How to Use AI at Work: Start With Your Job, Not the Tools

Everyone asks me the exact same question.

"Brian, what is the best AI tool for my work?"

I always hit them back with one question.

"What repetitive task do you do every single day?"

Ninety nine percent of people go quiet. They think hard, try to remember their routine, and finally realize they do not have an answer.

That is the main problem. Everyone starts with the tools. They see a slick demo on Twitter, buy a subscription immediately, and then wonder why the tool only spits out useless garbage in their hands.

Why does this happen?

Because the correct order is the exact opposite. You have to map your own work first. Then you find the AI that cuts out the tedious steps.

Making companies efficient is an old habit of mine

For context, this is not a theory I came up with yesterday. Making companies efficient is an old habit of mine, long before AI was a trend. I have driven over $4 million in cost savings per year through various initiatives.

Those savings came from all sorts of places. Process improvements, cost optimizations, and more efficient product decisions. Automation was just one piece of the puzzle, not the only source.

In the past, building leverage like that required a specific position, a dedicated engineering team, and expensive systems. I had to write detailed PRDs, pitch the idea to stakeholders, wait in the backlog, and pray the development team would get to it in a few months.

The principle has not changed today. But the tools have changed completely.

Now, AI is the sharpest tool for that exact same habit. And most importantly, this habit can be trained to every single person on your team. No waiting in the backlog. No begging engineers for help.

I am not an engineer. But over the last few months, alongside AI, I built an 8-channel content distribution system for my personal brand by myself. I also run AI Circle and an Applied-AI Certification.

I did not start any of this by asking what AI tool was the best. I started by asking which part of my work I could cut out entirely.

Map your work, stop chasing shiny tools

If you want to start using AI at the office, forget about the tools for a minute.

Open your notes app.
Write down what you actually do from 9 AM to 5 PM.

You will quickly notice the exact same pattern. There are too many repetitive tasks.

You read a thirty-page meeting transcript just to find the action items. You write social media captions from scratch every single day. You screen fifty resumes just to find one decent candidate.

This kind of work eats up your time. In the past, you had no choice. You did it manually.

Now, you can turn thirty pages of notes into five action items instantly. You can generate captions with ten hook variations for A/B testing in minutes. You can feed fifty resumes to an AI, have it summarize every candidate, and flag the ones that match your job description. You just review the shortlist.

Work that used to take two or three hours a day now takes minutes. And you build the automation yourself.

That is the right way to use AI at work. You start with your own problem, not the capability of the tool.

From training my team to AI Circle

I apply this approach to my own team at the office. The product teams I lead are forced to document their daily work first. It annoys them a bit, but the moment they see which steps can be cut out, they instantly get it.

This experience training my team is exactly what I bring to AI Circle.

You will not be taught how to code. You will not be taught how to become a genius prompt engineer.

You will be taught exactly one thing.

Tear down your daily work, find the repetitive pieces, and hand them over to AI.

If you are an individual who wants to get their work done efficiently and build your own systems, you can join AI Circle at /ai-circle/.

But if you are a leader in a company, and you want your team to work faster and have more leverage, I open corporate AI training. You can check the details directly at /corporate/.

Stop asking which tool is the best. Start asking which part of your work you are going to cut out today.