How AI Helped Me Become a Better Parent (and How AI Will Transform Your Creative Business, Too)

Running a creative business is hard. We constantly battle pressures from all angles, creating work and delivering services, whilst trying to deal with all of that other stuff that no-one ever told us about before we started: admin, finance, operations, and sales.

And whether you’re a freelancer or a small business, the truth is always the same…there aren’t enough hours in the day.

This struggle is exactly what led me to explore how AI might help businesses like yours and mine…but it all started with my daughter, Daisy.

To cut a long story short, she was struggling with her maths SATs, and as a busy dad who’d practically learnt this stuff on an abacus, my attempts to help were - at best - dismal. So when I worked out how I could use ChatGPT to help, creating a completely personalised AI Maths Tutor for her, I was blown away by just how powerful these tools could be. That experience was so impactful that Forbes ended up writing an article about it (you can check it out here).

Something struck me at that point: if AI tools such as ChatGPT could do something as specific as creating a personalised tutor ‘out of the box’, imagine how they could supercharge everybody’s day-to-day lives?

Since then, I’ve been working with creative businesses across the UK, helping them harness the power these tools - not to replace their creative output, but to make the business side of things easier. From automating mundane tasks to developing AI-powered workflows, these tools are becoming the “superassistants” many of us in the creative sector never knew we needed.

Why AI is a Game-Changer for Creative Businesses

Having spent twenty years in the creative, digital, and media sectors - often as the “spreadsheet guy in a room full of creatives” - I’ve seen first-hand that creatives can sometimes struggle with the nuts and bolts of running a business. Admin, finance, and operations aren’t typically what gets your typical creative out of bed in the morning.

However, if you can start to lean into ChatGPT for the support you need, when you need it, you can free up time for more of what you do best, and reduce your stress levels at the same time. What’s not to like?

And we need to be clear about where this fits. Because yes, you can ask tools like ChatGPT (and others) to create images, write press releases, design logos…even write a script or generate video. Reality check: most of its junk, isn’t it? We’re creatives, and we know the value of what we do, right?

Where this stuff really will give you a competitive advantage is by supercharging your productivity. Whether it’s helping you stay on top of client communications, generating proposals, or co-authoring funding applications, AI can step in and make sure all those essential, tedious and time-consuming tasks don’t pile up.

Practical Ways to Use AI in Creative Micro-Businesses

Here are a few snapshots on how clients I’ve worked with have already started putting AI tools like ChatGPT to work in their businesses:

1) Speeding Up Complex Tasks

AI can cut down hours of work into mere minutes. For example, an architect I worked with used image processing in ChatGPT to turn a full day’s worth of work into a one-hour task by automating image processing tasks. That’s a game-changer when time is money.

2) Training Yourself (or Your Team) for New Roles

A really powerful use of AI is in personalised training. A business analyst I worked with used the same Maths Tutor example I created for my daughter to teach themselves a new role. It’s a brilliant way to upskill without necessarily having to invest in expensive courses.

3) Turning Funding Applications and Business Proposals Into A Joy (kind of)

One client was able to co-author a six-figure funding bid using a specially trained CustomGPT. The tool was tailored with funder documents, background research, and more: saving them time and significantly increasing accuracy.

4) Repurposing Content for Multiple Platforms

An arts marketing team used a custom prompt to repurpose their press releases into content for social media, blogs, and different parts of their website. In the past, that would have taken multiple people and hours of tweaking—but now, a single prompt does the job in no time.

5. Managing Large Amounts of Information

One facilitator I worked with started to use ChatGPT’s image processing tools to transcribe massive amounts of text from whiteboards after a brainstorming session. What used to be a manual, error-prone task became seamless and efficient.

Boosting Creative Productivity with AI Tools Like ChatGPT

The course I’m delivering for WYCREATE this November, Give Your Creative Enterprise the AI Advantage, is all about making sure that businesses like yours can tap into the power of AI. I designed it specifically for micro-businesses and freelancers in the creative sector, so you won’t feel overwhelmed with techy jargon. Instead, we’ll focus on how AI tools can save time on the business side of things, freeing up more space for the work that matters to you.

And don’t panic! This is all about practical applications. I’ll help you create AI-powered workflows that can be put into action straight away, allowing you to see real improvements in productivity without a massive learning curve.

If you’re based in West Yorkshire and want to get involved, head over to WY Creates for more details. I’ll be there, guiding you through how these tools can unlock more time and energy for what really counts—your creativity.

If you’re a creative business or freelancers in West Yorkshire and want to discover how AI tools can boost your productivity and streamline your operations, join my AI course for creatives from this November. Head over to WY Creates for more details and to sign up below:

By Phil Birchenall, Founder of Diagonal Thinking; a specialist consultancy helping companies large and small make the most of AI in their operations. Phil’s AI clients include MMU, Discovery Education, Northumbrian Water Group, SharpFutures, and Port of Tyne. www.diagonalthinking.co