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Australia Financial Review, Boss Page 27, 12 September 25

Most Australians in office jobs report using artificial intelligence in some way in the workplace. While new LinkedIn research found 46 percent of professionals think learning how to use AI feels like another job altogether, the Tech Council of Australia estimates around 84 per cent of all workers are using it in some way.
We spoke to 12 professionals who told us how they use AI.

1. Turn legal cases into podcasts | Luke Furness, a special counsel in Clayton Utz’s Brisbane office, uses Gemini Pro to turn legal cases into podcasts he can listen to on the bus on his way to work.

It means he’s got a grasp of the key components of a case before he needs to
dive into the detail. ‘‘I create audio overviews of articles or cases that I know I have to read. It turns the case into a podcast of three to five minutes,’’ he says.
‘‘The technology is still very rough, but it’s convenient
listening to three or four summaries on the bus on the way in.’’

Furness recently used the method to get an overview of three Supreme Court decisions.

‘‘It gave me the gist of all three, and one I knew would be particularly interesting to a client, so I read that one properly and then had a good chat with them about the implications. It was a dense court decision, so it would have taken me much longer to get through the old way and the moment probably
would have passed.’’

2. Prepare for difficult client conversations | Every time a new technology comes out, accountants and bookkeepers are told they’ll soon be out of a job.It’s been the same with AI, says chartered accountant Heather Smith.

‘‘In case it needs to be said, AI will not replace accountants. Accountants using AI will replace accountants,’’ says Smith, who uses ChatGPT to create checklists, spreadsheets and forecasts –and to help with brainstorming and marketing.

‘‘LLMs are good at words, so when-ever accountants are doing an activity that uses words, ChatGPT can be quite helpful,’’ she says. Smith has also set up AI to act as a client so she can role-play tricky conversations.

‘‘Perhaps it’s explaining to them that their recent trip to Europe is not tax-deductible – I set ChatGPT up to role-play the conversation,’’ she says.‘‘It helps me deal with unexpected responses, and I can ask, ‘How do you suggest I respond?’ It can really give you confidence.’’

3. Draft emails while working out | A common piece of feedback received byKatherine Boiciuc, EY’s regional chief technology and innovation officer, Oceania, is, ‘‘How are you across so much?’’
It’s due to AI, she says.
‘‘Because we work in a global environment where I have team members indifferent time zones all over the world, it’s actually about how do I ensure I have that kind of broad view focus?’
’Instead of spending an hour wading through her emails each morning, Boiciuc has AI ‘‘triage’’ her inbox for the most important emails. She then drafts responses verbally while walking on her home treadmill.
‘‘I do a first pass where I just talk, and then I ask Copilot to summarise it and condense it down into main points, then reduce and edit and refine whatI’ve said.‘‘I also have an end-of-play prompt where I ask it to review my inbox and my messages and determine if there isanything urgent that I need to attend to before I can log off for the day. It lets me relax, so I can log off and know that I haven’t missed anything.’’

4. Look for patterns in medical data | University of NSW chemistry professor
William Alexander Donald is using AI to find patterns in medical data that could help with earlier diagnosis of silicosis disease.
Scientists use a diagnostic tool to analyse breath for signs of silicosis disease – which is usually only picked up when irreversible lung damage starts to appear.
The breath profile is then fed into an AI tool that the university has built. It uses six different machine learning methods, including two advanced ones called neural networks and XG boost.
‘‘Normally, when people analyse molecules in mixtures like this, they often treat each molecule by itself or individually, without considering how they can interact with other metabolites or molecules, whereas we know that they can certainly interact and be related to each other,’’ he says.
‘‘That’s what’s great about these really advanced AI methods, is that it can take into account relationships between the metabolites that would be normally missed.
‘‘We can find patterns in the disease data and see what’s different between those who have the disease and those who don’t,’’ says Donald, adding the results are almost instantaneous and more accurate than conventional methods.

5. Fit more diners in restaurants | Chef Luke Mangan uses WizButler, an AI platform for restaurants, cafes and bars, to manage bookings at Luke’s Afloat and Luke’s Table – his restaurant in the south-east pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
‘‘It manages our bookings in real time, allocating tables, handling waitlists, and matching VIP preferences,’’ says Mangan.
The technology has even enabled him to seat more patrons in his restaurants. ‘‘In the past, we used a platform where we had to manually allocate seating, which worked fine, but it couldn’t automatically rearrange tables,’’ he says.

‘‘That meant we might miss out on a booking for four, even if we had two tables of two available. ‘‘WizButler recognises that and will seamlessly move the tables together to free up a four. It’s clever technology that’s saved us from missing opportunities and lets my team focus more on the dining experience.’’

6. Summarise research papers | Deakin University Vice Chancellor Professor Iain Martin uses Claude to summarise large amounts of information.

‘‘I’ve used it to summarise a whole raft of papers on a particular research topic,’’ he says.
‘‘One recently was actually about AI, and about how you deliver a specific, large language model for a university community – your own little self-contained version of ChatGPT that people can use securely.

‘‘I wanted to know what others are doing, and rather than trawling through a whole lot of stuff, it did it for me in 10 minutes.

‘‘I’ve also fed it a couple of large, complicated documents, and said, ‘Can you trim this down into something that I can read in 10 minutes?’ It did really, really well.’’

7. Find the right word | Tom Gruber, the co-founder of Siri, was in Sydney recently for a TED event run by PwC. He uses AI – mostly Claude – when he’s trying to remember the name of an author or company, or even a word he just can’t quite think of.
‘‘It does a semantic search that Google can’t do,’’ he says. ‘‘For example, ‘In which science fiction novels is AI responsible for creating and or nurturing religion?’

‘‘I just spent nine days living with some Zen Buddhist monks meditating and talking about AI and I used that in the conversations with the monks,’’ he says. ‘‘Same for concepts. I was trying to remember the word ‘cavitation’ and found it with this prompt: ‘There’s a word that begins with C or maybe C A S.
And it has to do with something to do with chaotic laminate or flow’.
‘‘It nailed it,’’ he says.

8. Create a perfectly fitting mouth guard | Back in the day, getting fitted fora mouth guard or splint – whether for
protection during contact sport or bruxism (teeth grinding), took a long time and a lot of messy wax. Now, a quick intra-oral scan with a wireless scanning machine can produce a 3D model of your teeth in no time, while playing a tune.
‘‘The scanner in the mouth used to be bulky and cabled. Now it’s wireless and in the last year they’ve refined it, and it’s much more accurate,’’ says Dr Allan Jamal, a dentist with Summer Hill Dental Care in Sydney.
‘‘AI is integrated into the software system so as the scan is happening it’s filling in the details. In the past, the splint was made out of wax first then converted into acrylic. Now the actual splint is 3D-printed.’’

9. Bounce ideas off | Founder of pet care e-commerce business, MyCavoodle, Bella Moro uses AI as a sounding board when she’s weighing up decisions. ‘‘For example, I’m currently tossing up whether to move warehouses and have used AI to weigh up things like costs, inclusions and service offerings. It’s helping me make a more analytical decision, since I naturally tend to go with my gut on these things.’’
The time she’s saved using ChatGPT for marketing campaigns, social media captions, customer service responses and website and ad copy has freed up time for her to post twice a day on social media.
‘‘Tasks that used to take me half an hour now take five minutes, which has made me far more productive,’’ Moro says, adding she’s doubled her followers in less than a year.

‘‘Honestly, Iwas never confident with writing. My English teacher in school once told me I’d never make it, and that really eroded my confidence. I know I can communicate well in person, but translating my ideas into writing was always where I second-guessed myself.
‘‘AI helps me bridge that gap.’’

10. Soften blunt emails | ‘‘I juggle a lot of responsibilities each day, so when it
comes to writing and preparing emails I tend to write in a very direct style,’’
says Alice Hagen, co-founder of Calibre Real Estate in Brisbane.

‘‘I genuinely care about my team and our clients, but in the rush of a busy day I’ve noticed that the meaningful tone doesn’t always come across via emails.’’
AI is ‘‘like the PA I’ve always needed’’, says Hagen.

‘‘It helps me compile my message and tweak it to ensure all the thoughtful touches I would intentionally include face-to-face are included.

‘‘Those small things really do make communication feel more personal and positive.’’

11. Convert a PDF to a .csv – and design earrings | Chartered accountant Kylie Parker, the founder of Lotus Accountants in Sydney, has clients who send her overseas bank statements in PDF format – from US bank CIBC or Chase in the UK, for example. Because she needs them to be in .csv format for Xero, she uploads the PDF version into MyGPT, the paid version of  ChatGPT, and it converts into .csv format. Parker also recently used AI to design a pair of diamond earrings.

‘‘I had an old engagement and wedding ring and some earrings my ex-husband had given me for my 40th. My cousin Gina Brown is a jeweller, and she said she could turn them into a new pair of earrings for me.

‘‘I told ChatGPT what we were working with – a round 0.25ct diamond and 4 baguette-cut diamonds (~0.1ct each) per earring. ChatGPT suggested seven creative design layouts.
Parker sent the mock-ups to Brown, who offered her professional feedback,
and Parker worked with AI again to refine her designs. ‘‘The final concept was a square design using baguettes to frame the round diamond,’’ she says.

12. Help students learn another language | AI as being used in language classes at Newington College in Sydney,
where all year 7 students study Latin and either French or Mandarin, and more than 300 students in years 8 to 12 are learning at least one language.
‘‘We talk to the students about the limitations of AI and why it wouldn’t be acceptable for them to use it in other academic circumstances,’’ says head of languages, Marnie Foster.
But when it comes to learning another language, AI can be used to find vocabulary that is more current and that may not exist in student textbooks and dictionaries.

‘‘Another challenge we’ve always had is locating quality listening materials for students,’’ says Foster.
Now, teachers can use AI to create their own listening resources and assessments.

‘‘We can choose the mood and build emotions into the AI speaker, as well as select the accent in which it is speaking.
‘‘Being able to understand regional variation is a key component of the International Baccalaureate, so it’s been a fantastic resource for these students.’’