Using AI for your job, by role

Generic advice only goes so far

Most AI guides give you generic tips. But how you should use AI depends heavily on what you actually do. A lawyer and a designer have very different needs.

This page gives you practical, specific starting points by role. Find yours, take the ones that apply, and ignore the rest.

If you work in marketing or content

AI is your first draft machine. Every piece of content — social posts, email campaigns, blog outlines, ad copy — can start as an AI draft that you then edit and improve.

Most useful tasks: writing multiple variations of the same message for testing, repurposing long content into short formats (a blog post into 5 social posts), generating SEO-optimised headings, writing briefs from a rough idea.

If you work in sales or business development

AI helps you research, personalise, and respond faster. Before a sales call, ask AI to research a company and summarise what they’d likely care about. After a call, ask it to write the follow-up email from your rough notes.

Most useful tasks: personalising outreach templates for each prospect, preparing questions for discovery calls, writing follow-up emails, summarising long RFPs into key requirements.

If you manage people or projects

AI is useful for the writing-heavy parts of management that take time but don’t require deep thought — writing performance review frameworks, project update templates, meeting agendas, and difficult messages.

Most useful tasks: structuring 1:1 agendas, drafting performance feedback that’s specific and constructive, writing project status updates from bullet-point notes, preparing presentation outlines.

If you work in finance or operations

AI handles data explanation well even if it can’t access your actual systems. Paste numbers into the chat and ask it to explain what they mean, what’s unusual, or how to present them.

Most useful tasks: turning data into plain-English narratives for reports, writing explanations of financial results for non-financial audiences, drafting process documentation, summarising long contracts or reports.

If you’re a student or researcher

AI is a study partner, not an answer machine. Using it to write your essays defeats the purpose. Using it to explain concepts you don’t understand, quiz you on material, or give feedback on your arguments is genuinely valuable.

Most useful tasks: explaining concepts at different levels of depth, generating practice questions on a topic, giving feedback on argument structure, finding gaps in your reasoning, summarising dense academic texts into accessible language.

If you’re a founder or solo operator

You wear many hats. AI lets you produce at a level above your individual skills in areas where you’re not expert — writing, legal basics, marketing, customer communication.

Most useful tasks: drafting terms and conditions or privacy policies for review by a lawyer, writing investor updates, creating pitch deck content, writing job descriptions, handling customer service responses at scale.