How to harness AI to boost your productivity

There seems to be 2 common strategies among Upsource clients when it comes to AI:

1. Feel the overwhelm and just ignore it
2. Try everything all at once and then feel the overwhelm and ignore it

There’s a lot of noise on the internet and in the media about what Artificial Intelligence can do, whether it’s stealing Scarlett Johansson’s voice and whether it lives up to the productivity hype. So we’re here with some AI products we’re actually using to boost our productivity, and feel give good value. At Upsource, AI is just another tool in our toolbox, like task management software or a CRM. Always ask your Virtual Assistant if you want help setting up a new tool, or advice on how to get the most out of it!

VimCal

This bills itself as the calendar for people with too many meetings and it certainly fits the bill. It has a lot of great features if you, or your client, has a packed schedule that takes in different time zones, provides time options for invites and integrates social media profiles for the people you’re meeting with. This is our founder Caroline’s new favourite tool: it works with her back to back calendar and makes invitations feel personalised. If you’re using Calendly, this is definitely an upgrade.

Tl;dv

A great tool if you have a lot of meetings and need to take a lot of notes! tl;dv integrates with all the big names in online meetings: Zoom, Googlemeet, Teams etc and will record, transcribe and summarise with any actions flagged, as well as flag any keywords you’ve set up. 

Fathom

An alternative to tl;dv, Fathom integrates with the same online meetings tools, and a whole host of other tools like Zapier, Slack and Notion. We particularly like that you can make quick clips to drop into Slack, and the speed at which it works – 20 seconds after your meeting, the notes are ready to go!

SuperHuman

SuperHuman will help write your emails, picking up on your commonly used expressions so it sounds like you, suggesting content for specific contacts and will automatically triage incoming emails so you can focus on what’s important. We love this! You can read more of our hacks for SuperHuman and inbox management here. 

ChatGPT

The latest iteration of everyone’s favourite way of sourcing ideas for dinner, ChatGPT 4.0 will answer your questions, now via Whatsapp if you’d like! You can create and edit PDFs, generate images, with more accurate answers. But now you need to pay for it. Or you can use v3.5 for free to generate ideas for straplines, change documents from first to third person or summarise long documents.

We love these tools, and your Virtual Assistant can help you to set them up and make sure you are maximising their potential to increase your productivity. If you’d like some more help and advice, contact Caroline and she can help.