What I use AI for in my daily life running product operations
...and what I DON'T use it for.
I work at an AI company BENlabs.com - you’ve probably never heard of us, but we’re at the service of creators and brands working to place products. We placed the Birkenstocks in the Barbie movie, for example.
Being immersed in AI since 2022 has been exhilarating - it’s a wildly accelerated news cycle, and new improvements are happening more than daily.
I thought I’d share some of the ways I use AI in my day-to-day work running product operations, and a few on the home front living in SF with my husband, 8-yr old daughter, and dog.
First things first - I use either ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini (farewell, Bard). I try to use all three to keep my knowledge of these products up to date, and I tend to just pick one on a whim.
You’ll notice a common theme - I use these to DRAFT things, and I never, ever just copy and paste. It’s still much easier, and takes way less time, to edit rather than write from scratch.
Draft meeting agendas
I am responsible for driving the agendas of some of our largest meetings. I often use AI to help write the agendas for those meetings, because sometimes my writing brain is just not up to the task of getting folks excited to attend AND convey the information covered in the agenda, so I just put the bare bones into ChatGPT or Claude. My prompt is something like, “Write an agenda for a demo day meeting where all teams show off their latest work. Make it punchy and short.” Then, I edit the text to make it fit what I want.
I received this:
Subject: 🚀 Get Ready to be Amazed! Demo Day Extravaganza 🌟
Hey [Team/Colleagues],
Mark your calendars and prepare to be blown away! 📅✨ Our much-anticipated Demo Day is just around the corner, and you won't want to miss the chance to witness firsthand the incredible innovations our teams have been cooking up.
🔥 Event: Demo Day Extravaganza 📆 Date: [Date] 🕒 Time: [Start Time] - [End Time] 📍 Location: [Venue/Online Link]
Join us as each team takes the spotlight to showcase the latest and greatest features they've built. From game-changing functionalities to jaw-dropping designs, this is your front-row seat to the future of [Your Company/Project].
🌐 Agenda Highlights:
Team Presentations: Get an exclusive peek into the minds behind the magic as teams unveil their hard work.
Live Demos: See the features in action! Witness the power of innovation as our teams showcase their creations live.
Q&A Session: Have burning questions? Our teams are ready to answer and discuss their groundbreaking work.
Prepare to be inspired, amazed, and maybe even a little bit jealous of the incredible strides our teams have made. This is not your average showcase – it's a celebration of innovation, collaboration, and the relentless pursuit of excellence.
Don't be fashionably late; be there on time to catch every moment of this Demo Day Extravaganza! 🎉
Can't wait to see you there!
Best, [Your Name]
I felt that this was a little too over-excited and selling a little too hard, if you know what I mean. I could have edited my prompt to ask for something more concise, but there was also good stuff in there, so I edited it down to simply this:
Join us as each team takes the spotlight to showcase the latest and greatest features they've built. This your front-row seat to the future of [product]!
Agenda Highlights:
Live Demos: See the features in action! Our teams showcase their creations (live or recorded).
Brief Q&A Session: Have burning questions? Our teams are ready to answer and discuss their features. (2 min max)
Missed it? Don’t worry - the recording will get posted into the #product-releases channel.
Drafting meeting notes and action items
There’s a great one-two automation punch that you can do here — using a meeting transcription feature from Zoom (and/or your own notes), drop the text of the meeting into AI and prompt with, “Use this transcript to create a list of action items and who is assigned to them. Also add bullet points summarizing the main points that were covered in this meeting.”
Can’t exactly share a meeting transcript here, so I’ll just say this one helps synthesize the key points and action items and get them into list form, but it’s worth double checking with the other meeting attendees to make sure you got the information correct.
Writing & Announcing Internal Documentation
This one deserves a little nuance. Because I’m documenting internal processes and not external, customer-facing assets, it’s much safer to use AI. I probably wouldn’t use AI to try and write documentation that customers would see; that’s a job best left to technical writers. Although I bet tech writers could absolutely use AI to help tighten up their language, as an editor, etc.
Let’s say I am making a change in our process; there are a couple of tools I use:
Map out the actual process with a visual - Tango.us
Write the email and Slack message announcing the change - Claude
With Tango, it’s a super easy extension that records your actions and then spits out your choice of an embeddable interactive demo, or a document. Generally I take the document and put it into Notion where our team stores everything.
To announce the change, my prompt is something like, “Write a brief message with emojis calling attention to a process change where now you need to submit a video of your presentation.”
One thing to note: Claude and ChatGPT are better at writing engaging messages - and Claude seems to write things that seem more emotionally intelligent and kind. They almost always include emojis, but I find it helpful to specify including them (sometimes more is more… and again, I can always edit them out).
Give me advice like Steve Jobs would
For many business issues, I wish I had advice from a specific person or set of people. In those situations, my prompt looks like, “Pretend you are Steve Jobs. Now help me craft a product launch messaging strategy for the following product, which has these features [x, y, b]”
On the home front
I’ve used all of these AI large language models (LLMs) to help me meal plan for my very picky 8-year old, and to include whatever dietary restrictions I have (mostly I am gluten and dairy free). My prompt is usually, “I have [insert groceries you have on hand] - can you help me plan the week’s dinners for a picky 8 year old who likes nuggets and dips?”
Few people realize that LLMs are generally trained on such a wide body of knowledge that they have actually passed a bar exam (dispensing reasonable legal guidance - NOT real advice, but helpful directionally) and also medical board tests. I recently used ChatGPT to ask about:
What’s wrong with my dog, here are the symptoms
Help me write a document arguing for a promotion, here are my accomplishments
Help me write a kind message to a friend when I don’t have the emotional energy to craft something genuine, here’s what they are going through (I feel the sympathy, I just sometimes can’t find the words, you know?)
Help me write a eulogy
Tell me about short and medium chain fats, and what foods contain them
What is a good format for a progress report
Basically, I treat AI like a really smart friend. I give it all the context I’d give that friend, and then I take its advice with a LARGE grain of salt. It’s always helpful directionally.
What do you use AI for? What do you WISH you could use AI for? And let me know if you want to see a Part 2, there are so many other things I’ve used AI for!