It’s inevitable. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a part of all of our lives now (whether we realize it or not.)

There’s often talk about the concern of AI causing job insecurity and whether it will displace people as the experts of their industry. I don’t think those fears are unfounded, but I do think that there are ways we can push back against that becoming true.

For one, we need to embrace AI as a real part of this digital age. As far as I can tell, it’s not going anywhere, so we can’t simply ignore it or pretend it doesn’t exist. We can, however, learn to harness its power and ensure that we remain a trusted voice and source of knowledge in our careers.

Treating AI as yet another useful tool (instead of a foe who wants to steal your job) could actually give you a competitive edge. Below, I’m sharing 5 ways that I’ve used AI for my business, which will hopefully inspire you to give it a try if you haven’t already and look at AI as an efficient assistant for your work.

Brainstorming Ideas

Let’s say you’re trying to come up with a new product set of digital goods that you can sell online, but maybe you get stuck after a few ideas. Pop open chatGPT and ask it for ideas based on your industry, your expertise, and your target customer. Not every idea on its lists will be something you want to execute, but now you have a starting point and might come up with even more ideas that you hadn’t thought of before.

Copy Writing

If you have a lot of copy writing to do (email templates, auto responses, a marketing campaign, etc.) use chatGPT to help you write your first drafts. You will always (and I can’t emphasize this enough) want to go through and make further edits as well as tailor the copy to your specific brand voice, but using chatGPT as a launching point will cut down a lot of the initial work for you.

Social Media Strategy

Coming up with what to post on social media is that never-ending task that we all must do. If you’ve hit a wall and just can’t think of anything creative to post this week, try giving chatGPT some info about your business and products and have it come up with some post ideas. You can even ask it for industry insights and which strategies perform best for your niche.

Chat Marketing

If you’ve noticed that you get tons of inquiry emails and messages from customers asking the same questions about your products/services, you might consider putting a chat bot on your website. Chat bots will interface with your customers in real time and you can pre-load the most commonly asked questions and issue into their database, potentially saving you tons of time and avoiding responding to the same emails over and over again.

You also might consider using chat marketing on your social media channels. I use ManyChat on Instagram, which automates responses based off of a trigger word. It can be an effective tool to drive traffic somewhere off of Instagram and facilitate sales.

Generative Fill

There is a new feature on several design platforms like Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and even Canva that uses AI to intelligently enhance a design or scene based on a provided description. For example, I might have a photo that would look better with a cat in it (duh) and I could type in “cat curled up sleeping” and generative fill would provide several options for me to choose from before adding it into the photo. You can use generative fill for all kinds of things — landscapes, altering someone’s outfit, coming up with design comps etc. It’s a powerful tool, but it’s not perfect. It requires some tweaking and altering for the final image to look truly polished and convincing, but it can be a helpful way to mock up a bunch of options at once to see which look is the right direction for a potential project.

Disclaimer: Ways I would NOT use AI for my business

I think such a powerful tool comes with a lot of responsibility and it should be used wisely. For example, I would not take credit for a design that was created solely from AI. I might use AI as a starting place, but it’s important to always put your own creative spin on the work so that what you’re producing is truly unique.

I would also not use AI for work that I’m claiming is proprietary. For example, I wouldn’t use AI to generate a logo for a client who’s paying me to create a custom brand for them. Again, I might use AI to brainstorm or to try out several different looks quickly, but the final result needs to be something that is original. If not, you pose the risk of losing your creative integrity and trust you’ve built with clients.

Overall, I know there’s a lot of nuance to using AI for creative endeavors and people will likely having a range of opinions on it. Feel free to leave a comment or question below if you’d like to add to the conversation!