| WHY I'LL NEVER WRITE WITHOUT DUET AI AGAIN - AND NEITHER SHOULD YOU

As a knowledge worker, I'm always looking for ways to improve my productivity. As a technologist, I’m constantly trying out new things. When I get a futuristic tool that lets me produce better content faster, I can’t shut up about it.

In this blog post, I'll show you how I use Duet AI for daily work. 

What is Duet AI and why is it secure?

Duet AI is a generative AI assistant that helps you create better content faster. It does this by providing you with real-time suggestions and allowing you to prompt inside your document. Duet AI is available for companies (requires a license) and for private use (free). For the rest of this post, I’ll refer to the enterprise version.

Duet AI uses PaLM 2, a large language model. Its models are “frozen”, meaning they don’t change. You decide when to call it and give it access to a specific document. Your prompts are not logged. Introducing Duet AI will not change how Google Workspace processes your data, and your data is never used to train Google’s models, never leaves your Google Workspace domain and never benefits other customers.

If that sounds too good to be true, hold on to your hat.

How to actually use Duet AI to write better

Duet AI in Google Docs takes several forms: It’s a side panel that suggests how to improve your tone and voice. It’s a large chat box for prompts. Finally, when you highlight text, it offers ready commands (“rephrase” and “bulletize” are my favorites) - or you can prompt. Here’s how to get what you want, even if you have never prompted in your life:

Be very prescriptive. The AI doesn’t know your audience, how long or short you want your answer to be. I’ve provided an example prompt that could generate a template blog post (more on that later).

Iterate on your prompts. Try different versions of commands and compare outputs.

Store your prompts. When you find something that works for you, save it for later. Create a document with all your prompts and share your best practices with others.

Work as a duet. It’s not called “Replace.me AI” for a reason. AI can write whole documents for you, but that’s more like “templating”. I get the best value from directing it, then taking over again, then having it refine my output. Let’s take a look at how to do that.

How I use Duet for all long documents

Here are some things I do when writing long texts (papers, emails, blog posts, etc.):

1. I start with an outline. I structure the headings and bullet points first, then expand them as I write.

2. I ask Duet AI to produce a draft based on the outline, for a certain audience. I keep that draft at the bottom of my text and copy from it where it makes sense. This speeds things up a lot, and I control the output.

3. I have a tendency to be wordy. The "rephrase" function improves my text flow.

4. English is not my first language. An example: I wanted to include a pun. “Write a sentence that includes the noun ‘duet’, in the sense of ‘work in tandem’”. You just read the answer (“work as a duet”).

5. I improve headings by highlighting paragraphs and typing "Please generate 5 different headings, each starting with a verb." The same works for titles and summaries.

6. For important documents, I ask Duet AI to criticize me, based on a certain persona.

I like it so much, I keep an "AI scratchpad" open in Docs for important emails, chat messages, or text in legacy applications.

This is the first time AI is actually, tangibly useful for me. I’ve left the “image you’re a radiologist and can now read so many x-rays” territory. Yes, the future looks bright, and the future has already arrived. I would be crazy to not use Duet AI. Our team would be crazy not to supercharge each of us with a Duet AI co-worker.

Duet AI has helped me become a more productive professional. It has saved me time and helped me to create better content. Access to Duet AI is an advantage and I would pay my own money to keep it. Just imagine what it will do for you. Thank you for reading!

Join 2100+ people who read these tips weekly. Subscribe now!