You don't need expensive, integrated AI features to revolutionize your workflow. The most powerful AI strategy available to most project managers today is the simple, intelligent use of copy-and-paste with free, public AI tools like Google Gemini, ChatGPT, or Microsoft Copilot.

The core idea is to use the AI as a "thought processor." You provide it with raw, unstructured information, and it returns structured, polished content that you can immediately use in your everyday applications.

This workflow can be broken down into three main categories:

1. Generating Text for Documents and Communications

This is the most common use case. You can use an AI to draft, refine, or summarize text for:

• Emails: Drafting a project kickoff announcement or a difficult email to a stakeholder.
• Word Documents: Generating a first draft of a project charter or a "lessons learned" document.
• PowerPoint Presentations: Creating slide titles, bullet points, and speaker notes from a simple outline.

2. Structuring Data for Spreadsheets

This is a less obvious but incredibly powerful technique. You can ask the AI to output information in a specific table format. This allows you to:

• Create a project timeline or a risk register in a format that can be directly pasted into Excel.
• Turn a messy list of requirements into a structured table with categories, priorities, and owners.

3. Creating Outlines for Presentations

Before you even open PowerPoint, you can use an AI to structure your narrative. By providing the topic and key messages, you can ask the AI to generate a logical flow for your presentation, complete with a title slide, agenda, key section points, and a concluding summary.

Throughout this course, we will focus on these practical, copy-and-paste-centric workflows that you can start using today, no new software required.