Until recently, artificial intelligence (AI) may have sounded like a science fiction movie. Now it's here and it's ready to help you write emails, schedule meetings, create presentations, and more.
In the recent summer series session of Information Technology Services (ITS), technology transformation expert Shanon Grennon shared tips and use cases for interested but careful faculty and staff about incorporating generator AI tools into their daily workflows.
Below are five simple ways to use the Generate AI to work smarter, less difficult. No technical degrees are required.
1. Create professional and calm emails
Whether you reach out to your colleagues or follow up with students, AI tools like Microsoft Copilot can help you draft professional refined emails in seconds.
“Start with what you want to create,” says Glennon. “Specifically, provide context and don't be afraid to improve the prompt if you don't get the results you're looking for.”
Pro tips: Try sharing some of your past emails with the AI tools you use. This will allow you to learn tone and style.
2. Make AI your personal assistant
Are you tired of the scheduling meeting before and after? With the Microsoft Copilot Work License (please contact your IT team for more information), Copilot allows you to easily check your Outlook calendar, suggest time slots, and send invitations as it is part of the Microsoft 365 suite. This will give you more time to concentrate on other important tasks.
“It's like having a schedule sidekick that's always getting to team availability,” Glennon says.
3. Create documents, decks and forms with flash
Do future presentations and forms to collect student feedback require PowerPoint? Copilot is useful for generating PowerPoint presentations, word documents, Excel sheets, Microsoft forms and more.
“You can create a presentation from scratch or summarise your meeting transcript into Word Doc for future reference. It's all about saving time,” says Glennon.
Pro tips: With the Microsoft Copilot Work license, integration between M365 apps makes it easier to get meeting transcripts when using teams instead of zoom.
4. Summarize longer, more complex source materials into concise bullet points
I would like to grasp the key points of the university's academic strategic plan, but does it take me a while to read more than 5,000 words? AI can help you summarise long texts (research papers, academic articles, policies, reports) and summarise them into a concise, digestible summary. You can enjoy it too: try summarizing the document in the style of your favorite baseball announcer or Yoda.
Pro-Tip: As AI is known to still return false information and sometimes hallucinate it. everytime Please check that work.
5. Add visual talent
Do you need images for presentations or social media posts? AI tools can generate custom visuals in seconds. No design skills are required.
“Images generated by AI are great for making content pop,” says Glennon. “This is an easy way to add visual interest to your report or presentation.”
Ready to give it a try? Remember that university-owned data must only be entered after logging in to the university-approved AI tools and platforms using your syr.edu or g.syr.edu credentials.
As Glennon said, “Generative AI is not just a trend, it's a tool. Like any tool, it's about how you use it.”
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