AI helps small teams like ours reduce cognitive load, uncover insights, and work more clearly.
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There are only two of us at my workplace. Some days it feels like we’re running a little universe. There is more information about projects, deadlines, decisions, messages, ideas, follow-ups, unfinished business, and more than humans can hold. We are not for lack of trying. We lack cognitive bandwidth.
Artificial intelligence is helping us a lot.
Inevitably, AI will not remain in the novelty phase in our work for long. It quickly becomes a thought partner woven into almost every aspect of how we work. It doesn’t replace judgment, creativity, or relationships, but it can help reduce friction, surface insights, and make better decisions faster.
We didn’t “deploy AI.” We adopted a new way of thinking, powered by AI.
And the business impact has been transformative.
Below are the top 10 uses of AI that have had the greatest impact.
1. Mapping insights
Most teams have more internal knowledge than they can use. Decades of documents, memos, PDFs, strategy slides, and meeting files typically sit untouched.
So we started investigating our internal Google Drive files using deep research AI tools like Gemini Deep Research. Insights that previously took days are suddenly available in minutes.
AI is not inventing it. Synthesis in progress.
pattern. Contradiction. New theme. All derived from our own knowledge.
According to the OECD, organizations that leverage internal knowledge effectively outperform their peers in both innovation and efficiency. AI is rapidly becoming a driver of benefits.
2. Build a building brain library get smarter over time
The second breakthrough was creating AI notebooks around specific themes, such as leadership, emerging markets, strategy, and future of work trends. To do this, we used NotebookLM and sourced relevant articles, reports, transcripts, and notes over time. AI will evolve with us and become our expert thought partner. There is an article I recently wrote about this.
It becomes a long-term intellectual environment.
Building a persistent AI space that supports strategic reflection and scenario planning is a major shift in the use of generative AI. Rather than asking AI for quick answers, we want deeper, more connected thinking.
3. Analyzing ongoing projects using meeting records
We’ve all left a meeting wondering, “Have we really decided anything?” AI fixed that for me.
We are currently uploading meeting recordings and project documentation to our AI chatbot, and it is clear that:
- decisions made
- emerging risks
- next step
- contradictory assumptions
- who owes what
- deadline
Then, go a step further and have AI analyze those records against your project plan and strategy to ensure you’re on track and help plan your next meeting.
Harvard Business Review reports that the average professional spends nearly 18 hours a week in meetings. Without analysis, time becomes even more complicated. Using AI in this way reduced confusion, increased accountability, and made every subsequent meeting clearer.
4. Successful reverse engineering from past projects
This AI hack changed everything for us.
Past proposals, campaigns, client successes, and successful internal projects were fed into an AI that thought deeply. I asked, “What made this work?”
This revealed previously unformalized patterns.
- Structures that we instinctively keep repeating
- Resonant emotional tone
- timing pattern
- Shared expectations of stakeholders
- A stylistic consistency that we never articulated.
We turned these into a playbook for future work.
A Harvard University study on reflective practice shows that reviewing past research and codifying success criteria are among the strongest predictors of long-term performance. AI compresses that reflex cycle from months to minutes.
5. Analyze your calendar by energy, not time
We fed our calendars into a deep-thinking AI and asked it to analyze meeting types, frequency, agenda patterns, stress points, recovery periods, and creative output.
It generated an “energy map”.
- The best time for deep work.
- When we are cognitively depleted.
- When we make the wrong decision.
As a result, we redesigned our schedules around human energy, not clock time.
Aligning organizational workflows to human cognitive rhythms has been extremely helpful. This is one of those times where technology has made our work more human, rather than less human.
6. Workflow automation
Small teams can drown in meta work. A job that continues to work. Check your inbox, transfer files, update spreadsheets, reach out to people, move documents.
We used AI automation tools like Google Workspace Flows, Streak, and Zaper to connect:
- calendar
- drive
- document
- task system
For a small team like ours, time is not a resource. It is the oxygen we need to survive. These automations give you even more.
7. Brain dumping
This might be the simplest but most powerful hack on the list.
When our mental load spikes, we dump all our thoughts, decisions, worries, and half-baked ideas into AI chat. Then request:
- structure the chaos
- identify decisions we avoid
- make a plan
- Summarize key priorities
- Flag missing context
AI becomes a low-friction facilitator that helps us self-reflect, especially on days when the noise of our minds threatens our progress.
8. Extract insights from email patterns
Email is a window into our work habits, albeit a vague one. AI can help you refocus.
Now that you can perform in-depth research on your emails using Google Gemini, you can use it to perform the following analysis.
- When writing the most thoughtful messages
- response time
- Repetitive topics that consume space
- emotional patterns
- Workload bottleneck hidden in inbox volume
AI-driven analytics helps us understand what we write and how we work. It’s self-awareness on a massive scale.
9. Diverse AI “team”
This is one of the most creative things we’ve tried.
We created AI personas based on different cognitive styles, including analytical, optimistic, risk-averse, creative, systems thinking, and detail-oriented. We present ideas to this “virtual panel” and invite them to critique, question, and expand upon them.
Of course, this isn’t the same as asking a real diverse team, but it’s a quick and intuitive way to check cognitive diversity on demand. This system allows ideas to be executed from multiple perspectives before they appear in the real world.
10. Convert documents to audio
Finally, the simplest hack that yields the biggest time advantage. Have the document read aloud.
The new Google Docs listening feature lets you understand your documents by reading them out loud with a natural, human-like voice.
On our commutes, walks, or leisurely morning hours, we absorb strategy documents, reports, or long emails in audio format. I find that listening is easier than reading, especially when my energy is low.
For small teams juggling multiple responsibilities, wasted time turns into learning time.
AI that reveals clarity
All 10 hacks have a pattern. AI hasn’t magically reduced our workload.
This reduced the cognitive load of:
- Make decision making easier.
- Make your plans clearer.
- Make your thinking more structured.
- Speeds up reflexes.
AI helps us maintain complexity, which in turn allows us to maintain creativity.
The job has never gotten easier for us. We are ready to think about it. It transforms my business more than any automation.
