We are all up to our eyeballs in AI talk. It is inescapable. Some of us are already using it personally, cleaning up a rambling email before hitting send, fact-checking something you half-heard at a meeting, finding a recipe that works with whatever is left in the refrigerator. That part most people have figured out.
What I see people missing is the workflow aspect. It can genuinely alleviate several steps in your normal process. This could be anything from summarizing a meeting pre-read, drafting a letter of support, or helping you make a quick outreach event checklist when it is past your bedtime and you are over it.
Here is what I use and what I use it for.
Claude is where I write. If you need something that sounds like a human wrote it, social media copy, a letter to your community, a board communication that doesn't read like a legal notice, this is the one. It has a feel for tone that the others don't quite match.
ChatGPT is my thought partner for complex problems. When I am staring at a situation that has too many moving parts and I cannot find the thread, Chat is where I go. I use the microphone feature and go full stream of consciousness. Half thoughts, facts, questions, ideas, side rants, and somehow all of that chaos gets organized into a tidy bow.
I may not use it to write the final thing. I use it to figure out what the thing even is.
Gemini, Ideogram, and Midjourney are my visual and creative stack. Name the style, vibe, color palette, wackiness factor and you will be amazed at the output.
You learn quickly that vague descriptions can get real weird while overly detailed prompts can result in sterile content.
It has made me better at creative overall and being able to put words to what I am envisioning.
Hot tip: Midjourney does really bizarre things with text. You might ask it to make a sign that says Board Meeting Rescheduled and end up with some of those letters along with a few characters from other languages or planets.
Zoom records and transcribes with one or two button presses and saves everything to the cloud. That said, it is not really built for in-person meetings. If you are running a mix of in-person and virtual, Fireflies can capture both and all of your content lives in one place.
Hot tip: board members tend to think twice about what they say when they know they are being recorded. Low-key moderator.
One thing worth flagging: transcripts may need to be available as part of your public record depending on your organization. Before you lean on any of these tools for official meeting documentation, check your state's open meetings requirements or governing documents and know what you are creating.
Set up project folders. Every AI tool has some version of this. Use them. You should not have to re-explain your board, your role, your tone, and your situation every single time you open a new chat. Set it up once and let the tool remember who you are.
Go into settings and configure the personality. This sounds minor but it's not. You can tell your AI to be concise, encouraging, direct, or to push back on you. Find the one that matches your vibe. You would be surprised how quickly you develop an opinion about a non-sentient being's communication style.
Be careful what you share. Do not enter names, personnel matters, private member information, or anything your board would handle in closed session. Keep prompts general. Use the situation, not the specifics. The convenience is not worth the exposure.
Use your manners. Please and thank you. I know it does not matter technically. Do it anyway. When AI becomes our overlords you want to be on the right side of that history.
- LP
Currently Automating Everything Including an LP Meeting Bot to Do My Bidding
Toolkit
What AI Can and Can't Do for Your Board
How to Use AI to Prepare for Your Next Board Meeting
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