Finding AI use cases: One helpful framework to try

A couple weeks ago, we covered what knowledge workers do. This included one approach to help business owners reframe how they think about their work. This week, let’s look at what AI can do. …

Starting with the disclaimer that there isn't consensus on what generative AI is ultimately capable of. Users are still pushing the limits of its capabilities and developing best practices, exploring everything from prompt style to good manners.

But let's focus on how you can best apply GenAI to your business today. And stick around to the end for two dozen GenAI use cases that apply to (nearly) any business professional. ⤵️

What can AI do?

To answer this, I first evaluated Randall Pine’s prompt library of 50+ prompts and plotted the most common use cases.

‍

Next, I looked at some of the top minds in AI and business, to see what they have to say about GenAI use cases.  

Marketing AI Institute poses three questions for identifying good use cases in your organization: 

• Is it data-driven?
• Is it repetitive?
• Is it making a prediction? 

Trust Insights defines the six categories of GenAI use cases as: 

• Generation
• Extraction
• Summarization
• Rewriting
• Classification
• Question Answering

Gartner mentions content creation and revision, summarization, simplification, question answering, and software coding. IBM includes code generation, personalization, video generation, and so on.

Still others focus on modalities — in other words, text generation, image generation, video generation, etc. 

I plotted these onto our Knowledge Work Matrix to see where they fell:

Over and over, the same kinds of tasks were preferred for GenAI. Things like: 

• Research (find, survey, curate, source): To find or collect data on a topic.
• Analyze (interpret, summarize, classify, simplify): To interpret or find patterns in data. 
• Decide (evaluate, judge, select): To make a choice or recommendation based on data. 
• Innovate (brainstorm, ideate, remix): To combine or reimagine ideas in a new way.
• Create (write, code, design, generate, personalize): To make something new — whether text, audio, video, image, or code. 

One helpful framework to spot AI use cases

Currently, the most popular GenAI use cases seem to be structured tasks and processing tasks.

Let’s revisit what these tasks have in common. 

• Structured tasks: Involves a more formulaic sequence of events that can be replicated. 
• Processing tasks: Centers around interpreting, manipulating, or altering [existing] data.

In other words, structured tasks are defined by a controlled order of operations. Users retain some level of oversight by outlining a straightforward or step-by-step assignment for AI to perform. 

Processing tasks are defined by controlled inputs and outputs. Users retain some level of oversight through the data they include in the prompt, and what action they take based on the AI’s response. 

AI + you: Finishing each other’s … sandwiches* 🥪

Microsoft’s New Future of Work Report cites Advait Sarkar’s idea of a critical integration “sandwich.” In the future, GenAI outputs may be “sandwiched” by the worker using it. Something like this:

‍

In this scenario, the human user remains a critical part of the process — providing direction and guidance, and inserting their own knowledge and experience to produce a high-quality outcome. 

The role of the business professional shifts from doing a task to overseeing a task — essentially becoming the manager and editor of AI.   

*If you know the reference, we should be friends. 🥪

…Who cares? (What it all means) 

So how does this help you today? There are a few takeaways: 

1. GenAI can assist with most knowledge work — improving the productivity, efficiency, and/or work quality of a task or part of a task. 

2. Business professionals need to remain in the loop, and their unique systems, processes, guidelines, experience, and judgment are all important to safeguard the quality of AI-assisted work. 

3. Experts seem to agree that GenAI is particularly helpful for Research, Analyze, Decide, Innovate, and Create tasks. Businesses should look for ways to use GenAI to assist with these tasks. 

4. GenAI may be more effective (right now) at structured tasks (ordered or predictable steps) and processing tasks (interpreting, manipulating, or altering data). Remember that data might be in any format — numbers, text, or visuals. 

For example, here are some ways that nearly any business professional could use GenAI in their daily work, regardless of industry or role.  

Research

• Gather best practices: Compile a list of industry-wide best practices and guidelines relevant to a current project or initiative.
• Curate industry news: Automatically gather and compile the most relevant news articles and trends within your specific industry.
• Source options: Identify potential suppliers, vendors, or partners based on specific criteria such as cost, quality, and reliability. 
• Survey market trends: Report on market trends, consumer behavior, and technological advancements within your sector.

Analyze

• Identify trends in data: Use AI to quickly identify and explain trends within large datasets, regardless of the data type.
• Summarize research papers: Quickly understand the gist of academic or technical papers relevant to your work.
• Compile feedback: Aggregate and categorize reviews or feedback to identify common themes or issues.
• Simplify complex regulations: Break down complex legal or regulatory documents into easy-to-understand summaries.
• Summarize key findings: Automatically summarize the key points from a collection of documents, articles, or data sets.
• Compare document contents: Automatically compare and contrast the content of multiple documents to identify differences or similarities.
• Break down complex concepts: Simplify technical or complex concepts into easy-to-understand summaries.

Decide

• Select optimal strategies: Evaluate multiple business strategies to recommend the most effective one based on data-driven insights.
• Judge past projects or campaigns: Recommend which campaigns to replicate or scale based on past performance.
• Prioritize tasks: Use AI to prioritize daily tasks and assignments based on deadlines, importance, and available resources.
• Recommend process improvements: Suggest ways to improve workflows or processes based on analysis of current practices.
• Select key points for discussion: Identify and select the most important points for discussion in a meeting or report.
• Advise on meeting agendas: Recommend agenda items for meetings based on outstanding tasks, project status, and team feedback.

Innovate

• Brainstorm ideas: Generate new ideas for content, projects, or strategies.
• Remix existing content: Repurpose and transform existing content into new formats for different platforms or audiences.
• Generate brainstorming prompts: Provide creative prompts to facilitate brainstorming sessions on various topics or challenges.
• Suggest alternative approaches: Offer alternative methods or approaches to solve problems or tackle projects.
• Encourage cross-disciplinary ideas: Merge concepts from different fields or disciplines to foster innovative solutions.

Create

• Write reports: Automatically draft reports, memos, or presentations based on outlined data and objectives.
• Generate personalized content: Produce personalized emails, recommendations, or content for individual customers or segments.
• Develop training materials: Automatically generate training guides, tutorials, or e-learning content tailored to specific roles or skills.
• Draft communication templates: Produce templates for common communications, such as emails, letters, or reports, to save time.
• Prepare presentation outlines: Automatically generate outlines for presentations based on provided topics or objectives.
• Create meeting summaries: Summarize the key points and action items from meetings for distribution to attendees and stakeholders.

Now, whether or not these tasks should be done by AI is another question altogether — one that we’ll unpack more in the next email. 

Meanwhile…

• GenAI excels when given structured tasks and processes. Consider how this could streamline your current operations, or help you build better systems.
• Processing tasks are where we make sense of, evaluate, consider, or compare ideas before taking action. Think about ways that you could use AI to enhance — not outsource — your critical thinking.

Question(s) to consider: 

In which ways could having an AI "co-pilot" improve your work?

‍

You're Reading a Preview. Want More?

Welcome! This is a preview of our newsletter. Join dozens of marketing and business leaders as we explore frameworks, templates, and advice to navigate the challenges that come with growth. Sign up to receive new insights every other week.

Bonus: Brainstorm use case ideas with this prompt

Want to brainstorm even more ideas? Here's the exact prompt I used (ChatGPT Plus / GPT-4) to generate a list of use cases:

{{ Assume you are a typical business professional — a knowledge worker. You're trying to brainstorm generative AI use cases that are relevant to your job. [The specifics of your industry, company, and position don't matter — you read and respond to emails, attend meetings, complete assignments, etc.]

You learn that generative AI can help you improve the efficiency or productivity of some of your work. In particular, tasks relating to:

- Research (find, survey, curate, source): To find or collect data on a topic.
- Analyze (interpret, summarize, classify, simplify): To interpret or find patterns in data.
- Decide (evaluate, judge, select): To make a choice or recommendation based on data.
- Innovate (brainstorm, ideate, remix): To combine or reimagine ideas in a new way.
- Create (write, code, design, generate, personalize): To make something new — whether text, audio, video, image, or code.

(Note: That’s "data" in the broadest sense — information of any kind, whether it's words, numbers, or images.)

Brainstorm a list of 25 potential AI use cases. You should come up with use cases for each of the 5 task categories listed above. Each use case should be brief and start with a verb; for example, "Build a project plan" or "Summarize this data." }}

Tip: Use the above prompt but add a few specifics of your role, job responsibilities, or common assignments in place of the [bracketed] section.

‍

*Content originality note: This newsletter was written by Taylor Radey. The list of AI use cases was generated by GPT-4, then curated and edited.