How AI Can be Your New Work Ally

How AI Can Be Your New Work Ally

We use AI every day at the Construction Institute to help with research, to save time, spark ideas, and simplify tasks. We are a small team, and AI applications are a great tool to extend our abilities. Think of it as an intern, it’s not always right, but usually helpful and can save you time. We wanted to share with you some of the ways we love to use AI. 

Some Everyday Use Cases at the CI:

Editing, Polishing, and Reframing – We often run drafts through ChatGPT for suggestions on how to make our wording, more powerful and concise. ChatGPT can also reframe something we’ve written as sentence suitable for a social media headline. We also love being able to put a draft into ChatGPT and ask it to make the tone warmer or more energetic.

Learning & Upskilling – AI is a great way to get simplified explanations of new tech, trends, terminology, or anything you are not familiar with.  You can ask “what is” or “how-to” questions without fear of judgment.

Research & Summarization - We read a lot about the industry. ChatGPT can quickly summarize long articles, reports, or regulations.

Brainstorming - We generate a lot of presentation titles, and there are days we need to bounce our ideas off someone else. ChatGPT and Gemini do a great job.  headlines, presentation titles, project names, or social media content.

Marketing – We use Canva, which has several embedded AI features, one of which allows us to generate unique graphics.

Notetaking – Our Board Meetings are recorded. We transcribe them using a service called Notta.ai. It’s AI will also generate a summary we use to create the meeting minutes.

Planning & Organization – You can use ChatGPT to outline event agendas, meeting formats, or training sessions, to creating checklists, timelines, and templates for repetitive tasks.

Don't know which AI tool to use? Here's a short list of some of the most popular. These products offer conversational interfaces or AI assistants that can help with tasks like writing, coding, researching, and productivity. I've grouped them by type and included a quick note on what makes each one stand out:

🧠 General-Purpose AI Chatbots

These are closest to ChatGPT in function—broadly capable and conversational.

1. Claude (Anthropic) – Known for being polite, thoughtful, and good at long-form reasoning.
2. Google Gemini (formerly Bard) – Integrated with Google services and good for real-time information retrieval.
3. Microsoft Copilot – Embedded into Microsoft 365 (Word, Excel, etc.) for task automation and content creation.
4. Perplexity AI – Focused on real-time web search with citations; great for research.
5. You.com – Combines chatbot functions with a privacy-first search engine.
6. Pi (Inflection AI) – Optimized for emotionally intelligent conversation; more of a “personal companion” vibe.

📚 Writing & Content Creation

These focus more on marketing, copywriting, or long-form content.

1. Jasper – Great for marketing, brand-aligned content, and SEO writing.
2. Copy.ai – Built for quick ad copy, email drafts, and social media posts.
3. Writesonic – Includes tools for SEO, blogging, and ad copy—also offers a ChatGPT-like chatbot called Chatsonic.
4. Sudowrite – Designed specifically for fiction writers and creative storytelling.

🎨 Design, Art & Multimedia

AI for creating visuals, editing, or multimedia content.

1. Midjourney / DALL·E / Adobe Firefly – Image generation from text prompts.
2. Runway ML – AI-powered video editing and generation.
3. Descript – AI-powered podcast and video editing (text-based editing, transcription).
4. Canva Magic Studio – Writing and design assistance within Canva’s design tools.

Have fun playing with these great tools!