Artificial intelligence isn’t just for tech experts; it’s quickly becoming a tool for everyone. Whether you’re organizing a community town hall, planning a vacation, or analyzing spreadsheets at work, AI can enhance how you engage, create, and contribute.
AI is more than a tool for efficiency. It’s a catalyst for reimagining how we connect, create, and engage as citizens. While it holds immense potential to elevate human capabilities, its true impact will depend on our choices in using it.
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
One of AI’s most exciting roles is in boosting civic participation. Here are a few powerful ways to get involved in your community using AI tools:
- Organize community ideas for town hall meetings. It can transcribe and summarize ideas shared in open forums. See how Bowling Green, KY used AI to seek public opinion.
- Summarize legislation or council meeting notes, making local government more accessible. Citizen Portal is one example.
- Promote safer online discourse and protect against misinformation using tools like Google Jigsaw’s project, Perspective API, to detect toxic language and foster more constructive civic dialogue in online platforms and comment sections.
- Streamline Civic Research: Use AI to learn more about a new topic and to help you find interesting resources faster. Ask about local spaces to engage in and what is needed in your community. Check out The Policy Circle’s AI Primer: Understanding AI Insight for more ideas and prompts to elevate your civic engagement.
- Discover task forces and open positions on local commissions, school boards, and technology advisory councils in your area.
- Draft public comments for proposed policies.
- Map resources in your area, from broadband access to workforce development programs. Follow up on the importance of broadband and digital services for communities in The Policy Circle’s Digital Landscape Brief.
Looking for more ways to get involved? Explore The Policy Circle’s Civic Engagement Brief for additional ideas and inspiration on civic participation.
EVERYDAY USES
AI can also enhance your everyday life, whether you’re tackling dinner dilemmas or planning a getaway. Here are some fun and practical prompts you can try right now to see it in action:
- Plan a Trip: Design custom travel itineraries based on your interests, travel style, and budget.
- Prompt: “Plan a 5-day trip to Italy focused on food, wine, and historic towns.
- Create Recipes: Suggest meals based on the ingredients you have.
- Prompt: “What can I cook with chicken, spinach, feta, and quinoa?”
- Brainstorm Gift Ideas.
- Prompt: “Suggest birthday gifts for a 10-year-old who loves science.”
- Generate Images: Create visuals for personal projects, events, or presentations using AI image tools like DALL-E integrated into ChatGPT.
- Prompt: “Create a cheerful illustrated image of a farmers market in summer.
- Improve Your Understanding: Use The Policy Circle’s Financial Literacy Brief and then level up your learning by turning to AI to investigate more.
- Prompt: “What information can I gather about how government-funded financial literacy programs are evaluated for impact and accountability? Are there examples of effective oversight models or performance metrics used by state or federal agencies?”
PROFESSIONAL AND CREATIVE USES
Professionals are turning to AI to speed up routine tasks and unlock creative thinking. Stay ahead of the curve by asking AI to do the following to maximize your productivity:
- Summarize Complex Documents: Upload PDFs, reports, or research papers and ask for concise summaries.
- Prompt: “Summarize the key takeaways from this 20-page white paper.”
- Transcribe and Analyze Audio Files: Upload audio from meetings, interviews, or lectures for automatic transcription and insights.
- Prompt: “Transcribe this recording and highlight key action points.”
- Organize Spreadsheets: Upload a spreadsheet and ask AI to find patterns, summarize trends, or clean up messy data.
- Prompt: “Analyze this spreadsheet and summarize the top three sales trends.”
- Draft an Op-Ed or Article: Provide your main ideas and ask ChatGPT to create a structured piece in your desired tone and length.
- Prompt: “Write a 500-word op-ed advocating for more entrepreneurship education in high schools. Tone: optimistic and inspiring.”
- Tip: The more detail you provide, including target audience, style, and desired format, the more tailored and appropriate the results will be.
- Create a Career Plan.
- Prompt: “Design a 12-month plan to transition from project coordinator to project manager, including skills I should build.”
- Develop a Personal Brand Strategy.
- Prompt: “Outline a personal branding plan for a healthcare professional entering digital health innovation.”
- Design a Podcast Episode.
- Prompt: “Draft a 30-minute podcast script on the future of AI in education, including intro, guest questions, and closing.
As AI tools become more integrated into the workplace, privacy and data security are front-of-mind for organizations. Here are some solutions companies are adopting to stay secure while leveraging AI’s benefits:
- bundleIQ (ALANI) allows teams to securely manage and query internal knowledge while keeping data inside the organization’s systems.
- OpenAI Enterprise provides businesses with advanced data controls, including ownership protections and role-based access.
- Cohere offers customizable large language models that can be deployed on-premises or in air-gapped environments, with a strong emphasis on security and compliance.
- Theom enables secure AI access to local data without information ever leaving company infrastructure.
- Valerian, founded by former Palantir engineers, helps companies maintain full control over sensitive data across complex environments.
- Kiteworks recently launched an AI Data Gateway, allowing enterprises to leverage AI while ensuring documents remain encrypted and internally managed.
These platforms reflect a broader trend: as businesses embrace AI, many are prioritizing data sovereignty, privacy, and control, ensuring their use of AI aligns with regulatory, ethical, and operational requirements.
STAY ENGAGED
Follow along with The Policy Circle’s AI Insight Series to learn more about how AI intersects with industries and principles for sound policy.
