For many the very thought of AI leaves them shuddering, not least because, for the many, it represents a great unknown. Worse, because it’s a great unknown of shifting sands, just when you thought you knew your Alexa from your Siri, and Chat from Claude you realise you don’t because it’s all moved on a few paces and one’s tenuous grasp on the few facts you were sure of have become yesterday’s news.
The temptation is either to keep well away in a kind of King Canute type response, or to try and keep up by reading the daily AI newsletters that turn up on one’s emails, the trouble with this being that one might now be au fait with what version Canva is on but not have an idea of how to engage it. Here’s how we see it:
AI is unavoidable. It’s here to stay and it will change our lives in the same way as the transistor and internet have. Used cleverly it can, for instance, dramatically improve workflow efficiency by automating routine admin tasks, it can manage document flow and data processing, and it can give meeting support, as those of you who use Zoom can attest to. The art is to know exactly what you want to achieve, which AI platform will be the most applicable and exactly how to word the prompt, the instruction you give, so let’s look at the three areas of office activity mentioned above:
Automating Administrative Tasks
AI assistants such as Motion, Clockwise, and Microsoft Copilot can automate scheduling, task planning, and calendar management. Which is all very well, but what next? You’re probably already using Outlook or Google Calendar, and you can connect any one of thee AI assistants to them and then configure them for meeting times, task priorities and the like…the point being that the assistant will automatically schedule meetings, adjust calendars and organise workloads without manual coordination, depending on what you’ve instructed it to do.
How about intelligent document processing? Try UiPath, Docparser or Rossum. These can scan invoices, forms, and reports to extract and organise data. Again, you’re probably already using Google Drive or SharePoint so you can integrate your AI assistant of choice and then train it by uploading sample documents, telling it to recognise invoice numbers or/and totals and dates. Once you’ve done the initial setting up you can leave your new friend to accept incoming documents, process them and enter them onto spreadsheets or accounting systems.
We also mentioned meeting support and here you may choose to have a look at Otter.ai or Fireflies.ai. If you’re using Zoom, Teams or Meet, it’s simple to connect your assistant of choice so it joins meetings, transcribes discussions and distributes summaries to participants immediately afterwards.
And so it goes on. The truth is that, when introduced gradually—starting with one or two tools—AI can quickly remove repetitive work from an employee’s daily routine. Rather than replacing staff, these systems can act as productivity partners that help free up time for creative thinking, strategic planning, and collaboration. The trick, if a trick it is, with all of these assistants is to input the most articulate and exact description of what exactly you want it to do…and here’s our top tip for a great prompt:
"I want to [your goal]. Write me the perfect prompt to get the best possible answer from you. Include role, context, format, and constraints."
Remember too that AI will only work for you if you work for it, and you can do that by making sure you’ve got the best possible, most reliable and fastest broadband available to you, and that’s where TP Tele comes it, so give us a call!
