AI Tips for Smarter Work
These are some of the favorite takeaways teams had from sessions that I led over the last two weeks.
Get your AI to stop agreeing with you. Add this language to your settings.
Do not default to agreement. Identify blind spots or flawed assumptions. Challenge ideas when needed. Be direct and clear, not harsh. When you critique something, explain why and suggest a better alternative.
Identify Use Cases (in your favorite AI tool)
Not sure where to start with use cases for you or your team? Try this prompt.
I’m a [insert your role or title].
I’ve attached my job description/LinkedIn profile or explain highlevel your role.
I’m [new to / experienced with] using AI at work.
Based on this information, ask me clarifying questions (multiple-choice, one at a time) until you’re 95% confident you can suggest ten practical ways, I can use AI to work smarter, not just faster.
Skills Sweep (in Claude)
Not sure what Skills to build? Try this prompt.
Go through my sessions over the last 14 days.
•Identify my repeated tasks
•How many times I did those tasks
•Provide a recommendation for how to turn the tasks into skills or scheduled tasks
Notebook paper or Whiteboard to Word Doc in seconds
If you took notes on paper or a whiteboard, take a picture of them in your favorite AI tool and ask for the notes to be put into a Word document. No more writing up your notes again.
Don’t forget that your AI can see.
Daily Briefing — Review Your Calendar and Email, Prep for the Day
Connect your AI to your calendar and email and ask it to brief you each morning. Try this prompt: Review my calendar and emails for the day or from the last 24 hours. Summarize what’s urgent, what needs a response, and what I should be prepared for today.
This is the difference between starting your day reactive and starting it ready. My AI knows by simply saying “daily briefing” to review my calendar and emails and prep me for my day.
Build an AI Board of Advisors
Stop bouncing ideas off just one AI perspective. Build a personal board of advisors you can consult anytime. Try this prompt: I want you to act as a panel of advisors. Include a devil's advocate, a strategic thinker, a financial realist, and an execution-focused operator. When I bring you an idea, I want each advisor to respond from their perspective, including pushback.
You can ask the AI to pick real people to be on your AI board of advisors and it will give you their perspectives. You can customize the seats for your industry or the decisions you make most. One user added "a skeptical customer" to their board.
My 6 AI Board of Advisors are harsh but so good.
Share your favorite AI tips. Love hearing from you!
Resources
For the last three years, leaders have asked me for the assessments, templates, and planning guides we use in our AI sessions. So I pulled together the most requested resources and made them super affordable for small businesses and nonprofits because everyone deserves access to practical, approachable AI.
Inside you’ll find:
AI planning playbook for 2026, 11 pages
Policy templates (2 templates)
Adoption assessment reviewing 16 categories
AI leadership insights (lessons from 160+ sessions, 12 pages, including an assessment)
ChatGPT modes, connectors and shortcuts
Claude Cowork 101- 8 page non technical guide. NEW
Or a bundle to get them all for only $99, a $250 value.
If you’ve been wanting a simple starting point or something to help your team move faster, this is for you.
Take a look: https://payhip.com/AISimplified
Would love your feedback on what to add next.
Thank you all for your kind feedback. It makes me happy that you are finding them to be so helpful.
2026 AI Adventures
We also just announced our private digital community of CincyAI Champions:
For $25/month or $250/year ($50 off!), access our paid member portal with: BIG thank you to the 90 members that have signed up already!
• 6 CincyAI Human Huddle virtual interest groups: AI for beginners, AI for intermediates, AI for advanced, AI for Women, AI for Arts and Creative, and new AI for nonprofits.
• Limited time only: “CincyAI Founding Champion” Badge
• CincyAI Champions Member Directory
• Monthly Office Hours with Helen & Kendra — Bring your AI questions each month.
• Cincinnati Area AI Job Board
• CincyAI & Community Partners Events Calendar
• CincyAI Champion Matchups
And more!
Limited time only: 30 days free trial as we’re seeding the community — join now to get your Founding CincyAI Champion member badge!!
https://app.heartbeat.chat/cincyai/invitation?code=D73D97#choose We are loving our digital community.
June 2 Cincy AI from 3-5 at UC Digital Futures. Free event. Over 150 attendees. This one will be the kick off for Cincy AI Week so we have special things planned for attendees. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1987130976242?aff=oddtdtcreator
Register now as it will sell out:
Cincy AI Week June 9, 10 and 11. 3000 attendees, over 100 speakers. Third year. Sign up to attend, speak or sponsor today: https://www.joinaiweek.com/cincy Use code CINCYAI for 50% off.
I love answering your AI questions. Feel free to message me.
Where AI and inspiration collide!
Kendra Ramirez
KendraRamirez.com
We provide AI Enablement (AI Speaking and Training, AI Readiness, AI Strategy, Workflow Automation, and Implementation). Our clients love that we sit side by side with them in our human centered approach to AI.
**For those new to my work, I have been in tech my whole career. Over 15 years of running my digital agency (website, social media, and lead generation) and 7 years of helping businesses navigate AI. Over the three years and, I’ve had the privilege of leading over 200 AI sessions and speaking sessions (over 15,000 people), empowering businesses to embrace the transformative potential of AI. My passion lies in simplifying complex technologies to help organizations grow, innovate, and thrive.
I am so excited that you are on this journey with me! Thank you! 🤗
I have been writing weekly about AI here for almost three years. You can search all of my enewsletters here if you are looking to brush up on a certain topic. kendratech.substack.com
The illusion holds right up to the moment someone tries to use it twice in the same week. Demos pass because they run once with curated input. Products break because they run a hundred times with messy reality.
The pattern I keep seeing: a model can do a thing, so the founder ships the thing. What's missing is the verification layer, the approval queue, the bit that catches the confident nonsense before it lands in someone's inbox. That layer is unglamorous, it doesn't demo well, and it's where the actual product lives.
The other quiet bit is constraint design. Useful AI tools narrow the model down to a job it can do reliably. Illusory ones leave it open and hope the user notices when it goes off.
You've nailed the diagnosis. The interesting question is whether buyers will start asking for evidence of reliability rather than capability. Until they do, the illusion will keep outselling the product.