Hello AI, My New Friend
- Shelby Kirby
- Apr 1
- 5 min read
(Yes, to the tune of Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" — you're welcome)
If you're working in the marine industry right now and you can barely breathe, this post is for you.
The emails pile up. The meetings stack on meetings. The documentation never ends. You are keeping the boat afloat, but nobody is fixing the leak. And every week, there's a new conversation about AI and what it means and whether you should be paying attention.
Here's where I land on that: stop bailing water and fix the boat.
AI tools are not going to replace you. But they will absolutely give you your time back, if you're willing to spend 20 minutes learning something new. I have been testing and using these tools in my own work, and what I want to share is not hype. It's what's actually helped.
Why This Matters Right Now
Whether you're in sales, operations, marketing, technical services, or leadership, you are a knowledge worker. The writing, researching, documenting, and communicating that fills your days is exactly where AI creates the biggest, fastest wins.
The pace of change is not slowing down. Companies are already using these tools. Candidates who walk into interviews with hands-on AI experience are standing out. Those who don't are not getting left behind because they're less capable. They're getting left behind because they look less current.
Get on board or get left behind. That's not a threat. That's just where we are.
Here's where to start.
*A quick note on security: While these AI tools are incredibly powerful, every company has different rules. Before you dive in, be sure to check with your IT or management team to make sure these applications fit within your organization’s tech guidelines.
Tool 1: Fathom — Never Take Meeting Notes Again
If you are bouncing between back-to-back calls and walking away with half-remembered action items on a sticky note, Fathom is about to change your life.
Fathom is an AI meeting assistant that automatically joins your Google Meet, Zoom, or Microsoft Teams calls. It records audio and video, transcribes the conversation, and generates a clean, concise summary, including action items by person.
No more wondering what Bill or Sarah were supposed to follow up on. No more furious note-taking while you are simultaneously trying to actually listen. Fathom handles it, and you can share the recap with the whole team instantly.
There is a free version that works beautifully.
Check with your company's IT or compliance guidelines before installing on a work machine, but if it's greenlit, implement this today.
Tool 2: Wispr Flow — Speak It, Send It
Here's a stat worth sitting with. A Stanford University study found that speech input is about 3x faster than keyboard typing and when you look at average speeds, most people speak around 150 words per minute compared to a typing speed of 38 to 40 words per minute. That gap is significant.
Wispr Flow is a voice AI that works across every app on your computer, your email, your documents, your browser, even other AI tools. You press a button, talk, and it types for you. Correctly. With formatting, bullet points, and capitalization handled automatically.
I've been using it to draft emails, notes, and yes, posts like this one. When the friction of getting ideas out of your head and onto a page drops to nearly zero, you produce more, faster, and often better.
Check your company policy before installing on a work machine, but try it on your personal device tonight and see what happens.
Tool 3: Loom — Kill the Meeting, Send a Video Instead
Not every question needs a meeting. Not every walkthrough requires a scheduled call. Loom lets you record your screen, with an optional face bubble in the corner, and send a link instead.
Need to walk a new team member through a complex process? Record it once, send the link, done. Want to follow up on a sales proposal with something more personal than an email? Loom. Need to show a vendor exactly what you're looking at without a 45-minute call? Loom.
The AI feature cleans up captions and copy automatically. The free version is genuinely great and more than enough to get started.
Tool 4: Guidde — Training Docs Without the Pain
If you have ever spent hours building step-by-step training documentation, you know how tedious it is. Screenshots, arrows, numbered steps, click here then here. Guidde makes that process almost effortless.
You open Guidde, hit record, and click through the process as you normally would. Guidde captures every click, automatically adds arrows and annotations, generates a copy overlay, and can even produce a voiceover, all fully editable.
You do not have to be on camera. You do not have to speak if you don't want to. The output looks polished and professional, and it takes a fraction of the time. For anyone doing software onboarding, compliance training, or process documentation in the marine space, this is a meaningful upgrade.
Tool 5: An AI Writing and Research Assistant
There are several strong options here and I'd encourage you to try a few. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and others all fall into this category. The idea is the same across all of them: give the tool context, give it direction, and let it help you think, research, draft, and organize faster than you could alone.
Need to summarize a 40-page technical document? Done in seconds. Need to draft a proposal, a follow-up email, a competitive analysis, or an internal memo? A solid first draft in under a minute.
The key word across all of these tools is context. The more specific you are about your audience, your goal, and your constraints, the better the output. Think of it less like a search engine and more like a well-read colleague who just needs a thorough briefing before they can help.
If you are buried in work and haven't tried any AI writing or research tool yet, just start. Pick one and spend 20 minutes with it.
How to Keep Learning Without Feeling Overwhelmed
You do not need to become an AI expert overnight. You need to stay curious and stay current. A few easy ways to do that:
Subscribe to at least one AI-focused newsletter. Even one or two emails a week will keep you aware of what's moving in the space and will surface tools you would never have thought to search for.
Google offers free AI courses that are genuinely practical and accessible. Coursera has affordable options from reputable institutions specifically focused on AI for business and productivity. And YouTube creators are doing extraordinary work teaching these tools for free. Search for tutorials on any tool mentioned in this post and you will find hours of walkthroughs, no subscription required.
The goal is not mastery. The goal is a working point of view and enough hands-on experience to speak to it credibly.
The Bigger Picture: Invest in Yourself
Whether you are employed and exhausted, quietly burned out, or somewhere in between, this moment is an invitation.
Who do you want to be? What kind of work actually lights you up? What are you genuinely great at?
Investing in your skills is the one investment no one can ever take from you. And right now, the highest-leverage skill you can build in almost any knowledge-working field is understanding how to use AI. Not perfectly. Not comprehensively. Just enough to be more valuable tomorrow than you were yesterday.
Even if you are still in a role that feels uncertain, take the opportunity to learn something. Do a project outside your comfort zone using one of these tools. Get a win under your belt. Because the next opportunity you walk into will go very differently if you can say, "Yes, I have been using AI tools actively. Here is what I have learned."
Stop bailing water. Fix the boat.
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