re: AI in the Workplace - Open Discussion

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its also a different way of working with AI. Instead of editing or reading long markdown files, the AI can build interactive HTML docs for you. You can copy and paste different outputs via the HTML as well. I'm still wrapping my head around all of it too.

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It's usually just a combo of html, css, and javascript to do the interactivity pieces and heavy lifting. It's really just sort of a minimalist web app when it comes down to it.

Director in a small department on the operations side of a Healthcare Technology company. Like so many, our leadership has really been pushing AI for about two years now. In 2025, we couldn’t get away from it. In 2026–after basically driving one of our top talent Engineering VPs absolutely insane and causing him to leave—they have dialed back the pressure noticeably. The tools they have endorsed are trash IMO. Amazon Q Business and MS Co-Pilot. I’ve gotten much better results from ChatGPT but this year they’ve started cracking down on its usage for anything that involves data. I get it, but I’m extremely frustrated by people who don’t have to use AI for jack shite (i.e., the CEO) telling us how to use it.

Rant complete.

I’ve started using it to help inform strategy. Take a complex problem statement and then have AI write a wildly complex and layered prompt for itself and then execute the prompt.

It produces work that would have taken months in 30 mins. Big acceleration to coming up with creative ideas.

I agree. AI has pretty big gaps but it’s been a great accelerator for me.

For example, if I want to understand the top events in a city that might be a fit for a brand across the year with minimum of 10 events evaluated per month and scored based of a series of factors…I now have 120 ideas for a single city and it’s a replaceable process for fill in the blank location.

That work pre-AI is a massive workload that is now a brief exercise.

cyber security
FML. that is all

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I don’t understand the framing. Fear tactics of working yourself out of a job is a poor way to influence or motivate.

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Don't use it solely as an "answer machine" where it does all the thinking and work for you, and then you just regurgitate the results verbatim without even validating them. I could see how the idea that "Well if ai can do this without you, why do I even need you?" could sneak into a manager's head then. Instead use it to enhance and supplement your own work and knowledge, not just as a magic oracle/answer machine.

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Fully agree. I’ve found the power to be in the iterative engagement with AI as a tool to refine rapidly. Output and re-prompt will get you a very strong output and it takes some critical thinking to drive that outcome (versus this magic first response hitting the mark).

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Yea agreed as well. The way I approach it is "Could I still arrive at the same result, even if it is a (much) slower process, if AI suddenly becomes unavailable?" IMO if the answer is no, then someone needs to reconsider how they are using AI. I heard of two cases recently that are great examples of overall "brainrot" being caused by AI. One was a sysadmin on reddit that said he was being badgered non-stop by a dev after they got ransomwared about when chatgpt would be available again. The dev claimed he was simply unable to do his job without it. The other was a manager retelling a story of interviewing a recent grad and asking how comfortable they are working in an IDE. They actually told the interviewer "I am not entirely sure what IDE even stands for... but give me a Claude subscription and you'll be amazed by what I can do."

Very cool. I do something similar with my trips haha. Helps keep me organized with packing for the kids and myself along with itinerary management.

15 years of programming and DevOps here. Claude Code has impressed me for system design. Moreover, optimizing code testing and deployment pipelines. Tools like DeepCode help catch bugs early on, and services like AWS CodeGuru provide insights for performance tweaks. It's like having an extra set of eyes that never tires. Makes life a tad easier when juggling multiple projects from a Senior SDE point of view.

FP&A manager

One thing I’ve really enjoyed in my FP&A role lately is using AI to improve my thinking process and logic development.

For example, I’m currently helping implement a BI tool at our company and rolling out dashboards across our teams. We’re giving people access to data they’ve never really had before (at least not this quickly or without a ton of manual work) and allowing them to analyze it in ways we never could previously.

What’s interesting is that I came into this with essentially zero IT background. But through using AI as a learning tool, I’ve become fairly comfortable with SQL, Python in Jupyter notebooks, and building logic within datasets to drive the right outputs and reporting.

The biggest benefit has honestly been the learning aspect. I don’t just ask AI for answers, I ask why it arrived at those answers, how the logic works, and what could be improved. It’s accelerated my learning curve tremendously.

I’m fortunate that while we still have deadlines and expectations, they’re realistic, and I’m given the freedom to build processes and help improve the company. It’s been a great balance and honestly a win-win.