He continued: “I tried 4 of the best AI productivity tools for a week to make my job easier, but they made my life more difficult,” according to businessinsider.
Many workers are using OpenAI’s ChatGPT to help make their jobs easier as labor experts agree that AI tools can make workers more productive.
and Aaron Mok
From Insider
He tested 4 AI tools for a week to see if they could increase productivity, and this is what he found.
AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT have taken the world by storm – and workers are using them to make their jobs easier.
Many experts agree that AI tools can boost productivity, and people have already used ChatGPT
and other AI tools to create articles, write code, and produce listings of real estate in an effort to save time.
Test some AI productivity tools
I simultaneously tested free versions of two AI tools
Grammarly و Notion.ai
and paid versions of the other two
Brain.fm and Otter.ai for a week to see if the tools would improve the speed and quality of my typing, Notion AI was supposed to make typing easier, it didn’t.
And I decided to try writing Notion AI
– The latest feature of the task management platform – after learning can help workers generate ideas, summarize documents, draft copy, the results have been mixed.
The tool was helpful in crafting emails tailored to my needs. I asked the chatbot to ‘write an email that could persuade the source to speak to me with sympathy and compassion.’ For example, I sent an email that looked professional and sensitive, but most of the emails I wrote were formal. Too much, and I’ll have to spend some time adjusting it.
When I asked the AI to generate a list of story ideas on a given topic, it wasn’t original or surprising, though it did give me some inspiration for potential angles to explore.
My main concern was how the tool generated misinformation: I asked the AI to summarize the main points of an article about a certain company in bullet points – which it did – but two of the bullet points got the name of the company wrong and the rest were ambiguous. It took verification of the response for accuracy longer than reading the article itself.
After some more prompting, I was able to get the idea to create emails, ideas, and article summaries with better results though it takes extra work.
Otter.ai
Virtual meetings
Otter.ai attended virtual meetings on my behalf and exceeded my expectations, some days they are so busy that I don’t have time to attend important meetings, that’s why I decided to try Otter.ai’s transcription tool, which can take notes for me.
Results were great Otter.ai was quick to set up and transcribe everything said during the meeting in real time with relative accuracy It summed up key points in a few bullets with timestamps saved me from reading long transcripts by hand this feature was especially useful for summarizing Notes from long, in-depth brainstorming sessions.
Grammarly is designed to improve writing quality
I tend to make mistakes when I write under tight deadlines, so I downloaded Grammarly, the AI writing assistant
For a second pair of eyes, the browser extension offers suggestions on word choice and sentence structure, checking for plagiarism, creating citations, and reviewing articles.
While Grammarly was great at spotting misspellings and punctuation it did create a lot of inflections, redlines emphasized, words were spelled correctly, features like ‘tone insights’ randomly popped up, and changes to sentences were constantly recommended, all of which crippled Typing flowed, it even slowed down my computer.
Brain.fm
music
Brain.fm offers AI-generated music to help you focus
And focusing on one task can be challenging, especially when working from home, so I decided to try Brain.fm, a tool that uses artificial intelligence to generate music designed for focus, relaxation, and sleep, and it didn’t disappoint.
I chose a range of music options like electronic and atmospheric—genres the company rates as ideal for ‘deep work’—and it was exactly what my brain needed to transition into a fast, focused state of mind.
Brain.fm was especially useful when I lacked motivation to complete tasks by rote like answering emails. Unlike Spotify study playlists, Brain.fm music is designed to help users focus by a team of scientists and composers.
While some genres like ‘grooves’ didn’t work for me, Brain.fm did
Easy to use and effective in giving me the boost I needed.
It got to me that AI tools wouldn’t do your job, but they could make it easier if you took the time to learn how to use them. After playing with these tools for a week, I realized there was a learning curve. As a worker still writing to-do lists by hand, it was learning how to use them. Tools are a matter of trial and error, figuring out how to tweak the prompts to achieve the best results, and how to troubleshoot, required extra time I would have spent eliminating more pressing tasks.
Making changes to your daily work routine is a skill that takes practice. I probably would have found these tools more useful if I had used them longer, but I personally don’t have the patience to change my work processes for the sake of automation. Your best bet might be to try a tool or two. Simultaneously getting used to it and then adding new tools for more advanced tasks For me, a robot can’t do my job – at least not yet.
