5 uses of AI that you’ll actually want to try

Artificial Intelligence or AI can sound a scary concept. To some it conjures images of deep fakes, cheating and replacing jobs but used right it's an incredibly handy tool. After all, it is just that: a tool that is an advancement of computer generative learning.

Some once though that the computer would be the end of humanity, but it's actually just helped us become more efficient. It's arguably given us ways to be less efficient too, but that's another discussion.

Today, AI is everywhere. There isn't a tech product that doesn't boast some of of AI in its operation, from TV colour adjustments to kitchen gadgets that can better cook your meals.

Once you get past the bluster, much of AI is genuinely useful and can save you time. Think of it like a more powerful search or a voice assistant that actually works like a personal assistant.

So rather than creating another packaged doll version of yourself or rewriting a Shakespeare play in Gen Z speak, try one of these options for size, and make AI work for you.

1. Plan a holiday

Holiday planning can be stressful, from finding where to go, to getting the best prices for flights and accommodation, to your daily itinerary. Thankfully, AI can now help with all of this.

Using either an AI assistant or a ChatGPT search, you can simply tell it the kind of holidays you like, the time of year you want to go and maybe how far you want to travel, and get some suggestions back. Deal-savvy travellers are also using AI to help them get the best prices on flights and hotels, also asking when the best time is to book or the best dates to travel.

Perhaps my favourite use of AI in travel is for when you have your destination confirmed and working out what to do there. Asking your AI assistant or search for an ideal itinerary for a four-day or 7-day trip will bring you some great suggestions that you can then fine-tune for your needs. It's also great for city breaks, when you want to cram as much as possible in.

2. Make meal prep easy

Even if you love food, planning our a week's worth of meals can be draining, especially trying to come up with new ideas for a fussy family. One feature I love about AI is asking it to come up with some meal ideas, to suit my (occasionally fussy) needs.

This is something that most AI assistants or searches can perform quite easily. Though Amazon did highlight this as part of its new Alexa+ service. The idea is that because Alexa already knows who's in your family, and what they eat or don't eat (through previous chats), it can suggest a better list of meals to suit.

Of course, you can just feed all the information into any AI tool – asking for meal ideas to suit two people, that don't include fish or are too spicy, for instance. Though an AI assistant where you can just say, "give me some options for dinner" and it knows all that already, is pretty cool.

3. Illustrate your story or presentation

Adding some visuals to your presentation can help turn something dry into something truly engaging. Where once you might have reached for the clip art, it's easy to find images through stock libraries but it takes time to find something just right.

This is where AI image generation becomes actually useful. Google Gemini can turn a quick sketch into a professional looking illustration, while services like Midjourney can generate photo real creations to suit your exact requirement. You can also use ChatGPT, Canva or even Apple Playground to create something based on just a few words.

It doesn't have to be a presentation either. You can illustrate a children's story, a party invite or even use it as a storyboard tool for a project. It's a handy way to better visualise what you're saying, and that's what AI does best.

4. Check your work

AI is capable of creating emails and even essays from scratch, based on a few simple prompts. While this is good for more generic tasks, what's even more useful is when AI can become your very own editor.

Apps such as Grammarly have employed AI for some time to help offer suggestions on how you can improve your pieces of writing. From simple spelling and grammar suggestions through to sentence structure and tone, the feedback can help tweak your work to make it even better.

Apple Intelligence, Galaxy AI and other services all offer options to help suggest or make changes to your writing. You can easily make a document, report, or letter sound more professional, confident, or even friendly.

5. Get a better answer to any question (search)

Google changed the world of internet searching when it launched in 1998 by offering a simple way to get better results. With AI, questions can now be much more descriptive and with more natural wording.

Not only can you type these natural questions on (or speak them to) your search page or AI assistant, but the answers you get back are no longer just a list of websites. ChatGPT replies with an answer based on what it has learnt (or searched) so you get a detailed summary.

Google, too, has moved to offering AI summaries to search requests at the top of its results, but the real magic is in refining those answers further. With ChatGPT and Google Gemini, you can provide follow-up questions or conditions to refine your answer until you get exactly what you're looking for.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to AI, but like the computer, it is just another tool that, if used correctly, can make your life easier.