3 Things AI

Issue #1: 2025 - Week 52

Like a lot of you I’ve been using ChatGPT or similar tools for various questions and tasks and inquiries. I figured I’d start capturing three things I did that were new or interesting each week using AI tools and share them. And I don’t use AI to write these. If you enjoy reading subscribe to the newsletter! And please send me your favorites! Once a month I’ll pick reader suggestions and share out a bonus newsletter.

I wanted to increase focus and energy so I figured I’d try a Keto diet. But there’s many opinions and perspectives on the internet with (surprise) no right way to do keto. So I started a new project in ChatGPT and told it to provide answers and opinions always from the perspective of one source: Dr. Boz (not endorsing her or claiming she’s the best source of info but her approach seemed smart and I just had to choose one).

So on the left sidebar I selected “New Project” and named it “Dr. Boz Keto.” Then I told it to only answer my questions and/or provide opinions in this project through the lens of Dr. Boz. I explicitly told it not to channel Dr. Boz for any questions outside of this project unless specifically asked. That helps me avoid having my entire GPT tool be taken over by keto advice which would be annoying.

It’s working great so far - I can drill it with big or little questions and I get the answers I need. It hasn’t spilled over into my regular GPT responses so it’s following the instructions. And I’ve been in keto for a few weeks and feel great! You can use the Project feature for similar initiatives from job-specific stuff or hobbies or interests or even celebrities (e.g. gardening, cooking, woodworking, cross country skiing, using excel, doing stand up comedy, etc.).

Impt note: The Project feature is only available in the paid version ($20/mo). However you can do the same thing in the free version just name and return to one big thread/conversation. Give it the same instructions and keep coming back to it and it will act the same way!

If you haven’t tried this yet then do it now (or right after you finish reading this newsletter)! In the bottom right corner of the app hit the black button with four lines in it. You can talk to it while walking, making dinner, driving - whenever the time is right for you. It answers in a pretty believable (though still obviously AI) manner and you can customize the voice to get the tone or gender or accent etc that you want. The responses are still transcribed so you can read and refer back to them later. It really allows you to ask big questions and iterate on ideas without the limitations of typing.

I think this will be much more the norm in the near future and I really encourage everyone give it a try. The AI tools are advancing so quickly that they can really do better when you are more descriptive and most people can vocalize their visions and thoughts way better talking (especially to themselves!!) than typing. Let me know how it goes!

This one might be obvious at this point - at least for those who have to be on a lot of virtual meetings (Zoom, Teams, etc.) at work. But it really is one of the lowest hanging fruit uses for free AI tools and if you haven’t used it yet I would recommend you try it soon!

There are multiple ways to use this but I’ll cover a few: using transcripts from virtual meetings, using your own notes from meetings, and using the voice feature (see #2 above) after a meeting with no notes.

Using transcripts: If you participate in a virtual meeting using Microsoft Teams, or Zoom or probably any of the current meeting tools, there is usually an option to turn on a transcription. Only the organizer can turn this on, attendees get a notification that the meeting is being transcribed, and then after the meeting the organizer can download the transcript as a Word doc. There’s probably many ways to do this but what I do is: (a) download the transcript, (b) upload (you can select a file or just drag the file. You can also copy/paste) into the GPT prompt area, and (c) tell the AI to “summarize the meeting notes and action items.”

You can add as much instructions as you’d like and the trick is to keep asking it to improve the output until it’s the way you want it. More description is better. For example, you can say only do bullets, group by main points from each attendee, tighten it up, give me more/less detail, put the action items on top, and on and on. Remember, it’s a bot, you won’t hurt it’s feelings by telling it what it got wrong! And over time it will start giving you notes in a format that you most prefer.

One word of caution: The transcripts themselves are full of errors (though are getting better) so you have to review your notes to remove and fix mistakes. Also, some of us learn or remember best when we write, so if you outsource the notes to the AI, you might not actually remember some of the details.

Using your own meeting notes: If you wrote notes either by hand or on your computer, you can copy/paste/upload these notes into the GPT prompt just like above and ask it for the same kinds of summaries. You can also take a picture of hand written notes and upload that. Since your notes will be less detailed than a transcript, there is less for the AI to build on but you’d be amazed by how much context it can infer, especially as it learns your work and your style of notetaking.

Using the voice feature: Say you do sales or are a real estate agent, for example, You have a great in-person meeting with a potential client and it’s all smiles and hugs, and then you walk out of the room, get in your car and drive back to the office or hustle to pick up your kid who’s the last one to be picked up at the after school program. Rather than risk forgetting some of the key points, start talking to the ChatGPT prompt, and don’t worry about babbling. The more you give it the better the notes will be. You can just blab away while driving or walking and then ask it to summarize notes and action items. Amazing!

Well that’s a wrap on the first newsletter. Send me feedback or comments and your own AI tricks and tips and hacks. There are a lot of tools out there I only use a limited few, so share what you’re using! If you’re curious how I used any of these, reply and I’ll explain. Stay tuned for next week’s 3 Things AI!