My personal AI system
I feel like I’ve gotten into a pretty good AI groove recently and wanted to share my new “system”.
Obviously everyone is going to have their own way of using AI, if at all, and it is highly dependent on the type of work you do, comfort with tech, etc., but anyway, here is one man’s opinion.
For some context, I spend most of my time running our legal tech startup at Visto (where we sell software to immigration firms that helps them operate more efficiently), and as a family lawyer in Toronto, Canada (although I’ve been taking a lot of clients in Ottawa - story for another time perhaps).
Anyway, context is important because your usage of AI may differ if you’re daily tasks are very different from mine. For example, for Visto I do most of our sales, marketing, admin, etc. For my law practice, I do a lot of, well, lawyering. Emailing with clients/opposing counsel, drafting documents, negotiating agreements, that sort of stuff.
I’ll be honest, even though I’m super bullish on AI, I still don’t think it’s good enough to replace a lot of tasks completely. Down the road? Maybe.
For right now, still needs to be integrated into your workflow intelligently and, of course, reviewed.
Overall, here are the 2 most common ways I’m using AI:
AI built on top of apps I already use, and
Custom GPTs, or in my case, Gems
For item 1, this is basically using the AI features in apps I already use. For example, when I go to edit a podcast or video I’ve recorded using Descript, I can now use their AI features to help me edit it, generate a headline, summary, etc., usually with just 1 click (affiliate link if you want to give it a try here, I highly recommend it).
This is great because the AI is layered ontop of a workflow you’re already doing, which both saves time and is also usually more reliable because it already has so much of the context built in. For example, I don’t have to type “please generate a headline for this podcast” because the AI is already layered ontop of the product, so it just takes 1 click to do a pretty good job of it.
For item 2, while I find that I use general AI search somewhat often for random things (for example, last week we got a new bbq so I asked it for instructions on how to cook a boneless ribeye to medium with that specific bbq), what I find works the best for work is to figure out which tasks you’re using AI for the most, and then building a custom GPT for it.
If you want a quick intro to custom GPT’s, check out my recent post here.
Anyway, what’s worked very well for me is looking for tasks that:
I can trust to AI now;
I’m doing quite often; and
I can save time by using AI.
If they check those boxes, I create a custom GPT - or in my case, Gem - for it.
As mentioned in that post above, a custom GPT is basically an AI chatbot with context and instructions built into it. For example, the 3 custom GPT’s I use the most right now are these:
LinkedIn post generator: don’t be fooled by the name. I still write most of my LinkedIn posts myself, but I’m also trying to get more mileage out of these substack posts, so I created a Gem that takes my substack post and converts it into a compelling, shorter LinkedIn post with a strong call to action to go read the full post on substack;
When I got into family law, a good friend of mine recommended a book to me called “BIFF: Quick Responses to High-Conflict People, Their Personal Attacks, Hostile Email and Social Media Meltdowns by Bill Eddy”. It was a great book because family law files are so emotionally charged. FYI: BIFF stands for brief, informative, friendly and firm. I took some of my key takeaways and created a custom Gem for when I want to draft an email and I know what to say, but I want to be more in that BIFF style. Super helpful;
Sometimes I just need some advice, or want to brainstorm, or have business questions and no one to turn to. So I created a custom Gem that has all of the major information about me, my businesses, goals, etc. Now I can turn to it whenever I want, ask questions and it answers with most of the context it needs!
These aren’t life-changing tasks, and a special note that I always review the output before doing anything with it, but by creating specific, custom Gems like these, I save a lot of time while maintaing a quality output that is usually quite good.
How have you been using AI, if at all?
Any ideas for custom GPT’s you can share?
Have a great day,
- Josh Schachnow
Canadian lawyer, CEO at Visto.ai
Who I can help:
Immigration firms in Canada looking to prepare immigration applications faster than ever before should check out my startup Visto;
Anyone with family law matters in Ontario, Canada (marriage contracts, separation, divorce, etc.) can hit “reply” or comment below;
Solopreneurs who want to watch/listen to interviews I’ve done with over 135 successful solopreneurs can go here!