I saw an interesting question last week – how do you use AI tools? I’ve been writing about them for a while and am helping organisations understand their use in their learning, so here’s what I do.

Firstly, they’re not novelties. I try and avoid using them for facile and superficial elements of my work – that’s not time-saving but energy burning.

I don’t treat ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity as interchangeable. Each has a very specific job and role:

ChatGPT = core thinking partner
I use it to structure arguments and pressure-test logic. I have ‘Andrew mode’, which helps turn messy ideas into clearer thoughts. I think out loud in it and use it to tighten my ideas. The category error post from earlier this week is a fair example of this.

Claude = depth and coherence
For longer documents and narrative flow, Claude works best. It’s especially good at complex rewrites where tone and logic matter more than speed. It helps with procurement, tenders, and simplifying complicated and confusing text. I recently used it to analyse a proposal and help find savings

Perplexity = external reality check
I use it for sources and evidence. It works brilliantly when I want to make sure my claims are evidenced and raise my awareness of things I’ve guessed. It grounds everything. Before bidding for a tender in the NHS, we used it to identify the day rates, costings and likely budgets.

NotebookLM = process generator
I use it in conjunction with other tools. For example, take a long piece of writing, and ask for another tool to craft a prompt for a graphic designer to create a flowchart, diagram, etc. I then paste this into Notebook and get an infographic.

Some core disciplines:

• Start with the problem, not the tool.
• Be explicit about scope – what this is and what it isn’t.
• Try things, find what matters.
• Strip anything generic, inflated, or performative.
• Optimise for decisions and clarity, not cleverness.

Like an engineer uses tools, I select the right one for the right purpose at the right time, deliberately and not as a replacement for my expertise.

How are you using AI tools?