Week 4: The AI Tools Landscape
Tuesday, March 4th at 9am PT | 12pm ET | 5pm UK
Overview
In this session, we got an overview of the gen AI tools for work landscape and heard a briefing on the Carve AI capstone project (full details below).
Hosted by Cliff Worley, AI tools guru and Head of Portfolio Marketing at Kapor Capital
Connect with Cliff on LinkedIn
Subscribe to his fantastic newsletter Cliff Notes
Session recording + slides
Key points
See below for the full capstone project brief and tips for bringing in new AI tools internally
Cliff covered a high-level take on AI today, including stats and trends to watch, and then stepped through 46 AI tools (!!) to showcase the art of what’s possible now. I’m afraid it’s impossible to summarize this session so you’ll really have to watch it yourself if you missed seeing it live!
Get Cliff’s slides and a full list of the tools he covered in the session here
Slides from Fiona’s part of the session
Capstone project brief
View and download the PDF of the project brief here via Google Docs
How to propose new AI tools internally
So you’ve found a few tools that you really want to try. The next step is to get approval from your organization, usually your IT or infosec team.
I don’t recommend incorporating an AI tool into your workflow until you’ve gotten express approval to use it. Most AI tools access sensitive data like the contents of your emails or your exec’s calendar so it’s important to make sure they’ll store and use that data safely.
To help with getting approval, do your own research first on the tool — here are some important things to keep in mind:
Read the terms: make sure you know how the AI tool will store and use your data
Check their compliance with risk management standards, like ISO 31000 in the UK or SOC2 in the US
Be wary of free trials: many AI tools offer free trials or limited free use, check your company policy as some have rules against these (often when you’re using a free trial you have limited data protections)
4 top tips to get new tools approved
Make the business case. Get really clear on the benefits of the tool to you and your team, using specific use cases. Do a rough ROI calculation, comparing the money saved each month (considering your effective hourly rate and the hours it will save you) vs the cost of the tool. Include links to details on security and compliance that speak to IT’s potential concerns.
Suggest starting small with a pilot. A small, timebound trial with you and 1-2 others will minimize risk and give your team the chance to road test the tool over a longer period. This is useful so you can get some real-world data on the value of the tool, and spot early if there are any issues with it.
Rally supporters internally. Get your exec and your colleagues on side. Take a quick poll on how many people are interested in getting access to the tool — there’s strength in numbers (and cost savings too).
Persist! Don’t give up if the first response is ‘no’! Take time to figure out why your IT team rejected it, and the reasoning behind it so you can see if it’s possible to find a workaround. It’s not unusual for assistants to carefully negotiate new tools with IT over the course of 2-3+ meetings.