What you can do with AI and what AI can do for you

Open your web browser today, and you’ll find at least one piece of news related to artificial intelligence. Whether you work in IT, healthcare, legal, marketing, or any other industry, AI is the most widely discussed topic, and rightly so – its potential is endless. 

Regardless of the industry you are working in, you have almost certainly encountered one AI tool or another (and if you haven’t you are bound to sometime soon), but the question is, are you using it right?  

Are you fully taking advantage of the potential of AI? 
Unfortunately, many people fall into one of 2 categories: they either perceive AI as a sci-fi product that will take over the world and refuse to go anywhere near it, or they use it incorrectly and end up disappointed by its performance simply because they treat it like something that it’s not – they treat it like Google.

So, rather than typing in simple and basic questions, as you would in a search engine, try communicating with it as you would with a person – the more knowledge and information you feed it, the better response you’ll get. Unlike traditional search engines, AI doesn’t fall short when you get specific. On the contrary, that’s when you see its full power.

Here are 5 ways to use AI for performing practical tasks:  

1. Write code.  
You can use AI to write code, regardless of whether you already know how, or not. GPT-3.5 is great for those who already know how to write code, while GPT-4 is an amazing tool for those who have no previous experience. Just by typing in a description of what you want, these tools will give you a step-by-step guide of what you need to do and will literally write the code you need. This doesn't mean it can replace programmers and developers, but it does give them a head start and makes things significantly easier. (Read our article for secure coding before you ask AI for solutions) 

2. Create a marketing strategy.  
First, give the AI tool information on your product or service, or even better, ask it to gather information through deep analysis. Then, give it a role from which to approach the creation of the strategy. For example, tell it to act as a marketing manager. And finally, ask for specific things - like a social media strategy. Give specifics on the product, the role, and the outcome. It can help save time for advertising agencies or marketing managers.  

3. Write.
Chat-GPT can write entire essays on your behalf. But, if you give it a basic topic, it will spit out equally basic and boring answers. So, instead of typing “Write an essay on global warming” type in “Write an essay on the following points: Global warming, Negative side effects of global warming, How to prevent global warming” etc. 

4. Create images.  
Midjourney is an AI tool that is simply amazing when it comes to generating images. By typing in highly detailed prompts where you describe what you want to see, you create entirely new images. AI is also now integrated into Photoshop, so instead of manually changing things, you can type in specific, detailed prompts about the changes you want to make. It will make a significant difference for graphic designers, fashion designers, animators, filmmakers, and anyone in the visual arts industry.  

5. Brainstorming. 
When it comes to generating ideas, AI is the perfect tool. Good ideas are a numbers game – the more you have, the higher the chance to stumble across a great one. Again, you have to be specific, to tell it how many ideas you want and what they should revolve around. For example, type in “Give me 10 ideas for an amazing sports website”. You can ask it to come up with anything – an idea for a new business, a service, an application, and so much more. As we said, not all ideas will be great and groundbreaking, but the more ideas you ask it to generate, the greater the chance for it to come up with a good one – or at least give you inspiration for something you can then add to and work on. Every industry revolves around generating new ideas, so being able to use AI in this capacity is to everyone’s advantage.  

When used properly, AI can multiply and accelerate human effort – it’s not here to replace us. And the best thing about it is that it can take over those tedious tasks that often exhaust us, freeing up our energy and potential to do the things we love with the unique human touch.