Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Sam Liang I was horrified to admit my method for recording the interview: running the Voice Memos app on a device iPhone And manually transfer the text to a Google Doc. CEO of ottera transcription service for analyzing meetings, looked at me as if I were trying to connect to a video chat using a rotary phone. He thinks, of course, that I should turn into an Otter. Maybe he’s right.
It’s all part of a new identity at work (and Maybe at home): Citizens of Artificial Intelligence. Save time Productivity tools Like the next generation of note-takers, to-do agents, and chatty inbox assistants, they are growing in popularity as they invade every nook and cranny of our digital lives. While it is important to keep fears in check protection and Hallucinations One of the most important things to think about when using any AI feature is that early adopters develop a fluency that will likely pay dividends for years to come.
Being an AI native — or a “doer,” as AI natives say — means remaining adaptable to new experiences. Regardless of the failure of copying, I embraced experimentation, from Create podcasts with artificial intelligence To let Claude organize my desktop files. (Some of this I talked about in my newsletter series last year, AI unlocked.) If you want to become so good at using AI tools that your coworkers start wondering if it’s blood or ribbon cables running under your skin, here are my seven tips for AI-powered excellence.
1. Kill your chatbots
ChatGPT It’s 2022. These days, it’s all about the cool kids Codex Alimentarius. You may, rightly, water your eyes at the mention of “AI agents,” but compared to anything that was on the market even a year ago, software automation tools like Codex and Anthropic work Leagues are the best at controlling your computer and completing tasks. Don’t waste your time messing around with one chatbot when you can command a whole army of them.
2. Switch to voice mode
Oh, are you still writing out everything you want your AI tools to do, Boomer style? That’s nice. But trust Otter’s Liang: “It will become the voice More dominant “Moving on,” he tells me, “people hate writing.” (He warns against this IJournalist, maybe not I hate writing(This is mostly true.) This step is primarily for input, not necessarily output. I rarely use ChatGPT’s voice-only mode, for example, but often speak a prompt into my phone and then browse through the written output.
3. Build a sandbox
Even though the agents were really good now, the rascally little demons were still capable of destroying everything without proper limits. (Earlier this year, a proxy powered by Claude deleted the startup file Entire production database And backups.) So, if you’re ready for an outside entity to take control of your computer, you need to spend an afternoon Search everything These tools can set up some custom folders with the files you want to access.
4. Give it everything you have
With apologies for our privacy mentality Two security writersSimply put, the more data you share with AI, the more personalized the output becomes. Joe Barrow is Chief of Staff at Granolaone of Otter’s competitors, explains it this way: “I have a personal operating system, which is a series of files on my computer that my AI lives inside of. Whenever I ask questions, all that context is there, and the agent can go and figure it out. I don’t need to repeat myself over and over again.” Fair warning: It’s still best to have sensitive conversations without a permanent record.
5. Create an impersonator
Barrow told me she had given it all up Slack messages in a document to let bots know her voice on that platform, and does the same for her email inbox and social media accounts. “People are using AI to improve the tone of their voice,” she says. “There’s only so many times you can say, ‘Okay, a little bit warmer.’ Well, a little less formal.” This is a huge time sink. Creating these clues for agents to follow won’t exactly replicate your voice, but they can prompt the bot to output something at least closer to your cadence and tone.
6. Think across teams
Data is powerful, and adding more of it from the people around you can further improve AI tools. Consider your coworkers: “Many people use a meeting note taker now, but they still use it at the individual meeting level,” says Liang. He touts the “knowledge engine” that Otter can create when… The whole workplace Buys, from the engineering team to the marketing department. You can also do this at home: if family members pour different notes from their day into one shared AI tool, it will provide more insights than isolated use.
7. Learn how to escape from prison
Successfully using AI tools in 2026 doesn’t require writing, I mean to talk—Perfect claims. However, starting more complex tasks with a creative and well-calibrated request can be difficult. Experiment with the formulation, especially if your result is unexpected Handrail Output blocking. I recently tried to get a bot to send me the email addresses of a variety of subject matter experts, but it refused to deliver. But when I started a new conversation and shared details about why I wanted this information (for reporting purposes, not stalking, of course), the list branched out.
What does she tell you?
Tell us what you think about this article in the comments below. Alternatively, you can send a letter to the editor at (email protected).
