli on his Partnering Leadership podcast. Listen to Mahan interview me about AI and its impact and you’ll hear my enthusiasm spilling over.

His podcast focuses on leadership; my take is that this tech is of tremendous potential value to all of us, whether we’re leaders, specialists, or independents. Listen to the full podcast above, watch it on YouTube, or read on for key points and my quotes in black and white.

AI’s impact as a creativity multiplier 🌼

The most powerful AI tools don't just save time—they expand our consideration of what's possible. These assistants help us consider 5 or 10x the number of creative options we’d otherwise think about.

AI tools I consistently rely on 🏵️

Research and analysis 🧐

* Perplexity: Unlike Google's long list of links, Perplexity delivers concise, citation-backed summaries that work like a “presidential brief.” This is perfect when you need to quickly understand consumer patterns, industry trends, or a complex topic. Read more of my take.

* NotebookLM (and Claude Projects): Upload your own documents, examples and data to get personalized AI assistance. That ensures the replies to your prompts are anchored in your own materials and context. Now you can work with huge collections of information more efficiently and creatively. Why NotebookLM is so useful.

Communication efficiency 🗣️

* Shortwave: This email tool uses AI to help you find messages using natural language rather than exact keywords. Many of us waste huge amounts of time hunting for messages. Shortwave helps. (See my email toolkit)

* Letterly and other voice-to-text AI tools like AudioPen and Oasis have transformed how I capture ideas. I call this "bionic dictation" because these tools don't just transcribe your voice but transform it into organized text. This is particularly powerful for people — like me — who think out loud. As you think aloud, your AI assistant acts as an “idea mirror,” reflecting back to you a coherent summary of your own key points

Multimedia creation 🎥

* Gamma (and Beautiful.ai) Create pro quality presentations without design skills. Spin up slide drafts quickly from a link, a doc, a detailed prompt or an outline. Experiment with multiple styles quickly & easily. [Why Gamma is great]. Spend time thinking and strategizing, not fussing with menus.

* Hypernatural For quick video creation, paste in text a link to a newsletter or blog post, or give it some text, audio, or video. From virtually any raw material you provide it will create an original video you can revise. See how I use it.

* Eddie Edit video with simple text prompts. I recently trimmed an hour long workshop to an eight-minute highlight video just by instructing Eddie into what sections were most important using natural language. Here’s why I’m impressed with it.

* Descript Edit audio and video without any technical expertise. The AI removes background noise, sound gaps and filler words. And you can customize your project by trimming the transcript just as you’d edit any text document. Why I rely on it.

AI tactics that work surprisingly well 🎯

1. Reverse interviews 🎙️

Instead of just querying AI, have it interview you. Get the AI to interview you, rather than interviewing it. Give it a little context and what you're focusing on and what you're interested in, and then you ask it to interview you to elicit your own insights."

This approach helps extract knowledge from yourself, not just from the AI. Sometimes we need that guide to pull ideas out of ourselves.

2. AI-assisted planning 🤔

AI is particularly helpful for strategic planning. Try this: create a Claude Project — or a ChatGPT Project — and detail for your AI assistant your objectives and operating context. Have it help you think through a plan for the next month based on your goals.

The benefit is comprehensive thinking. Our planning falls short when we've left something out. We've forgotten to consider various factors or haven't fully analyzed how things could go wrong.

3. Identify writing weaknesses ✍️

Give an AI assistant like Gemini, Copilot, Claude or ChatGPT text you've written, with a prompt asking for specific feedback. For example:

* Ask for questions your writing should answer but doesn’t yet.

* Prompt for a blind spot or a key point a critic might say you’ve missed.

* Tell your AI aid to point out a section of your text that’s boring or bland.

This approach elevates your work. In this paradigm, your assistant isn’t writing for you. It's giving you objective feedback on your work and helping you strengthen your own eye for edits. It’s pushing you to reach a higher standard.

📺 Watch a 3-minute excerpt from the interview 👇 (or full video here)