In 1995, I had my first brush with artificial intelligence. Long before it became a buzzword, Ai sauntered into my life draped in the guise of Photoshop. The technology was a mere sapling back then, but the seeds had been sown, sparking my imagination and heralding the dawn of a new era. It was like being handed a magic wand that could make people gaze at your creations with awe, as if you’d just pulled off a death-defying trick. In my case, it was putting my brothers face onto a Sea Lion (and printing and sticking the photos in the high school halls) that embarrassed him quite nicely if 25 year recollection still holds true.
Yet, it wasn’t until around 2008 that computers really began to take over my life. I was fortunate to be part of a pioneering team, proselytizing the gospel of big data. We realized that healthcare data, previously scattered like stars in a galaxy, could be funneled into a single database (Hadoop and Cassandra were our best friends). We began using machine learning to predict health outcomes. It was the birth of a brave new world.
However, my passion was not healthcare, but human collaboration. I envisaged a world where smarter computers could help us, simple analog humans, work more effectively together. It was a time when systems were scaling, complexity was increasing and our world was becoming more, well, ‘moreish’. I knew we needed a Ai support tool to guide us through these digital pastures.
Thus, Collaboration.Ai was born. I purchased the domain name from the country of Anguilla when they first started to dip their toes into the domain name waters. People looked at me as if I’d bought a vinyl record in an era of Spotify. Yet, fast forward a decade, enter GPT (Generative Pretrained Transformer), and suddenly everyone’s saying, “Brandon, you were onto something after all.” I just smirk and ask them, “Where were you a decade ago?”
Today, Ai is as essential to my daily routine as my morning cup of coffee. It has allowed me to achieve a work-life balance, a feat previously as elusive as a unicorn. I’m often asked how others should leverage Ai. Rarely do people inquire about how I use it in my day-to-day life – a question that might actually yield some useful insights. So, buckle up and join me on a tour of a day in my Ai-infused life.
5am
My day begins with a nudge from a device on my wrist, devoid of any flashy features – no time, no color, just a simple vibration when I’ve had enough sleep (Whoop). It’s a digital rooster that also takes my temperature, monitors my heart rate, and pretty much tracks every metabolic process. So, I wake up to AI, quite literally.
Next, Spotify plays DJ in the morning, waking my kids up with an algorithmically curated playlist – a heady mix of their likes, my wife’s preferences, and tunes that don’t make the teenage girls in the house want to smash the speakers. It’s the AI version of treading on eggshells.
7:30am emails already
A major chunk of my day is consumed by emails – a universal corporate malaise. Yet, Ai comes to my rescue here too. With multiple email accounts automated to initiate conversations with a variety of individuals, I feel like a digital puppeteer pulling the strings of a vast network. Tools like Sales Forge, Mail Meter, and others are instrumental in enabling this digital orchestra.
9am real time messaging
Real-time communication happens largely on Slack or Teams, and adding Claude into the mix has been game-changing. I foresee a future where Slack is littered with Ai-generated responses, freeing us from the drudgery of repetitive tasks. But right now, having her/him in every slack message helping me makes all the difference.
10am powerpoint you used to say, eh
Moving on, I bid adieu to PowerPoint five years ago. Now, Ai-enabled tools like Beautiful.Ai, and Tome, and are my go-to options. They let me focus on the creative part, while they handle the editorial logistics. It’s like having an invisible team of smart editors and graphic designers at my disposal in real time… for free.
11am we are all still visual – websites and films
As a former filmmaker and web designer, I’m particularly excited about the advancements in Ai in these fields. The day isn’t far when a single person, armed with AI tools, can single-handedly create compelling stories, websites, and even movies. It’s like being both the orchestra and the conductor. My go to services are StoryDoc for websites. Video: Pictory.Ai, Veed.io and Capcut. But I LOVE Midjourney. I even use it to take the crazy images it comes up with to help accelerate my creativity and challenge our team!
12pm taking my digital twin to lunch?
Diving further into AI, having a Large Language Model (LLM) is all the rage these days. Companies are popping up like mushrooms that can turn your documents into an AI-powered chatbot. It’s like having a digital twin, a smarter version of yourself that can recall the past and help you shape the future. Dante is my favorite tool for this.
1pm zoom and teams
While it isn’t Covid anymore, zoom and teams video calls still appear to be a large part of corporate American life. While Whisper from OpenAi might be the best at listening. But Grain is my favorite.
Most importantly is what you do with this output. I frequently go from Grain to StoryDoc in one swoop. So note taking, documentation, synthesis, editing, html, CSS, stable cam video, editing, photo manipulation, post it synthesis and back to Dante- all in a few minutes and delivered to clients in almost real time.
2pm task management
My oh, my. Ai thinks that it is going to save the world with this alone. Truth is, this part is most challenging for people to accept. While we all love Notion and it’s built in Ai – i don’t think they did a very good job – or rather they integrated Open Ai like every other software company on the planet and didn’t rethink task management. Some of my favorites are Hyperwrite and AutoGPT. that are rethinking the way humans use their brains to do all the stuff we shouldn’t really be doing anyways!
5pm writing& thinking
The first rule of thumb here is that if you are NOT talking to any of your Ai friends at least 5 times in a row – back-to-back. In other words, if you ask it for help writing. You must first ask it to help you ask the best way to help “it” to help you write. Then you need to look at X/Twitter for tricks to talk to “it” smarter. Then iterate 5 times. Then you are starting to use Ai and might get value. Oh, and then check Product Hunt or this Google search to find a tool that will directly help you.
Finally, I am exploring ways to use Ai to serve the communities I’m involved in. Be it my kid’s soccer team, my consulting projects, or my global network of friends, I want to unleash the full potential of human connections to solve the world’s hardest problems. I don’t have all the answers yet, but I’m working on some pretty groundbreaking stuff. So, if you’re up for some alpha or beta testing, come join me and let’s see how we can make a bigger impact.
