Creative Ways to Use AI at Work

How to use AI at to Work Smarter, Stress Less, and Actually Take Your Lunch Break

Photo by julien Tromeur on Unsplash

It still baffles me how many professionals don’t use AI tools in their day-to-day jobs to solve complex or repetitive tasks or simply for efficiency’s sake.

A few weeks ago, I posted a note on Substack about a work colleague who was fuming about a task we had been given  — matching old and new healthcare pricing for 30–50 clients based on age and gender.

“I’m not spending 3 hours on this!” she said.

I told her calmly: “Relax, you can do it in 5 minutes with ChatGPT.”

She looked at me like I had grown two heads.

I downloaded a report from the platform we work with, with the ages and genders of the employees (a few hundred of them). I removed their names or any personal identification data as it would not be GDPR compliant.

Then I uploaded the file with the employee’s age and gender and added a second file with the old healthcare prices and new healthcare prices.

I ran a simple prompt, and boom — done in 2 minutes.

My colleague’s jaw dropped to the floor: “I did not know you could use Chat GPT for this. I thought it was merely for drafting or polishing emails.”

The AI knowledge gap is real

It seems AI awareness is far from universal.

It’s easy to assume that everyone is on board the AI train, automating workflows, speeding up research, and reducing tedious tasks. The reality is many professionals are still unaware of the extent of AI’s capabilities — or worse, afraid to use it.

For example, a colleague and I were recently tasked with creating a complex payroll calendar for a client — covering the rest of the year and beyond, with dozens of events that trigger different actions. I told her not to worry; we could knock it out in minutes using ChatGPT.

And I am not joking or inventing this now. She looked at me and said, “Chat G-what?”

So, for those of you teaching AI adoption, writing AI newsletters, or simply spreading the word — keep going. There’s still a lot of catching up to do.

AI at Work: More Than Just Drafting or Polishing Emails

I am not an AI expert. What I have learned was simply through experimentation, reading certain Substack publications or watching YouTube videos.

Below you can find some creative ways I use AI at work to be more efficient at work.

1. Summarising long documents

This might seem obvious to many of you, but I was surprised to find many people who were not aware of this.

You can use Chat-GPT to generate quick summaries of reports, research papers, or meeting notes so you can get the gist without reading every line.

Now, I would advise caution on what sorts of documents/information you add there, to prevent leaking sensitive company data or personal data.

I usually add things related to new legislations in regard to payroll that are usually from public sources, which I then turn into bit-sized newsletters for our audience. Or I add long process documents and ask for a bite-sized summary.

2. Reverse-engineer calculations

Due to the fact I work with many payroll partners all over the globe, sometimes clients want to understand how a certain item got calculated. The problem is I cannot get a straight answer as our payroll partners say it’s been calculated by software and therefore cannot give us a calculation formula.

AI can help break down or verify payroll numbers by reverse-engineering salary components — like calculating gross pay from the net, factoring in taxes, benefits, bonuses, or local deductions.

Super helpful for HR, finance, or global teams navigating multi-country payrolls and any other types of calculations.

I recommend one particular GPT called Wolfram, which delivers powerful computation and deep coverage from chemistry to geography, astronomy to popular culture, and nutrition to engineering, to name but a few.

Even though it’s not a specialised payroll software, I use Wolfram for:

• Custom payroll calculations for clients with unique compensation structures.

• Tax calculations, including progressive tax brackets, deductions, etc.

• Time-based calculations like overtime pay, prorated salaries, and unpaid leave balances.

• Scenario modeling (e.g., comparing net pay under different tax schemes or salary adjustments).

3. Match & analyse data points

As I work with countless Excel sheets on health insurance, life insurance and other employer/employee contributions, I use AI to upload datasets or spreadsheets and ask AI to:

• Spot inconsistencies

• Match entries across sheets

• Pull insights

• Generate pivot tables

Again, I need to stress the importance of not adding any personal identifiable data (PII) into your prompts and make sure the files you import do not have any sensitive data, as it can lead to a GDPR breach. The best approach is to remove any personal data and only keep the numbers.

4. Use AI for presentations. R.I.P PowerPoint

Creating a slick, visually engaging PowerPoint can take hours.
Choosing a template. Aligning shapes. Writing bullet points. Animating text. Choosing the right color codes for brand colours.

Meanwhile, AI tools can generate dynamic presentations, interactive dashboards, or even personalised summaries in seconds.

The manual effort PowerPoint demands just doesn’t make sense anymore, considering the speed and efficiency of AI tools. You simply import a document or write a prompt, and boom, you have your slide magic.

Here are some of the tools you can use:

• Gamma App — My favourite feature is the fact that it can support multiple tones of voice such as formal, instructional, and humorous to adapt to different scenarios. Another thing I like about it is the ability to generate pressentation in up to 43 languages, making it perfect for businesses that have a global audience.

• Decktopus AI — What I love about this tool is their AI Coach feature, which can give you tips, and tricks for your delivery.

• Beautiful AI — if you want one tool that gives you the ability to use smart templates and embed your brand colors, font, and logo, look no further. You can also unlock millions of modern images and icons that reflect your brand guidelines.

Asking fellow writers how they use AI at work

I’ve shared a few ways I use AI to boost my productivity, but I’m always curious to learn from others.

How are people using AI to work smarter, not harder?

To find out, I reached out to fellow writers on Typeshare and Substack to hear how they’re integrating AI into their daily work.

Phil Thomas

“As a Technical PM, I use ChatGPT as my brainstorming partner-in-crime at work.

When I’m tackling a new issue or project, I usually start by brain-dumping ideas into a Google Doc — outlining the problem, goals, inputs, desired outcomes, and possible solutions. From there, I use ChatGPT to help me think through edge cases and refine my ideas.

Once I’m in a solid place, I feed the doc back into ChatGPT to help tighten it up — making everything clear, concise, and ready to share with my team.

It’s a simple but powerful hack for solving complex problems and communicating more effectively.”

Danielle Griffin

“Since a big part of what we do is offer tips and training on AI tools, I use various AI tools a lot.

The newest things I tried this week were in Google Labs with MusicFX DJ, Whisk, and ImageFX.

ChatGPT’s new image generator is pretty amazing. I still use the old one for creating graphics for some of my social media posts, but will be playing with the new version to see what that looks like.

I use Gemini, Perplexity, and ChatGPT to help with brainstorming for various projects and writing. I have created a bunch of custom GPTs in ChatGPT to help create templates for certain writings that I do over and over.

I use tools like Zapier to connect various apps and automate processes.

I have used Tasks in ChatGPT to find and summarize the top new stories each day on a certain topic.

NotebookLM is amazing at reviewing vast amounts of your own data sources and helping it pull things together (can even create podcasts from it).”

Christopher Lind

“I’ve got a pretty extensive list of where it comes into play, but one of the biggest ones is a thought partner.

While I maintain my human connections to bounce ideas around, AI is fantastic when I have something in my head that I need to flesh out further but don’t want to bore or confuse someone with the madness in my head.

I can tell it what I’m trying to accomplish and that I need it to help me put some structure around it as well as challenge my thinking.

It ends up being an extremely productive dialogue that not only helps me organise my thoughts in a way that’s more digestible before bringing someone else in, but I can refine it and see around corners I would have otherwise missed.”

Jaeson Nazareth

“I use AI mainly to write emails. To summarise complex topics in 100 words or less.

Secondly to draft minutes of the meeting so that no points are missed. Microsoft copilot is really useful here.

Thirdly to make presentations.”

Nile Gomez

“I use AI for idea validation, SEO blog outlines, and ghostwriting first drafts—it’s like having a tireless creative partner.”

Your turn now

AI is no longer just a futuristic buzzword — it’s a practical tool many of us are already using to solve complex problems, automate repetitive tasks, and level up our productivity.

Whether it’s drafting content, building workflows, or generating insights, the possibilities are only growing.

So, how are you using AI at work? I’d love to hear your experiences and tips — let’s keep learning from each other.