Sick of AI Hype? Here Are 5 Times It Delivered
I’m not sure about you, but if I read one more article about how AI is going to revolutionize legal research, I might consider a career change tomorrow. Just kidding! But in all seriousness
, for all the concerns I have about legal research and AI, I have found AI helpful for non-legal research tasks. I would love to hear about how you’re utilizing AI in your workplace, especially if you have ethical considerations that prevent you from using ChatGPT.
Here are five ways AI has made my life easier:
- Providing free Excel tutorials. Co-Pilot is amazing at solving complicated Excel formulas, especially for a humanities major like me. I only use Excel when I have to, and as a law firm librarian, it’s a lot! I prompt Co-Pilot with the problem I’m trying to solve in layman’s terms. This is key for me because, within the Excel help features, I feel like you have to know the technical name for the feature you need assistance with. But with Co-Pilot, I can use terms that make sense to me!
- Locating negative news stories. Co-Pilot is great at finding news about a company or person, and while I don’t trust it to be comprehensive or to do archival research, it does a good job of finding negative news stories. Some research vendors provide a filter to sort by negative news, and of course, you can create Boolean searches, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by what Co-Pilot has located.
- Drafting email messages. Co-Pilot within Outlook helps me draft out-of-office messages and other rote tasks.
- Automating reminders. Much like Siri on the iPhone, Co-Pilot can be prompted to set up automatic reminders. I have automatic alerts set up for my time card entries. I also set up daily movement reminders and use Co-Pilot to automate the Pomodoro method when I’m writing.
- Brainstorming. I use Co-Pilot to brainstorm article topics and titles. I’ve read articles about people brainstorming recipes using AI based on what’s currently in their fridge. It seems the uses are endless!
