Good Morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],

It’s been a little over two years since ChatGPT–and the wave of AI tools that followed—slipped into our workdays.

The early signs were hard to miss: the emoji-to-word ratio on Linkedin posts shot up, and professional communication everywhere started sounding suspiciously polished yet vaguely soulless. Cover letters and CVs opened with lines like “Passionate about leveraging innovation to drive impact.” (What does that even mean?)

But as the novelty started to wear off, something interesting happened. Don’t get me wrong–Linkedin and our inboxes are still full of AI-generated fluff. Yet over time, employees began finding real, practical and often hyper-specific ways to fold these tools into their workdays.

“I tried using AI to analyse an Excel sheet of my yoga class schedules and create a table of free slots,” a yoga instructor who responded to our recent AI-at-work survey told us. She was among nearly 200 professionals–consultants, lawyers, product managers, software developers, even a doctor– who told us how they were using AI tools and how much time they were saving as a result.

The yoga instructor described how it felt like working with an “over enthusiastic intern that required a fair bit of feedback and oversight”. But we realised that it’s that “intern” quality that is helping professionals save approximately two hours on average and at least double their productivity every single day. 

In the latest episode of 90,000 Hours, we explore how people across roles and industries are rewriting their workdays with AI.

But today, I want to focus on just one thread: the small personal experiments–like the yoga instructor’s–that made it possible.

Here are three of my favourites: 

In the early months of his articleship, 22-year-old Rohan Bhatt (name changed) was handed the dreaded “test of details”–the foundational but painfully repetitive exercise of combing through transactions and supporting documents to make sure the numbers in a company’s financial statements matched.

It was the “wax on, wax off” of CA training. And Rohan wanted out.

Rohan’s first prompt on Claude Code

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His Pune-based CA firm was old-school and sceptical of AI, so he realised he’d have to figure it out himself. He split a Claude Pro subscription with a friend and began experimenting. With zero coding experience, he got Claude to generate Python code, used VS Code to stitch it together, and built a small tool that automated parts of the audit process.

From Claude to Visual Studio to completion: the different stages of Rohan’s audit tool

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After some help from the IT team, the tool started working–and soon everyone at the firm was using it, even the sceptics.

“It helped automate about 20 hours of work every single week,” he told us in the latest episode of 90,000 Hours. That’s roughly three hours a day that Rohan then spent studying for his CA final examinations. 

A young doctor who took our survey told us he’d built a custom GPT to help him identify and diagnose diseases and even figure out what medicines to prescribe. This isn’t a one off; there are several reports of doctors using AI to read MRI and CT scans too. 

He also admitted he doesn’t bother with full textbooks anymore. He studies using Gemini and Claude instead. While AI tools end up saving him only about 15 minutes a day, he told us that he feels that it has helped double his productivity. 

One of the more unexpected use cases came from Vivek Bangalore Niranjan, a partner in Khaitan & Co.

Vivek starts his day with a 5K run. But that’s also when AI enters his workflow. Each night, he feeds bulky reading material into Gemini and converts it into an audio brief he can listen to while running.

It’s not perfect, he admits; “you lose a lot of context”. But it gives him a head start before he even gets to the office.

These were just a few of the stories that stood out. We go deeper in the latest episode of 90,000 Hours. 

Now, since you’ve stuck with me this far (thank you), I’m going to take the liberty of sharing the one thought that kept circling in my head while I worked on this episode and this newsletter: what does all of this do to motivation?

I ask because most of the professionals in our survey told us they now use AI tools every single day, uncovering hacks that are deeply personal to their jobs–mostly to clear the grunt work off their plates.

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With AI in the mix, they are suddenly saving hours on tasks like drafting emails or social media posts, crunching numbers, or putting together presentations. 

But the flip side is hard to ignore: many said that saving time also came with the weight of new expectations. 

At least a dozen professionals who took our survey said they felt “overwhelmed” or “frustrated” by the pressure to be constantly productive.

The time people were saving on mundane tasks wasn’t freeing them up for higher-order or strategic work. Instead, many said they were simply expected to do more of the same, just faster.

And in the process, intrinsic motivation takes a hit. The more of the routine stuff you outsource, the more detached, even bored, you start to feel. At least, that’s what a recent study found.

Now, more people are feeling caught on the same treadmill and are dependent on AI tools to keep up. 

So I’ll leave you with this: what keeps you grounded in all of this?
What helps you stay motivated when the pace keeps accelerating?
Not asking for a friend. I’m asking for all of us.

Write to me at [email protected] I’d genuinely love to know.

Until next week,
Rahel

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