Speaker 1: AI is great at doing it what we tell it
Speaker 1: to do, but that can also be a problem. Instead
Speaker 1: of challenging us, it often acts like a polite, even
Speaker 1: sycophantic assistant, doing exactly as asked without pointing out flaws
Speaker 1: or blind spots. Today, I'm joined by Inventium's AI expert,
Speaker 1: Neo Applin, to explore how we can use AI differently
Speaker 1: as a devil's advocate, a creative partner, and even as
Speaker 1: a stand in audience to help spot weaknesses in our
Speaker 1: thinking and uncover new perspectives. In this chat, you are
Speaker 1: going to learn some very practical prompts to make AI
Speaker 1: your best and most useful collaborator, not just your obedient assistant.
Speaker 1: Welcome to How I Work, a show about habits, rituals,
Speaker 1: and strategies for optimizing your day. I'm your host doctor
Speaker 1: to Amantha Imba. Two years ago, I completely overhauled how
Speaker 1: I work with Genai, and I am now saving over
Speaker 1: forty hours every single week. That is no exaggeration, and
Speaker 1: that is exactly why my company, Inventium, created the Genai
Speaker 1: Productivity Upgrade. It's a twelve week course designed to move
Speaker 1: you from Jenai dabbler to productivity machine. There is no fluff,
Speaker 1: just practical strategies that will pay off from week one,
Speaker 1: saving you at least ten hours every single week. We
Speaker 1: are going to teach you how to automate the grant work,
Speaker 1: use AI as your second brain to excel at your job.
Speaker 1: Learn how to create AI agents that we knew back
Speaker 1: hours every time you use them, and so much more so.
Speaker 1: Whether you're a complete beginner or already using AI, we
Speaker 1: have got you covered. We start with prompting fundamentals and
Speaker 1: we go all the way through to advanced automations and
Speaker 1: agentic AI. We kick off on October fifteen and spots
Speaker 1: are limited. Visit inventtium dot com, dot au, forward slash
Speaker 1: genai hyphen cohort to secure your place now And yes
Speaker 1: that's a long link. It's also in the show notes.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for it and you've literally got nothing
Speaker 1: to lose, there's a seven day money back guarantee. So
Speaker 1: go to the show notes, hop on the link and
Speaker 1: join our program today. So why do we need AI
Speaker 1: to help us point out our blind spots? Like, what's
Speaker 1: the problem that it's solving here?
Speaker 2: We as humans, we're lazy. We were supposed to be
Speaker 2: cognitively lazy. What that means is if we saw everything
Speaker 2: and we did everything that we needed to do, we
Speaker 2: would run out of time and energy. So what we
Speaker 2: do is we fall into patterns, and those patterns might
Speaker 2: be we do the same thing every single day, the
Speaker 2: same way, and that's fine for some things. But when
Speaker 2: you're doing things like you know, strategy or reports or
Speaker 2: things that are different than having a different perspective and
Speaker 2: being challenged on those things is really valuable. Because AI,
Speaker 2: believe it or not, it's been built as a helpful assistant,
Speaker 2: so for some reason, it always then becomes a little
Speaker 2: bit like a cheerleader, sometimes a bit sycophantic, but in
Speaker 2: reality it'll go along with any pattern you want. So
Speaker 2: getting AI to instead of going along with those patterns,
Speaker 2: to actually challenge you and ask questions, it becomes an
Speaker 2: awesome creativity tool and helps you get out of those
Speaker 2: ruts a little bit unstuck.
Speaker 1: So how do we turn AI from being this sycophantic,
Speaker 1: obedient assistant into a collaborative kind of sparring partner.
Speaker 2: You tell it too, believe it or not, So there's
Speaker 2: different ways you can do it. By one, you can
Speaker 2: just say, hey, I want you to challenge me in
Speaker 2: the ways that I'm thinking things like that. I love
Speaker 2: using it as a devil's advocate. So it might be
Speaker 2: for a particular piece of work. You might say, Hey,
Speaker 2: I'm doing this. Here's the work. I want you to
Speaker 2: review it from this perspective. What ways can it be improved?
Speaker 2: What am I missing? Are there any things that I've
Speaker 2: gotten wrong here? Getting it to really review and critique
Speaker 2: what you're doing and provide suggestions is an excellent, excellent
Speaker 2: way to do it. Also, other ways just might be simple,
Speaker 2: which is is there a better way to do this?
Speaker 2: Or Hey, for this audience, what would they want to
Speaker 2: see that's not there? Are there other ways I can
Speaker 2: approach the task. You can ask these questions. Now, it
Speaker 2: doesn't always come up with gold every time because it
Speaker 2: doesn't know all the background and all those kind of things,
Speaker 2: but it does have different perspectives and it's up to
Speaker 2: you to go, Wow, that's a really good one. I
Speaker 2: didn't think of that, and then you can incorporate that
Speaker 2: in your work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I might say that's something I love about AI
Speaker 1: that it can help me see things from completely different
Speaker 1: perspectives and you know, put myself in people's shoes that
Speaker 1: I would you know very little about. So what tips
Speaker 1: do you have on how we can get the AI
Speaker 1: to help us really easily see things from are the
Speaker 1: people's customers perspectives.
Speaker 2: We do things for people always with clients or customers
Speaker 2: or staff members or other team members. So you can
Speaker 2: get AI to step in the shoes of these people
Speaker 2: just by telling AI who those people are and what
Speaker 2: their perspectives are. So it might be a customer, it
Speaker 2: might be a client, might be a boss, it might
Speaker 2: be a prospective persona that you might have, so like
Speaker 2: a busy person with these particular needs, a downstream user
Speaker 2: in the process. So I want you to say to AI,
Speaker 2: I want you to be in the shoes of this person.
Speaker 2: Want to look at it from their perspective? How would
Speaker 2: they look at this, What would they want to see
Speaker 2: that's not there? Which bits would they get worried about,
Speaker 2: which questions would they have, those kind of things, But
Speaker 2: really be clear about the kind of person and the perspective,
Speaker 2: and AI can really jump in those shoes very effectively.
Speaker 1: Now, a lot of listeners would be giving presentations as
Speaker 1: part of their work and trying to come up with
Speaker 1: new ideas whether that be products or services or all
Speaker 1: sorts of things. How can AI help test these things,
Speaker 1: whether it be a presentation that's pretty high stakes, or
Speaker 1: maybe some kind of an idea that you're thinking about
Speaker 1: for your customers.
Speaker 2: First, I got to say that AI can't actually be
Speaker 2: that person, can't actually be that audience member, but it
Speaker 2: can be a clue. It can be a hint as
Speaker 2: to what that person might think. So think of this
Speaker 2: as like a pre test or a sparring partner as
Speaker 2: opposed to the final boss. But you can give it
Speaker 2: that perspective. You say, here's the audience, here's a perspective
Speaker 2: they'll probably have, and then ask it where are the
Speaker 2: bits that they might find too risky, Where are the
Speaker 2: bits that in my presentation they might find boring or
Speaker 2: they might lose interest, or where are the bits that
Speaker 2: they might find surprising and they may want more information
Speaker 2: those kind of things. Also, you can ask then ask
Speaker 2: AI what the kind of perspectives are of these people,
Speaker 2: What are the jobs that they are trying to achieve,
Speaker 2: what are their needs, what are their desires, what are
Speaker 2: their goals? And then you can figure out whether your
Speaker 2: work will fit within those as well. So it's really
Speaker 2: like an empathy tool from a robot, which sounds ridiculous,
Speaker 2: but it's great as a first step before you then
Speaker 2: go to the actual human out there, so you can
Speaker 2: then potentially something have something which lands better for you
Speaker 2: and for them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's really interesting in the context of
Speaker 1: innovation work, which obviously Inventium does a lot of, and
Speaker 1: previously to really get any idea or any kind of
Speaker 1: feedback around an idea of what customers think, you'd have
Speaker 1: to spend quite quite a bit of effort finding customers,
Speaker 1: talking to them and so on. And what I really
Speaker 1: like about AI is you can almost get that first pass. Like, yes,
Speaker 1: as you say, it doesn't replace human feedback, but it
Speaker 1: is better than just going blindly into creating a business
Speaker 1: case where you haven't really put yourself in the customer's shoes.
Speaker 1: What like, do you have some go to prompts that
Speaker 1: you use when you're trying to get AI to adopt
Speaker 1: a certain persona or customer profile, Like how do you
Speaker 1: typically approach that?
Speaker 2: It depends on what you're doing, of course, but it's
Speaker 2: about giving AI the brief so this is my customer,
Speaker 2: these are the kind of needs that they might have
Speaker 2: if they've got a particular role. So I'm doing a
Speaker 2: presentation to the senior executive team. Don't just say senior
Speaker 2: executive team. Say to AI, who's on that team? Say
Speaker 2: to AI all the things you know about those people
Speaker 2: and what their jobs are and what they're trying to achieve.
Speaker 2: If you even add in things like I don't know
Speaker 2: strategies and things like that for the senior executive team,
Speaker 2: then we'll know that as well, but also stomers and clients.
Speaker 2: So you can say, these are the types of customers
Speaker 2: that we've got, Here's what they've done in the past,
Speaker 2: these are the kind of problems they've had in the past.
Speaker 2: More information you can give AI the better. But even
Speaker 2: with that, AI can still come up with some other
Speaker 2: ideas for you, which is great. So what you could
Speaker 2: say is I know very little about these people AI,
Speaker 2: what are the things that they would want? What are
Speaker 2: their drivers? We are their goals and get AI to effectively,
Speaker 2: you know, put itself in those shoes and it can
Speaker 2: come up with some amazing things. So instead of being
Speaker 2: cold and not being prepared here you're pretty warm and warm,
Speaker 2: warm to medium warm and hot before you even get
Speaker 2: in front of their customer because you've been practicing with AI,
Speaker 2: and AI is effectively giving you different perspectives from different
Speaker 2: people before you get to that final meeting, that final presentation,
Speaker 2: that final sales pitch.
Speaker 1: Okay, so a lot of different ways to use AI
Speaker 1: to help us point out our blind spots. If a
Speaker 1: listener was going to just do one thing differently today
Speaker 1: in how they work with AI, what would you recommend
Speaker 1: that be?
Speaker 2: First off, don't let AI be you me yes man,
Speaker 2: so tell it work with me, be a critical, inspiring partner,
Speaker 2: help me improve my things, and then get it to
Speaker 2: help you to review your things, just as if it
Speaker 2: was your customer, your client, your audience, and you'll be
Speaker 2: surprised of what it comes up with. Now, don't accept
Speaker 2: every idea that it has, don't accept every critique that
Speaker 2: it has because it may not be appropriate for you,
Speaker 2: but you might find that there's some amazing things in there.
Speaker 2: If you do want to incorporate with your work, you do.
Speaker 2: So don't let it be your yes man.
Speaker 1: Let it.
Speaker 2: Know what your clients and your audience are, and then
Speaker 2: take some of those pieces of advice so that you
Speaker 2: can actually improve your work.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Thank you so much for sharing such great advice. Again, Neo,
Speaker 1: thank you. I hope you are now feeling inspired to
Speaker 1: use your AI in a different way today and turn
Speaker 1: it from a sycophantic assistant into a true thinking partner
Speaker 1: that actually critiques your thinking rather than just agrees with
Speaker 1: everything that you say. If you are looking to take
Speaker 1: your AI skills up to the next level, Inventium's GENAI
Speaker 1: productivity upgrade is kicking off on October fifteen, and there
Speaker 1: is a link to more info and bookings in the
Speaker 1: show notes. If you like today's show, make sure you
Speaker 1: hit follow on your podcast app to be alerted when
Speaker 1: new episodes drop. How I Work was recorded on the
Speaker 1: traditional land of the Warrengery people, part of the Cool
Speaker 1: and Nation. A big thank you to Martin Nimber for
Speaker 1: doing the sound mix.