Are you asking AI the right questions? How to turn it into your most useful brainstorming partner

AI is moving fast — and so is the way we’re using it. But how do you know if you’re using it to its full potential?

In this episode, Denzil shares her own evolving relationship with ChatGPT: the surprising ways it’s helped, the limits she’s run into, and what she’s learning about asking better questions. 

Denzil shares how AI has become surprisingly useful companion in certain areas:

• Finding clarity in the fuzz when information feels overwhelming
• Turning procrastination into progress with a little structure and support
• Gaining a little more context
  
  
  

For anyone curious about bringing AI into their own clinic, workflow, or daily life, this episode sheds a little light on some of the not-so-obvious ways AI can lend a helping hand.

Got your own stories of how AI is showing up in your clinic or life? Send them to frontdesk@jane.app. And if you enjoy episodes like this, make sure to subscribe for more reflections from Denzil.

Chapters

• 0:00 AI as a Drunk Companion
• 1:26 AI for Writing and Structure
• 2:54 Making Complex Topics Clear
• 3:33 Therapy Note Summarization
• 4:54 Leadership Decision Support
• 6:03 Closing Thoughts and Request

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Hey everyone, provocative thought. Sometimes using chat GPT feels like mmm, kind of like talking to a drunk person. You ask it a question and it goes this is the truth. Then you're like, yeah, but what about this other thing? And it responds oh yeah, sorry, no, I meant something entirely different. And yet that drunk friend has become one of the most useful companions in my work and personal life. It feels like AI tools are progressing weekly, and you know what. So are the ways that I use them. It feels like AI tools are progressing weekly, and you know what. So are the ways that I use them. It feels like AI tools are progressing weekly, and you know what. So are the ways that I use them. I use ChatGPT for a lot of stuff. Actually, I'd say that in the last three months, I started using it to check out most of my thoughts, asking for analysis of any conclusions that I've been making and seeking additional context for all of the things. Maybe I've been doing it a little too much, but what's interesting is that in doing that, I've started to notice some patterns, and I start to notice how I still need me when I use AI. That's been my biggest shift lately. I'm learning not just what AI can do, but what it can't, at least right now, and so I thought I'd share some ways that AI is showing up for me now in our current moment Writing when there's no time to write.

Speaker 1: 1:36

I love writing. It's kind of always been just a part of what I do as a human. As a kid I would get excited about learning everything that I could on a topic and then I'd write an essay about it For fun, in addition to school, just because. But in all the adulting of my life I don't have that kind of time anymore. Mostly I have ideas on what I want to write. For instance, a while back I had this article idea based on our first 10 Radio Front Desk podcast episodes. The problem that's about 10 hours of transcripts to go through to pull quotes, revisit themes and remind myself how I felt in that moment. I've been procrastinating for months. So this weekend I dumped those transcripts into ChatGPT. I asked it to pull out the main themes and suddenly I was right back in those conversations from a year ago. I didn't use its essay draft. I didn't like it, but what I did kind of like was the structure it gave me. So I copied that skeleton into my writing program and started working on it section by section. It turned something I'd been stuck on for months into a thing I'm pretty sure I'm going to have ready in the next couple of weeks, making sense of the complex stuff.

Speaker 1: 2:54

Another place AI has been surprisingly helpful is in some of the niche topics that require a lot of knowledge about subjects with intricate details, like with financial planning. When I was chatting with my accountant, there were some things that he told me that I didn't fully understand. So I went to ChatGPT and asked what does this actually mean for me? And then it clicked. It helped me understand what the accountant was actually saying. Obviously, my accountant is where I'm getting my actual financial advice, but what AI can do for me sometimes is just make the fuzzy clear, summarizing all the things.

Speaker 1: 3:33

Okay, here's a real personal one. I've worked with the same therapist for years and one way we work is through me writing down a lot of the thoughts and feelings passing through me. There are just so many For certain sessions over our three years together, I've been known to write him 19 single-spaced pages yes, 19. And he actually reads it all and comes back to our sessions with targeted questions. You know, I do wonder if he's using AI now to read them faster. You know, I do wonder if he's using AI now to read them faster. I understand that's a pretty big value he's giving me. So lately I've been putting some of those pages into ChatGPT and asking it to extract a bigger message from all my writing. Before the sessions I'll ask what themes are in here, what am I really struggling with? And then that's what I pass along to him. Okay, before I go on, let me be clear AI cannot replace therapy. That message came through loud and clear in our most recent episode of Radio Front Dusk. By the way, I think you'll like this one. But for me ChatGPT just does the work of extracting the nuggets from the mine and honestly, it helps me feel less guilty about overwhelming my therapist with all of those pages.

Speaker 1: 4:52

Decision-making in leadership. As a leader in our Jane marketing team, I started to lean on AI to help widen my lens a little. Jane is always changing, so I like to ask ChatGPT what tends to happen in other businesses in a similar boat. Things like what does a content marketing team look like at a company of Jane's size? How do others create strategies and what kinds of strategies are they running and I find it insightful just to get another perspective. But it's not to try to follow their footsteps. I don't always want to do what others are doing, but it does provide some good context and helps me see the possibilities.

Speaker 1: 5:37

Ai isn't my therapist, it's not my writer and it's not my financial planner, but it does help me think. It gives me fast access to a lot of information and it helps me remember to clarify and create. It's the messy brainstorming partner who throws out half-fake sentences that kind of turn into just what I needed and, if I'm being honest, I kind of like having that tipsy friend at the party by my side. Each time I send one of these newsletters, I get replies from some of you, and this time I'd really love to know how you're using AI in your clinic, and I have this idea that if we get enough of them, I'd love to pull them together into a post on Front Desk blog. So how are you using AI in your clinic or life? Until next time you've got this,