The Tool is Not the Point
I ran a workshop this week with a group of about 150 teachers. As often happens, the conversation quickly turned to tools:
“What’s the best AI tool for writing?”
“Should we be using ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot?”
“Is Gamma better than Beautiful?”
And while these are totally valid questions, I found they’re the wrong place to start.
Because the tool is not the point, the task is.
AI Starts with G.E.D.
As I wrote last year, every exploration into AI should start with G.E.D.
If work is:
- General (not hyper-niche or reliant on domain secrets),
- Error-friendly (where it’s okay if the AI makes a mistake or needs review),
- Digital (the work happens in a digital environment and can be accessed by software).
Then AI should be a partner, or take over completely.
Over the past months, we’ve added two more criteria:
- Recurring (it’s work we frequently do)
- Toil (we don’t even like this work to begin with - inspired by Debbie Lovich)
Now, every personal or business-focused AI implementation starts by prioritizing those tasks and workflows that are GED-RT. (AI in HR Today author Antony Onesto has a helpful model for finding those tasks.)
In our course, we go through a simple exercise where we score the parts of our jobs that we spend most of our time on.
- Is it a G.E.D. task?
- Do we do it often?
- Does it take quite a bit of time?
- Do we not get anything out of it?
If so, AI it.
A recent conversation with Organizational Development expert Gwen Stirling Wilkie made us move up this prioritization model to the first week of our program, as it is the single most important exercise for busy leaders.
Followed by the tools to solve those GED-RT tasks.
That’s the sequence: tasks first, then the tools. (PS: I prefer ChatGPT and Gamma.)
The Right Tools for You
It can be exciting, sometimes even intoxicating, to be at the bleeding edge of AI tools.
Our community often buzzes with new platform releases, tool updates, and launches.
But the truth is that:
- You can get almost all of it done in ChatGPT or one of the other AI models.
- Many tools and apps, even those in the AI Top 100, will eventually be features in bigger platforms.
There’s probably no better example than the ChatGPT image generation update, which (way beyond Ghibli images) puts a full-blown designer in your AI team.
While specialist image generator tools like Midjourney and Firefly will have their place, ChatGPT will do the job just fine for most.
AI professor Ethan Mollick put it well yesterday:
“The fast evolution of AIs makes it risky to spend tons of effort getting around current model limits through clever approaches, rather than waiting.”
Rather than trying to stay current on everything, it is much better to start with your use case where AI would actually make a meaningful difference and then find the right platform for it.
Plus, it will keep you sane versus drinking from the AI firehose.
