5 Ways We Used AI for Work Last Week

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a monthly series. Read the other articles here.

AI continues to streamline our workflows and solve everyday business puzzles. Here's how our team tapped into ChatGPT last week to save time, avoid frustration, and simplify tasks – plus experience a few laughs along the way!

1. Create or update an Excel drop-down list

Type: Access a useful, seldom-used Excel Feature. (From: QuickBooks ProAdvisor, COO, and CEO)

Example: We keep an internal log of how we use ChatGPT in our company. I reviewed our log when I noticed multiple recent references to Excel drop-down lists. Surprise! Four separate entries appeared, all from different team members over several months, seeking help with this slightly tricky Excel feature. It started to feel like we had a secret 'Excel Drop-down Support Group.'

Result & Reflection: Everyone quickly found the exact answers they needed—no waiting, no interruptions, and no extra requests to teammates. Rather than creating personal reference sheets, we've learned that turning to ChatGPT on a “just-in-time” basis works great.

Estimated Time Savings: Each team member saved 15–20 minutes per instance (4 instances x 15 minutes = 1 hour total). Multiply that by each typical Excel query, and the time adds up!

2. Summarize ChatGPT results

Type: Tracking and quickly recapping AI chat requests and results. (From: COO)

Example: Our team members regularly share recaps of their ChatGPT usage. These summaries help us discover new AI possibilities. However, creating those recaps takes time: reviewing the request, summarizing the outcome, and recording the time saved.

To speed this up, our COO now asks ChatGPT directly for a two-sentence recap along with an estimated time saved, making her entries much quicker.

Note: To keep things organized, she typically starts a new chat for each new request (unless it's clearly a follow-up)..

Result & Reflection: Although she doesn't need ChatGPT's reflections, these AI-generated summaries help her quickly identify key points. It's become her speedy sidekick for her regular recaps!

Estimated Time Savings: 1.0-1.25 hours per week (depending on the number of summaries entered).

3. Social media (LinkedIn) messaging guidance

Type: Determining restrictions for LinkedIn messaging (From: Virtual Assistant)

Example: We asked our Virtual Assistant (VA) to send personalized invitations for a LinkedIn event using LinkedIn Messages. She was concerned that sending too many messages might trigger LinkedIn's spam filters, so she turned to ChatGPT for guidance.

Result & Reflection: ChatGPT quickly provided valuable insights into LinkedIn’s messaging limits and offered smart strategies, such as staggering messages, personalizing content, and leveraging other LinkedIn features. Because of this guidance, we stayed compliant – and avoided the dreaded 'LinkedIn jail!

Estimated Time Savings: 1.0 to 1.5 hours (and many more hours if we had unintentionally broken LinkedIn’s policies).

4. Use ChatGPT for transcripts and summaries

Type: Using ChatGPT when another software hits a snag (From: Level 2 ProAdvisor)

Example: Our team regularly relies on Fathom.AI (a handy tool that generates automatic meeting summaries). But recently, Fathom decided to take an unexpected day off and failed to record several important meetings.

Result & Reflection: Initially overwhelmed by the thought of summarizing manually, our ProAdvisor turned to AI assistance. However, ChatGPT initially rejected the overly long transcript. Undeterred, she broke the transcript into smaller chunks, enabling ChatGPT to deliver concise summaries smoothly.

With ChatGPT’s help, summarizing meetings felt like having a reliable assistant. (LOL, minus the coffee breaks!) The summaries took only about 15 minutes to produce.

Estimated Time Savings: 3 hours.

5. Use “Projects” to organize your chats

Type: Want to take this further? Try ChatGPT’s “Projects” feature! (From: CEO [article author])

Example: I use ChatGPT multiple times daily. As my list of chats grew, organizing them began feeling like herding digital cats – wild, chaotic, and frustrating. I experimented with various solutions:

Using CTRL+F in Chrome to locate keywords in the sidebar.
Using the built-in Search feature at the top of ChatGPT.
Creative naming tricks to easily spot chats.
Copy and paste results into a Word document for future use (“Now which folder should I use?”).
Copying URLs into a spreadsheet (“Yikes! another spreadsheet?”).

Then, thankfully, along came the 'Projects' feature.

Result & Reflection: 'Projects' turned my chaotic chats into an organized library – calm, categorized, and easily accessible. I set up Project folders for common themes, making AI-generated content easily reusable.

Be sure to use ChatGPT to learn more about Projects. You’ll love the results…

Estimated Time Savings: At least an hour per month, not including the peace of mind from quicker searches!

As you can see, ChatGPT continues to prove itself an invaluable team member – one who never calls in sick, asks for a raise, objects to working 24/7, or takes a day off.

Hopefully, these examples inspire you to discover new ways AI can simplify your daily tasks. Remember, the next time you're stuck, think 'AI first.' You might be surprised by how quickly you can go from frustration to celebration!