I’ve used AI for the obvious things like revising emails, reviewing documents, and cleaning up drafts.
I’ve also built AI agents that help me manage a project, so I can quickly find information and track decisions.
But the most useful thing I’ve learned is to use AI to improve my thinking.
AI watermarks
Recently Anthropic announced that future Claude models will include a watermark in generated text. It won’t be a hidden character or metadata. Instead, it comes from patterns in the words Claude chooses, and Anthropic says heavier AI editing could leave that signal behind.
That is worth paying attention to because there is a real difference between AI writing something for you and AI helping you improve something you already wrote.
A watermark may show that AI was involved, but it can’t tell you who had the idea, formed the opinion or brought the experience behind it.
So be prepared for this by being able to defend your work is your thinking and effort. Not just AI slop pasted from the tool.
Don’t just ask AI to write
When I’m working on an article or blog post, I rarely give AI a few documents and tell it to write the article.
Instead, I give it the topic, background and any supporting material. Then I ask it to interview me.
The questions depend on what I’m writing. A personal blog post should pull out my experience and point of view, while an employee article may need questions about timing, impact, what employees need to know and what information is still missing.
Either way, the questions help me think through the topic.
Sometimes AI asks something I hadn’t considered and other times it helps me put into words something I already knew but hadn’t clearly articulated.
Then I ask it to draft. The result is still my thinking, but the process helped me get there.
Treat AI like a copy editor and coworker
Another benefit is that AI can work from a style guide, writing standards and required article structure.
That means the first draft can already be closer to what I need. But I still treat it as a first draft.
AI has a tendency to make everything sound polished and important. It can use predictable phrases, over-explain simple points and confidently state something that is false.
So I revise and look at accuracy, structure, wording, tone and whether it actually sounds like me or the audience I’m writing for. I check it against the source material and the writing guide.
The mistake is assuming that because the draft sounds good, it is finished. Because It isn’t.
AI can help you ask better questions
This may be one of the more overlooked uses.
I often ask AI questions like:
- What questions should I be asking?
- What is missing from this draft?
- What would you challenge or improve?
That can make the work better before the writing even starts.
It can also help me prepare for conversations with clients or project teams by pointing out questions I should consider asking.
That doesn’t mean AI makes the decision. It gives me another way to look at the work.
Don’t outsource the thinking
AI is designed to give you an answer. It will usually try to make that answer sound useful and complete. That can create a false sense of confidence.
You still have to fact-check, and decide what matters. And you still have to know when the wording feels wrong, something is missing or when the answer sounds off.
The value of AI is having another tool that helps you think through the work faster and sometimes better.
Start small
If AI feels overwhelming, don’t start by building an agent.
Start with something you already wrote by uploading a draft and ask AI to interview you on the topic or review your draft as a copy editor. Then ask it to review the same draft as someone with expertise in the topic.
See what it catches and consider the feedback that is useful and ignore what isn’t. But always make the final decisions yourself.
Then try something else. It’s not a race. You don’t need to learn every new tool or build something complicated. But you do need to start.
For me, the biggest lesson has been that AI is most useful when it helps you think, question and improve. Not when it does the thinking or writing for you.
If you’re looking to explore how AI can help you or your organization, reach out if you want to talk.
