The Future of Work: AI’s Role in Professional Settings

Blog Title: The Future of Work: AI’s Role in Professional Settings

Blog Series: Exploring the Power of AI

This is part 4 in an ongoing series to acquaint people with AI.

Part 1: The AI Revolution: Why You Should Care and Why You Should Trust Us

Part 2: Demystifying AI: What It Is and Why It Matters

Part 3: Intelligent Innovations: AI in daily life

Introduction

Companies are using AI to improve, and they are not shy about stating it. I asked ChatGPT 4o about the top ten Fortune 500, and all have stated that they leverage AI. See the answer here. (Yes, you can share chats! How cool is that?)

Company Ranking	Company Name	Industry	Use of AI
1	Walmart	Retail	Inventory management, customer service via chatbots, personalized shopping experiences
2	Amazon	E-commerce	Product recommendations, warehouse automation, AWS AI services
3	Exxon Mobil	Oil and Gas	Predictive maintenance, optimizing oil extraction processes
4	Apple	Technology	Siri, camera features, health monitoring on devices
5	UnitedHealth Group	Healthcare	Patient data analysis, predictive health analytics, operational efficiency
6	CVS Health	Healthcare	Personalized healthcare solutions, medication management, optimizing store operations
7	Berkshire Hathaway	Conglomerate	Insurance underwriting, energy management in subsidiaries
8	Alphabet	Technology	Search algorithms, autonomous driving (Waymo), healthcare (DeepMind)
9	McKesson	Healthcare	Supply chain optimization, predictive analytics in pharmaceuticals, patient care logistics
10	AmerisourceBergen	Healthcare	Drug distribution efficiency, inventory management, customer insights

Note that 4 of the top 10 are in healthcare and leverage AI to create efficiency and increase patient safety. Many of the others use it to drive results and increase customer satisfaction. Alphabet is even doing autonomous driving.

It’s clearly believed to be important for businesses to adapt to the AI-driven world.

Discussion

But how does that translate for you, assuming you are not running a company?

Companies are investing heavily in artificial intelligence to see how it can help. The results are generally not translating to the bottom line yet, but corporations are betting that it will. The New York Times said last week that Microsoft and Deepwater Asset Management expressed unequivocally that “[i]nvestors aren’t about to abandon their long-term A.I. bets.”

Importance of adapting to AI-driven changes

Workers who can adapt to a changing workplace have always been more employable than those who are not. AI is simply the next evolution of workplace shift, albeit a fast one. My dad always taught me, and I taught my children, “Keep your options open.” Knowing AI will help you improve your job performance, demonstrate adaptability, develop problem-solving skills, and create the potential for incredible innovation – all of which give you a competitive advantage and could advance your career.

How to adapt to AI-driven changes

What do you do for a living? How can you use AI to make you a better <role>? These days, that’s the million-dollar question! But there are ways you can get started narrowing down and figuring this out.

Here are some thoughts – and I encourage you to add others – drop a comment!

Try examples and use cases. (I recommend in no particular order my blog 2, my blog 3, Steve Little’s Use case how to guides, Professor Mollick’s How to Use AI to Do Stuff, Kevin Scott telling Brad Smith about Putting AI into the hands of people everywhere, and absolutely anything that you find in a search that piques your interest.)
1. While doing these, see how you can adapt them to your situation. Try these new exercises that could make your work life better.
Take training. There is so much available, paid and free. For the free ones, I naturally have a bias toward Microsoft Learn (AI and Copilot) but you won’t go wrong with TED talks, Harvard University, or Coursera. I’m not going to recommend a paid course because I haven’t enough experience, but I will say that I took a course called “Empowering Genealogists with Artificial Intelligence” given by Steve Little of the National Genealogical Society because genealogy is my interest. I hope you find your entry into AI.
Develop technical literacy. Odds are, readers of my blog are already there, but if not – no worries! AI can help you learn. “Write python script to say “Hello, world” and comment the lines so I know what each command does.” Notice in the previous parts of this series, we refine all the prompts – this develops analytical skills.
Stay informed. There are many ways to get your industry news. Newspapers (online and in print), blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels, the sky is the limit!
Develop a specialty. While still expanding your skills, develop one AI-related thing that you do well. Becoming the “go-to” person will help you develop it even further.

Hands-on

Go see how others in your field or industry are using AI. Select a model (we’ve been using Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity) and enter

What are good ways to use AI in <field or industry>?

And, of course, refine the prompt until you get what you’re looking for.

2. Come up with your own ways. Think about the more mundane things in your job that you’d love to offload. Could this be done by artificial intelligence? Remember last week’s blog post, it’s totally valid to save small amounts of time many times, as large chunks. Choose a model, according to the strengths given in “The tools” section of post 2, and leave it open during a day or a week. Use it wherever you think it’s possible an impact can be made in the future.

3. Take the poll to shape the future direction of this blog. Thank you for your input!

Summary

Knowing AI will help you improve your job performance, demonstrate adaptability, develop problem-solving skills, and create the potential for incredible innovation – all of which give you a competitive advantage and could advance your career.

To keep on top of the game, figure out how you can use AI to help you and your company. For inspiration, see the Resources links below.

Resources

GatesNotes. Bill Gates has long tried to help humanity, and is currently looking at how AI might do that. I especially love The frontier of AI Education, which talks about another person I kind of hero-worship, Sal Khan.
AI Data Drop: 5 Copilot Prompts to Try Out at Work (microsoft.com)
Industry-specific notes (I seem biased, but it’s just that the Microsoft stories keep dropping in my inbox), they include where it’s being used and some links, but not comprehensive:
- AI in healthcare (e.g., diagnostics, treatment planning).
  Microsoft, Mass General developing AI models for radiology (fiercehealthcare.com)
- AI in finance (e.g., fraud detection, trading algorithms).
- AI in marketing (e.g., customer insights, personalized ads).
- AI in sustainability Microsoft Customer Story-World Wide Technology achieves 20% time savings on emissions calculations using Microsoft Sustainability Manager
- AI for good Addressing food malnutrition with Microsoft AI | Microsoft Nonprofits X Amref Health Africa (youtube.com)
- AI in education Microsoft Customer Story-Auburn University empowers thousands of students, faculty, and staff to explore new ways of using AI with Microsoft Copilot
- AI globally Microsoft Customer Story-Lionbridge disrupts localization industry using Azure OpenAI Service and reduces turnaround times by up to 30%

Disclosure: AI was used in several places in this post: to create the title, to create the outline, for ideas of uses. I used Canva for the “Keep your options open” graphic.