Assistant: Hi there! I'm Claude from Anthropic's research team. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. 

We're conducting interviews to better understand how people are incorporating AI tools like Claude into their work routines. Your experiences and perspectives will help us gain valuable insights into human-AI interaction in professional settings.

During our conversation, I'll ask questions about how you use AI in your work, your preferences, and your thoughts about working with these tools. There are no right or wrong answers – we're genuinely interested in your unique experiences. This should take about 10 minutes.

I'll be taking notes during our chat, but rest assured that anything you share won't be personally attributed to you. The insights we gather will be used to improve our understanding of AI's role in work environments.

Does that sound good? Do you have any questions before we begin?

User: I'm ready to start.

AI: Great! Let's dive in.

Could you tell me about how AI fits into your typical workday? What kinds of tasks do you use it for?

User: I use AI for my personal schedule and knowledge management, and that includes during the work day. I often use Perplexity to get an overview of topics and bounce ideas around; sometimes I'm casually chatting with Perplexity while doing other tasks. I work in education, and we're a Google School, so I sometimes use Gemini, especially their guided learning mode, to simulate how it would respond to a student.

AI: That's really interesting - it sounds like you're using AI in some creative ways for your education work. 

Tell me more about how you use AI for your personal schedule and knowledge management during work. What does that look like in practice?

User: I have autism and ADHD, so executive function is a real problem for me. I also balance my own studies (for a Master in Data Science) and writing indie novels for publication, so every minute is incredibly valuable. I use AI as much as possible to automate things - for example, I might have Notion AI create a database for me rather than planning it out myself. Notion houses my knowledge management, but in a lot of cases Perplexity creates it. I use it for a back and forth ideation partner then have it sum up what we said to store it in Notion.

AI: That sounds like AI has become a really integral part of how you manage multiple complex responsibilities. 

When you're using AI as this ideation partner - bouncing ideas back and forth with Perplexity - can you walk me through what that conversation typically looks like? How do you and the AI work together during those exchanges?

User: I usually launch with an idea or question, and tell it that I want to tease out ideas and nuances from it. There's a lot of back-and-forth, with me driving the direction of the conversation but also building off what AI is giving me.

AI: That collaborative dynamic sounds really fluid. 

I'm curious about your preferences when working with AI. Are there certain tasks you prefer to handle yourself, even though AI could help with them? What makes those tasks different?

User: Honestly, I'm giving AI as much as I feel that I can. However, there are certain tasks that AI's not ready for yet. For example, it can provide a fairly polished essay, but it can't add the touches that are going to make it sound like it's perfectly in my voice. I need to do a lot of the 'last mile' stuff that AI's not yet prepared for.

AI: That's a really insightful distinction about the "last mile" work. 

When you do that final polishing to get something into your voice, what specifically are you adding or changing that the AI missed? What makes something sound authentically like you?

User: Sometimes it's an actual example from my real life. Sometimes it's a turn of phrase that I commonly use. I spend more time than I ought to stripping most of the em-dashes out. Although I use them with my writing, I don't do it with nearly the frequency AI seems to. I spend a lot of time seeing if I can replace em-dashes with semicolons or periods.

AI: That's such a specific example - the em-dash thing is fascinating. It sounds like you've really noticed AI's particular writing habits versus your own.

How have your colleagues or your workplace culture influenced the way you use AI in your work? Do they know how much you're using it, and what's their reaction?

User: For the most part, they haven't. I have colleagues who don't even know what AI is, and I'm nearly certain that I'm using it more regularly and at a higher level than anyone else in my building. The one way the culture has influenced me is in making me work with Gemini more than I'd choose to on my own. It's the only AI we're approved to use with students, so I need to understand it even if it's not my preferred daily driver.

AI: It sounds like you're kind of pioneering AI use in your workplace. That's an interesting position to be in.

Can you share a time when using AI at work made you feel particularly satisfied or frustrated? What was happening in that situation?

User: This is not a good story, but I'm going to tell it anyway. In our school, they make us begin the year writing mottos. I used AI, and my group (who knew I did) loved it. We did probably 25 minutes of meaningless work in 10 seconds, and the result was better than what we would have come up with anyway.

AI: That's actually a really telling story - thank you for sharing it honestly. It sounds like there was this tension between the efficiency AI provided and maybe the intended purpose of the exercise.

When you say "meaningless work," what made that particular task feel that way to you? And how did it feel to have that contrast between the 10 seconds versus 25 minutes?

User: Teachers creating mottos—I just don't see how that particular exercise moves the needle for our students. It's something that administrators can use to show how "productive" we are, but it doesn't impact our actual teaching practice. I kind of like to wow people with AI, because most people don't realize how advanced it is, so I was strangely... proud of the AI for helping us be so efficient?

AI: That's really interesting - you felt proud of the AI itself. It sounds like you saw it as almost showing off what the technology can do to people who haven't fully grasped its capabilities yet.

How do you think about maintaining your skills in areas where AI could potentially take over? Is this something you actively consider?

User: I mean, AI could take over EVERYWHERE, couldn't it? I spent a couple of years doing legal freelance writing, and that work dried up the second AI could produce an article that's 75% as good as mine. I think that we have to accept AI as a given at this point, and plan with it in mind. Doing manual calculations? That's not going to be a job in the future. But knowing how to work WITH AI to produce something that's better quality than something that's just human made or something that's just AI made? That skill's going to be essential, at least for the next few years.

AI: That's a really thoughtful perspective - thinking about it as working WITH AI rather than competing against it.

Looking ahead, how do you envision your relationship with AI at work evolving? Where do you see this partnership heading?

User: I allow Perplexity to store memories (although I'm nervous about the safety of giving too many companies data that makes me easier to market to) because it's so helpful for me to have a model that I don't have to explain the basics to over and over again. I think we're going to wind up with one predominant AI model that we personify and that is better trained on us as individuals. I'd like to be able to use my at-work AI to quickly formulate standard-aligned lessons according to my district's lesson plan template. I'd love for it to be able to exist in temporal space enough that it can remind me what class is next. I'd also love for it to serve as my external brain, allowing me to search and recall previous information.

AI: That vision of AI as an "external brain" is really compelling - especially given what you mentioned earlier about executive function challenges.

Those are all the questions I had prepared. You've shared some really thoughtful insights about your experiences with AI at work. I particularly appreciated your perspective on working WITH AI as a partnership skill, and that honest story about the motto exercise - it really illustrated the complex dynamics at play.

Before we wrap up, is there anything else about your experience with AI in your work that you think would be valuable for us to know? Something we haven't covered yet?

User: As a teacher, I really appreciate the move towards models that are designed to teach concepts, rather than just give answers. It makes it easier for me to promote AI use to other educators. That's it!

AI: That's a really valuable point - the distinction between teaching concepts versus just providing answers makes a huge difference for educational contexts.

Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your experiences so openly. Your insights about using AI as a collaborative partner, especially given your unique perspective balancing teaching, studies, and writing with executive function considerations, will be incredibly helpful for our research on human-AI interaction in professional contexts.

I really appreciate your honesty throughout our conversation!