AI for Productivity

Duke University via Coursera

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Details

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Provider

Coursera
Pricing

Paid Course
Languages

English
Certificate

Paid Certificate Available
Duration & workload

5 hours 3 minutes
Sessions

On-Demand
Subtitles

English

Found in

Overview

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Work smarter, not harder, with AI This course will teach you, a working professional, how to boost your workflows with AI. You’ll learn how to identify, evaluate, and apply cutting-edge AI tools to streamline your daily tasks. Through case studies and discussions, you will analyze, apply, and get ready to create using tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Notion, DALL·E, and Adobe Firefly, while learning to integrate AI responsibly into your professional routine. In Week 1, you’ll explore how to use AI writing assistants to draft, summarize, and refine communication. In Week 2, you’ll discover how to optimize AI for your planning, scheduling, and administrative needs, using Copilot and ChatGPT. In Week 3, you’ll learn how AI tools like Gemini and Insight can illuminate the insights in your information by organizing your notes or assisting with data-driven analysis. Finally, in Week 4, you’ll discover how to responsibly use AI to conduct ethical research and generate multimedia content using tools like Research Rabbit, Consensus, Stable Diffusion, Synthesia, and Runway. By the end of this course, you’ll be able to identify key AI use cases, compare tools that enhance productivity, and build AI-driven workflows that save time, spark innovation, and let you focus on meaningful, high-impact work.

Syllabus

Welcome to the Course!

Get ready to work smarter with AI productivity tools. In Week 1, you’ll explore how generative AI tools can help you accomplish everyday tasks with ease and efficiency. You will look at how AI can assist with routine workplace responsibilities, whether drafting emails, summarizing notes, rewriting content, or improving the tone of your emails. You will practice writing effective AI prompts that produce polished, professional results. Then you will learn how to integrate AI into your work so it acts as a personal writing assistant for multiple modes of communication. Most importantly, we hope you will become excited to boost your workflow with AI, so you can focus on high-impact work. Featured Tools: ChatGPT, Grammarly, Microsoft Office and Google Docs integrations.

Using AI for Administrative Tasks: Editing, Scheduling, and Organization

Streamline your planning so you can focus on execution! In Week 2, you will learn how to employ AI tools such as Copilot and ChatGPT to automate administrative tasks, plan projects, and build personalized schedules that boost productivity. You will discover how generative AI can automate routine administrative tasks, from resume reviews, to document cleanups and meeting summaries. You will determine ways that AI can help you efficiently manage projects and meetings, and achieve your personal goals with greater effectiveness. By the end of this week, you will be able to confidently use AI as a digital assistant, the low maintenance sidekick who helps you schedule better, save time, and stay focused. Featured Tools: Grammarly, Copilot, ChatGPT.

Using AI for Note-taking, Summarizing, and Data Analysis

Analysis no longer needs to be a headache, because AI makes it simple. In Week 3, you will learn how to turn messy, unorganized information into organized insight using AI-powered note-taking and data tools. You will practice generating meeting transcripts and summaries automatically, transforming unstructured notes into polished documents, and creating coherent storylines from complex datasets. You’ll discover how to use AI to capture meeting highlights, condense long documents, and uncover trends hidden in spreadsheets. You’ll practice prompting generative AI to clean, organize, and analyze data. Ultimately, you will learn how to use AI as your assistant, helping you easily extract the story from your notes and datasets. Featured Tools: Copilot, Microsoft Stream, Clipchamp, Otter AI, Evernote AI, ChatGPT, Gemini (Google AI).

Using AI in Research and Image Generation

In Week 4, you’ll learn how to use AI research tools responsibly and creatively. Discover how to guard against AI hallucinations by demanding credible references, verifying peer-reviewed sources, and comparing outputs across platforms. You will learn how to streamline your research by prompting AI to find, summarize, and organize scholarly articles. You’ll also gain an introduction to AI-powered creative tools that generate images, videos, and multimedia content. From summarizing journal articles to designing visuals and videos, you’ll gain practical skills for responsibly using AI. Finally, you will analyze why AI’s creative outputs should be reviewed and refined with human insight, reflecting on how AI tools are simply a sidekick to human creativity. Featured Tools: Research Rabbit, Consensus, Insight, Gemini (Google AI) , Canva, DALL·E, Copilot, Stable Diffusion, Synthesia, Runway, Descript, Adobe Firefly, Filmora.