Generative AI has enhanced my productivity and creativity by providing tools for writing, visualizing ideas through image generation, and assisting with programming tasks, ultimately transforming my creative process.

Writing with AI has transformed the way I work. Almost from the day ChatGPT launched an AI revolution in 2023, I experimented with how various AI tools could improve my productivity and show me new creative directions. As a working person, I can only devote so much time on a daily basis to my writing. Generative AI has helped my make the most of my resources.

According to the book promotion company Bookbub, less than half of writers are willing to admit writing with AI in some fashion. I believe the number is much larger, but social pressure has made them fear admitting the truth. I would like to encourage acceptance of AI as a creative augmenter by explaining how I’ve used it.

Easing the writing process

Writing – Though I love to write, the writing process is often boring, even painful. Simply generating ideas that don’t repeat tired cliches has caused me grief. One day at a table read, a friend suggested Anthropic’s Claude AI, which is specifically tuned for writing. Asking Claude to review an idea and suggest a new twist has relieved some of this pain.

Though I value human readers, they aren’t always available. Many don’t have the time or the expertise to write detailed notes. I’ve uploaded raw notes and asked Claude and ChatGPT to put them into something more cohesive. I’ve also had them suggest different story structures, new scenes, or new characters.

Writing with AI allows you to think more clearly about what works and what doesn’t. In seconds, AI chatbots offer feedback without judgment or editorializing. I can reject everything they say without hurting feelings or risking blowback.

Visualizing ideas

Images – I have no talent in graphic arts. I couldn’t draw my way out of a box. I know nothing of color theory, the strengths and weaknesses of certain materials, or the rules of composition. I learned a little about photography in high school and filmmaking in college, but that doesn’t make me a photographer or filmmaker. ChatGPT’s image generation feature, as well as Leonardo AI, NightCafe, and others (I haven’t tried MidJourney because it doesn’t have a “free” account.) have opened up new ways to visualize my ideas.

Text-to-image prompting is nothing less than magic to me. Now I can test ideas for world-building and character-building by asking generative AI to show me what the idea might look like graphically. Generative AI has been a teacher, almost a mentor, in using graphic arts and fine arts to explore narrative threads.

Become a master coder

Programming – In real life, I have a job that pays the bills and offers health insurance. The core tasks can be somewhat boring and repetitive, perfect fodder for a good programmer. One day, my managers added new capabilities to our Microsoft 365 business account, including Forms and Power Automate. In past jobs, I had built simple web applications with Perl and MySQL, and that experience came in handy with my first Power Automate script, which gathers information for a type of work order.

Later, I wanted to build a VBA application to improve a business process, and I asked MS Copilot to help code it. Copilot saved me at least 50 percent of the coding time on this app, which has been adopted by dozens of my co-workers. In recent weeks, I’ve found simple ways to incorporate MS’s version of OpenAI’s GPT large language model into a simple Power Automate script, which summarizes long email threads and complicated PDF documents.

Writers and artists have a right to be concerned about how their copyrighted works are used to train AI models. That said, generative AI is too useful to be stopped, either by shaming creatives into avoiding it or regulating it to death. If you’re hesitating over writing with AI, give it a shot with a free account on ChatGPT or use Copilot if you’re on a Windows computer. It may or may not work for you, but you’ll be better for the experiment.

I’d love to hear how you’re using AI in your creative life. Comment below.

Image: ChatGPT May 25, 2025