Academic and Emerging Technology

Personal Productivity with AI: Working Smarter in an Office of One

For many of us, the challenge is not a shortage of ideas—it is a shortage of hours. This hands-on session explores how generative AI can help individuals and small teams reduce repetitive work, organize information, communicate more efficiently, and create better systems for getting work done.

Participants will experiment with practical uses for AI across everyday work such as drafting and refining communications, summarizing information, planning events and projects, organizing notes, developing reports, analyzing feedback, and turning recurring tasks into reusable workflows. We will also look at the difference between using AI as a chat tool, building repeatable workflows, and beginning to use more agentic tools that can take on multi-step tasks.

Consistent with the Digital Commons ethos, the session will focus not only on what AI can do, but also when it is useful, where human judgment remains essential, and what information should—or should not—be shared with these systems. Participants should leave with several practical workflows they can immediately apply to their own work and a framework for identifying which parts of their day are good candidates for AI assistance.