A dAI in the life of Janet Kim
The 39-year-old senior communications manager uses AI to help her be more present during meetings, navigate changing relationships and plan trips for her family.
Janet Kim is a senior communications manager for Microsoft who lives in Bothell, Washington, with her husband, two “very active and energetic” sons and her mother, who flies back and forth from Texas to help with the boys. Kim, 39, says she was surprised when AI was able to help with the challenge of having three generations living together.
Kim mainly uses Bing Chat to help her plan trips that her family will enjoy. The tool has given “excellent recommendations that were perfect for kids” for trips to Hawaii, when Kim was on a budget and was looking for free or low-cost activities, and the Joshua Tree National Park, when the family had a tight timeline.
She shares a typical day as part of Microsoft’s “A dAI in the life” series, which showcases how AI tools are helping people do more in their personal and professional lives.
7:45 a.m.
My 7-year-old decides he no longer wants sandwiches in his lunch. I ask Bing Chat to give me non-sandwich lunch ideas. It suggests soup, but I know he wouldn’t go for that, so I choose another one of its suggestions: nachos and cheese. I now have lots of other great options for the new schoolyear — different types of wraps and bagel pizzas! I’ll tell my son tonight that Bing came up with these suggestions, because it might make him more interested in the ideas.
AI for your dAI: Can you suggest a fun breakfast idea for my kid?
9 a.m.
I ask one of our company’s internal AI tools that’s being tested to help generate FAQs for an upcoming company announcement, and it gives me some helpful suggestions based on the news.
11 a.m.
I am getting in the habit of recording all Teams calls as a means to help with notetaking so I can spend more time listening to the meeting rather than typing up notes, so I put a meeting transcript through the intelligent recap tool to get a quick summary of a meeting I missed.
1 p.m.
Use PowerPoint Designer to help me spruce up a planning presentation about storytelling. It looks really nice. This has also been a helpful tool when we have multiple teammates contributing to a deck — Designer helps to make the presentation look more cohesive.
6 p.m.
Ask Bing Chat to help plan an itinerary for an upcoming trip to Denver with my kids, which I’ll feature on my personal blog and social media pages. We just got back from LA, and we only had one day during that trip to see Joshua Tree, and it’s a massive national park, and I was very impressed with Bing’s recommendations for hikes that matched my very specific criteria. The kids loved it.
AI for your dAI: Can you help me find beautiful parks in New York that aren’t touristy?
8 p.m.
My mom had different ideas tonight for how to handle a situation with one of my sons, and there were some hurt feelings. I ask Bing Chat what causes disagreements between adult children and parents. It gives me really thoughtful responses, in a thoughtful tone. It helps me understand the shift of dynamics in the parent-child relationship when you have your own children. It makes a lot of sense and has shifted my perspective. I’m going to change my approach and not dismiss something my mom has offered or assume that she’s dismissing me.
9 p.m.
I’m rewatching the original “Beverly Hills, 90210” series, and I couldn’t remember who all ended up with whom in the end, so I asked Bing Chat and got a great synopsis of what happened to all the characters by the series finale. It’s fun to watch the story play out, knowing all of this.
Read more stories in Microsoft’s “A dAI in the life” series and share your story.
Story as told to Microsoft Source writer Susanna Ray.
Lead photo by Scott Eklund/Red Box Pictures; other images provided by Janet Kim.