Working Smarter

Iain Thomas is a poet, author, and the Chief Innovation Officer at Sounds Fun—an advertising and creative agency that he co-founded with the belief that human creativity could be enhanced, rather than diminished, with the help of AI. It’s a realization that actually began to dawn on Iain a few years prior, after his mother died. He wasn’t sure how to explain death to his children, so he turned to an early version of ChatGPT for help—and was so impressed by the poetry of its responses that he came away convinced of AI’s immense potential as a thought partner for his creative work. On this episode, Iain talks about using AI to make more space for the creative parts of your work, and why, in a world where everyone has access to the same tools, it’s never been more important to lean into the skills, context, and experiences that make each of us most unique—and most human.Learn more about Sounds Fun soundsfun.co~ ~ ~Working Smarter is brought to you by Dropbox Dash—the AI universal search and knowledge management tool from Dropbox. Learn more at workingsmarter.ai/dashYou can listen to more episodes of Working Smarter on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. To read more stories and past interviews, visit workingsmarter.aiThis show would not be possible without the talented team at Cosmic Standard: producer Dominic Girard, sound engineer Aja Simpson, technical director Jacob Winik, and executive producer Eliza Smith. Special thanks to our illustrators Justin Tran and Fanny Luor, marketing consultant Meggan Ellingboe, and editorial support from Catie Keck. Our theme song was composed by Doug Stuart. Working Smarter is hosted by Matthew Braga. Thanks for listening!

Bespoken Spirits isn’t your typical whiskey distillery. Yes, they’re based in the American bourbon heartland of Lexington, Kentucky, and yes, they often make private label whiskeys for clients. But everything from how Bespoken Spirits distills their whiskey to how they market it is done with the help of AI. Jordan Spitzer, their head of flavor, can finish a whiskey in days instead of years—while precisely crafting its taste—using their machine-learning backed approach. And Wane Lindsey, their director of marketing, credits AI tools with helping his tiny team punch way above their weight.The result is a whiskey that may not be traditional, but still tastes great—and in a fraction of the time it would otherwise take. That’s time they can spend on the creative side of their craft and the work that has the most meaning: building brands and bespoke spirits that people will want to drink.On this episode, Jordan and Wane share how AI has helped them explore creative new ways to make and market whiskey—and why, no matter how smart our tools get, there’s still no substitute for human taste.You can learn more about Bespoken Spirits at bespokenspirits.com~ ~ ~Working Smarter is brought to you by Dropbox Dash—the AI universal search and knowledge management tool from Dropbox. Learn more at workingsmarter.ai/dashYou can listen to more episodes of Working Smarter on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. To read more stories and past interviews, visit workingsmarter.aiThis show would not be possible without the talented team at Cosmic Standard: producer Dominic Girard, sound engineer Aja Simpson, technical director Jacob Winik, and executive producer Eliza Smith. Special thanks to our illustrators Justin Tran and Fanny Luor, marketing consultant Meggan Ellingboe, and editorial support from Catie Keck. Our theme song was composed by Doug Stuart. Working Smarter is hosted by Matthew Braga. Thanks for listening!

Amanda Cupido doesn’t speak Spanish or French. But using AI, she and her team helped a global nonprofit make their internal podcast more accessible to as many employees as possible. Amanda is an audio producer and the founder of a production company called Lead Podcasting. One of her clients is a global nonprofit with over 35,000 employees—and not all of them speak English. So she made them a pitch: what if they added AI into the mix? They would make the podcast in English, and then use generative AI voice tools to translate it into Spanish and French—with a lot of human oversight, of course. Driven by a desire to use these tools for good, the goal was never to replace people, but to reach more people, and it worked.On this episode, Amanda shows what it’s like—and what it sounds like—to make a podcast with AI that’s still human at its core.You can learn more about Lead Podcasting at leadpodcasting.com~ ~ ~Working Smarter is brought to you by Dropbox Dash—the AI universal search and knowledge management tool from Dropbox. Learn more at workingsmarter.ai/dashYou can listen to more episodes of Working Smarter on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. To read more stories and past interviews, visit workingsmarter.aiThis show would not be possible without the talented team at Cosmic Standard: producer Dominic Girard, sound engineer Aja Simpson, technical director Jacob Winik, and executive producer Eliza Smith. Special thanks to our illustrators Justin Tran and Fanny Luor, marketing consultant Meggan Ellingboe, and editorial support from Catie Keck. Our theme song was composed by Doug Stuart. Working Smarter is hosted by Matthew Braga. Thanks for listening!

Very few people get paid to visit shipwrecks—but for Stephanie Gandulla, it’s all part of the job. Stephanie is a scuba diver, maritime archeologist, and resource protection coordinator for the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The agency safeguards Lake Huron’s historic shipwrecks, many of which have yet to be discovered. That’s where Katie Skinner comes in. She’s an assistant professor at the University of Michigan and the director of the school’s Field Robotics Group. Skinner and her team have been developing autonomous underwater vehicles that can find new shipwreck sites, all on their own. For humans, a search is costly, time-consuming, manual work. But for AI? Skinner thinks it could help us find answers in a snap. On this episode, Stephanie and Katie talk about using AI to find shipwrecks in a literal lake of data, so that they can spend less time searching and more time exploring—as only humans can do.You can learn more about some of the people and projects featured in this episode, including… The Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary at thunderbay.noaa.govKatie Skinner and the University of Michigan’s Field Robotics Group at fieldrobotics.engin.umich.eduPrevious efforts to autonomously map Thunder Bay’s historical shipwrecks at theverge.com/2020/3/5/21157791/drone-autonomous-boat-ben-shipwreck-alley-unh-noaa-great-lakes-thunder-bay~ ~ ~Working Smarter is brought to you by Dropbox Dash—the AI universal search and knowledge management tool from Dropbox. Learn more at workingsmarter.ai/dashYou can listen to more episodes of Working Smarter on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. To read more stories and past interviews, visit workingsmarter.aiThis show would not be possible without the talented team at Cosmic Standard: producer Dominic Girard, sound engineer Aja Simpson, technical director Jacob Winik, and executive producer Eliza Smith. Special thanks to our illustrators Justin Tran and Fanny Luor, marketing consultant Meggan Ellingboe, and editorial support from Catie Keck. Our theme song was composed by Doug Stuart. Working Smarter is hosted by Matthew Braga. Thanks for listening!

Ian Ramirez has spent his career finding innovative ways to make mouth-watering meals for clients—and one of his latest ingredients is artificial intelligence. As a chef, culinary consultant, and co-founder of Mad Honey Culinary Studio and Goods, he’s the guy that brands hire to get their product on restaurant menus, and make it look and taste good—whether it’s a sauce, syrup, spread, or spice. Ian uses AI to tackle the repetitive, time-consuming parts of menu planning for commercial kitchens, and help clients visualize new concepts before anything gets sliced or diced. It’s a tool that augments his creativity, he says, and makes prep less of a grind. On this episode, Ian talks about how AI is helping him and his team spend more time doing what they love: cooking and getting creative in the kitchen.Learn more about Mad Honey Culinary Studio and Goods at madhoneyculinary.comLearn more about Dropbox Dash—the AI universal search and knowledge management tool from Dropbox—at workingsmarter.ai/dash~ ~ ~Working Smarter is brought to you by Dropbox Dash—the AI universal search and knowledge management tool from Dropbox. Learn more at workingsmarter.ai/dashYou can listen to more episodes of Working Smarter on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. To read more stories and past interviews, visit workingsmarter.aiThis show would not be possible without the talented team at Cosmic Standard: producer Dominic Girard, sound engineer Aja Simpson, technical director Jacob Winik, and executive producer Eliza Smith. Special thanks to our illustrators Justin Tran and Fanny Luor, marketing consultant Meggan Ellingboe, and editorial support from Catie Keck. Our theme song was composed by Doug Stuart. Working Smarter is hosted by Matthew Braga. Thanks for listening!

Working Smarter is back for season two! Starting September 3, we’re going beyond the hype and headlines to bring you stories about real people using AI to do more of what they love about their jobs. From the F1 track to the kitchen—and even the bottom of a lake—learn how new tools are helping creatives, makers, visionaries, and their teams think big, move faster, and focus on the work that matters most.~ ~ ~Working Smarter is brought to you by Dropbox Dash—the AI universal search and knowledge management tool from Dropbox. Learn more at workingsmarter.ai/dashYou can listen to more episodes of Working Smarter on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. To read more stories and past interviews, visit workingsmarter.aiThis show would not be possible without the talented team at Cosmic Standard: producer Dominic Girard, sound engineer Aja Simpson, technical director Jacob Winik, and executive producer Eliza Smith. Special thanks to our illustrators Justin Tran and Fanny Luor, marketing consultant Meggan Ellingboe, and editorial support from Catie Keck. Our theme song was composed by Doug Stuart. Working Smarter is hosted by Matthew Braga. Thanks for listening!

On our final episode this season of Working Smarter we talk to Sophia Wang, an assistant professor of ophthalmology at Stanford University. Wang leads the school’s ophthalmic informatics and artificial intelligence group, which uses the latest machine learning techniques to analyze electronic health records. In practice, that means looking at disparate sources of data—from doctors’ notes and eye exam data to diagnostic imagery and billing codes—and finding the sorts of patterns that can be difficult for humans to spot.Hear Wang talk about using AI to extract useful information from a sea of unstructured data, and how to make better decisions with the data you already have—which, in Wang’s case, means improving outcomes for glaucoma patients and providing a better quality of care.Show notes:Learn more about Sophia and her researchVisit Stanford University’s Ophthalmic Informatics and Artificial Intelligence Group~ ~ ~Working Smarter is a new podcast from Dropbox about how AI is changing the way we work and get stuff done.You can listen to more episodes of Working Smarter on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. To read more stories and past interviews, visit workingsmarter.aiThis show would not be possible without the talented team at Cosmic Standard, namely: our producers Samiah Adams and Aja Simpson, technical director Jacob Winik, and executive producer Eliza Smith. Special thanks to Benjy Baptiste for production assistance, our marketing and PR consultant Meggan Ellingboe, and our illustrators, Fanny Luor and Justin Tran. Our theme song was created by Doug Stuart. Working Smarter is hosted by Matthew Braga.

For our seventh episode of Working Smarter we’re talking to Drew Houston, the co-founder and CEO of Dropbox. If you’ve been online long enough, it’s likely Dropbox was your introduction to the cloud. The goal is still more or less the same—give you one organized place for all your stuff—but it’s no longer just about storing and syncing files. A hundred files on your desktop is now a hundred tabs in your browser, and Houston believes AI is what will finally bring calm to the chaos that’s been created by the tools of modern work.For Houston, AI’s potential is so great that its arrival feels like a civilization shift. It’s also not just a professional preoccupation; AI is a personal interest too. A few years ago he decided to teach himself machine learning in his spare time—and some of the AI tools Houston now uses to run Dropbox are ones he built himself. Hear Houston discuss why it’s gotten so hard to find the information you need to do your job, the types of tasks we'll increasingly offload to our silicon brains, and what Dropbox is doing to help make modern work more meaningful and fulfilling.Show notes:To learn more about Dropbox Dash and try Dash for free, visit dropbox.com/dashThe two books Houston mentions are “High Output Management” by Andy Grove and “The Effective Executive” by Peter Drucker~ ~ ~Working Smarter is a new podcast from Dropbox about how AI is changing the way we work and get stuff done.You can listen to more episodes of Working Smarter on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. To read more stories and past interviews, visit workingsmarter.aiThis show would not be possible without the talented team at Cosmic Standard, namely: our producers Samiah Adams and Aja Simpson, technical director Jacob Winik, and executive producer Eliza Smith. Special thanks to Benjy Baptiste for production assistance, our marketing and PR consultant Meggan Ellingboe, and our illustrators, Fanny Luor and Justin Tran. Our theme song was created by Doug Stuart. Working Smarter is hosted by Matthew Braga.

For our sixth episode of Working Smarter we’re talking to Pascal Weinberger, the co-founder and CEO of Bardeen, an AI-powered automation platform. Weinberger wants to help people effortlessly automate repetitive tasks in the apps they already use for work—no code required. His hope is that by removing some of the friction that makes it hard for people to do their jobs, they can use the time they save on more rewarding, impactful work.Hear Weinberger talk about what people are already automating, how automation can benefit teams as much as individuals, and why he doesn't want to build tools that replace us.Show notes:To learn more about Bardeen, visit bardeen.ai~ ~ ~Working Smarter is a new podcast from Dropbox about how AI is changing the way we work and get stuff done.You can listen to more episodes of Working Smarter on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. To read more stories and past interviews, visit workingsmarter.aiThis show would not be possible without the talented team at Cosmic Standard, namely: our producers Samiah Adams and Aja Simpson, technical director Jacob Winik, and executive producer Eliza Smith. Special thanks to Benjy Baptiste for production assistance, our marketing and PR consultant Meggan Ellingboe, and our illustrators, Fanny Luor and Justin Tran. Our theme song was created by Doug Stuart. Working Smarter is hosted by Matthew Braga.Thanks for listening!

Natalie Kupperman discusses using AI and wearables in sports for injury prevention and performance optimization. She emphasizes the importance of data integration, human intervention in data cleaning, and the collaboration between AI and human expertise in athlete health assessment.