Beginner’s Guide: 15 Simple Ways to Use AI in Your Everyday Work (No Coding)

By Marc Boudria - Chief Innovation Officer at BetterEngineer.com

You already know this feeling: You’re the person in the middle.

Not the brand-new hire, not the executive in the boardroom. You’re the one who actually moves work forward: fixing messy spreadsheets, turning half-baked notes into real documents, calming down ops when a vendor drops the ball, pulling together decks 30 minutes before a meeting.

And now everyone is saying, “Just use AI, it’ll save you time.” Great… but how, exactly? What does that look like for the work you actually do every day without learning to code or becoming “the AI person” for the company?

This guide is built for that mid-tier reality. Fifteen very normal tasks. No hype. No magic. Just practical ways to use AI as a smart coworker:

• You bring the context and judgment.
• AI brings speed, structure, and “did you think of this?” ideas.
• You stay in control of what gets sent, shared, or presented.

One important note around data & privacy before we jump in:

Always follow your company’s AI policy. Use approved tools where possible. Don’t paste customer data, financial details, legal docs, or anything sensitive into a public AI tool unless your security team has said it’s okay. When in doubt: ask your admin first and anonymize or summarize data.

With that in mind, let’s walk through 15 everyday ways you can use AI.

1) Excel / Data Work (3 ways)

1. Build a budget forecast (you add the business reality)

You’re asked to create a budget forecast for next year. You have a few years of historical spent in Excel, but you know things are changing—new product launches, hiring plans, etc. You want AI to help spot patterns, then you layer on real-world context.

How to use AI:

• Export or copy a sanitized version of your data (remove vendor names, contract IDs, customer details, anything confidential).
• If your company has an internal data warehouse or BI tool, check if there’s already a cleaned version of this data you can use.

• “I have 3 years of monthly spend for Marketing, Sales, and Operations. I want a basic forecast for next year. Help me identify trends, seasonality, and potential risks. Then suggest a simple structure for a forecast model in Excel.”

• Use CSV or a simple table when possible.
• If you can’t share real data, describe the pattern instead and ask AI to help design the model (formulas, structure), which you’ll then apply yourself.

• Flag trends (e.g., “Marketing spikes in Q4”).
• Suggest a forecast method (simple growth rate, average of last N periods, etc.).
• Generate example formulas for your spreadsheet.

• Tell AI about upcoming changes: new regions, hiring freezes, product launches, price changes.
• Ask: “Adjust the forecast assumptions based on these business changes: [list changes]. What should I watch for?”

• Implement formulas in your actual spreadsheet.
• Sanity-check against your own knowledge and any finance guidelines in your company’s internal documentation or playbooks.

2. Clean messy vendor lists 

You’ve inherited a vendor list with duplicates, inconsistent names, and missing fields. Finance wants “one clean vendor list” by the end of the day.

How to use AI:

• Remove personally identifiable info (names, emails) if using a public AI.
• If you have an internal AI that can access your data warehouse, you may be able to point it to the table directly.

• Prompt example: “I have a vendor list with messy names, duplicates, inconsistent capitalization, and missing categories. Help me design a cleaning process in Excel, including ways to detect duplicates and standardize vendor names.”

• Provide 20–50 rows as an example (anonymized if necessary).
• Ask AI to suggest: standard naming conventions; normalized categories (e.g., ‘SaaS’, ‘Logistics’, ‘Consulting’), and rules for flagging duplicates

• Ask AI for Excel formulas for trimming spaces, lowercasing, and combining columns.
• Ask for a method for fuzzy matching (“Acme Inc.” vs “ACME Incorporated”).

• You choose what counts as a duplicate.
• You decide when two vendors should not be merged (e.g., same name, different regions).

• Use AI to draft a short “Vendor List Cleaning SOP” you can store in your company’s knowledge base for next time.

3. Explore “what-if” scenarios without becoming an analyst

Your manager asks, “What happens to our margin if raw material costs go up by 5–15%?” You’re comfortable with Excel, but you’re not a modeling expert. You want AI to help you structure a simple what-if model.

How to use AI:

a) Describe your current sheet:

• “I have a spreadsheet where each row is a product, with columns for price, cost, and margin. I want to model what happens to the margin if costs increase by 5%, 10%, and 15%. Help me design this in a simple way in Excel.”

b) Ask for a model structure:

• Have AI suggest new columns (Cost + 5%, Margin + 5%, etc.), provide specific Excel formulas, and propose a small summary table (overall impact).

• Look in your company’s finance or FP&A documentation: do they have a standard way of doing what-if analysis?
• If so, ask AI to adapt its suggestions to those standards.

• Implement the formulas on your machine with your real data; no need to upload it anywhere if policy doesn’t allow.

• Once you see the results, paste your high-level numbers (not the raw data) and ask AI to summarize: “Here are the results of the what-if analysis. Help me write a short summary for my manager, highlighting key risks.”

2) Word / Documentation Work (3 ways)

4. Draft SOPs (AI structures, you make it real)

You’ve been asked to document a recurring process as a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). You know how people actually do the work, but starting from a blank page is painful.

How to use AI:

• Check your company’s wiki, policy library, or shared drive for existing SOP templates or style guides.
• If you find one, paste the structure (not sensitive content) into your AI prompt.

• “I need to write an SOP for our [process]. Here’s a rough description of how we do it: [paste bullets]. Our template usually includes Purpose, Scope, Preconditions, Step-by-step, and Escalation paths. Please turn this into a first draft SOP in that structure.”

• AI produces headings, steps, and clear language.

• Add tool names, internal teams, links to systems—things AI shouldn’t guess.

• Double-check against existing policies to make sure you’re consistent.

• Remove anything AI made up (fake tools, roles, or steps).
• Confirm with subject-matter experts before publishing.

5. Write project post-mortems (AI organizes, you tell the truth)

A project wrapped up. Leadership wants a post-mortem: what went well, what didn’t, what to change next time. You’ve got scattered notes, emails, and chat logs.

How to use AI:

a) Collect your raw material:

• Pull together your notes, Jira tickets, retro notes, etc.
• Don’t paste private chats or sensitive customer data into public tools; if needed, summarize them first.

• “Help me turn these rough notes into a project post-mortem with sections: Overview, What Worked, What Didn’t, Root Causes, Recommendations. Here are my notes: [paste cleaned notes].”

• It will cluster similar issues and surface themes (e.g., “unclear requirements,” “late stakeholder input”).

• Add nuance AI can’t know: politics, timing, unspoken constraints.
• Remove anything that feels blame-heavy or inaccurate.

• If your PMO or engineering org has a post-mortem template, ask AI:
• “Rewrite this in our standard template: [paste template structure].”

6. Turn meeting notes into action items

You’re the one who always ends up taking notes in cross-functional meetings. Everyone leaves saying, “Great, let’s follow up,” and then no one does.

How to use AI:

a) Capture notes during or right after:

• Your notes can be rough: bullet points, partial sentences, who said what.

• Remove sensitive HR details, confidential strategy, or names if using external tools.
• If your company has an AI built into your meeting notes app, use that instead.

• “These are my notes from a meeting. Please extract a list of clear action items with: owner (if specified), due date (if implied), and dependencies. Keep anything you’re unsure about in a separate ‘Questions’ section.”

• AI will guess owners and dates sometimes—fix those.
• Add links to relevant tickets, docs, or internal systems.

• Ask it to turn the actions into:
• An email summary
• A Confluence/Notion page
• A checklist for your project tool

3) PowerPoint / Presentations (2 ways)

7. Storyboard a deck (you own the message)

Your manager says, “Can you put together a deck about [initiative] for leadership?” You know the story but not the slide structure.

How to use AI:

• “I need a slide outline for a 10–15 minute presentation to [audience, e.g., VP of Operations] about [topic]. The goal is to [inform / get approval / align decisions]. Please suggest a slide-by-slide narrative with titles and 2–3 bullet points per slide.”

• If your company has a presentation style guide or favorite structure (“problem / solution / impact”), share that in the prompt.

• Ask AI to shorten, make it more executive-friendly, and add a backup “appendix” section

• For tricky slides, ask:
• “Write draft bullets for this slide: [slide title + purpose]. Keep it concise and non-fluffy.”

• Once you’ve got the structure, you can drop in real numbers and confidential details locally in PowerPoint without sharing them.

8. Turn dense data into visual concepts

You have complex metrics—SLAs, lead times, conversion rates—and need to show them visually in a way non-technical stakeholders will understand.

How to use AI:

a) Describe the data & goal:

• “I have monthly data on on-time delivery rate, average lead time, and number of orders. I need to present this to non-technical stakeholders to highlight a worrying trend in Q3. Suggest 3 different ways to visualize this (chart types + layout) and explain what message each option emphasizes.”

• Where charts go
• What annotation text to add
• How to use color emphasis (you adjust to your brand guidelines).

• If your design team has a “good chart / bad chart” guide, paste key rules and ask AI to adapt its suggestions:
• “Here are our internal guidelines for charts. Please revise your suggestions to follow them.”

• You implement in PowerPoint, Excel, or BI tools with real numbers, keeping sensitive data inside your environment.

4) Creative / Communication (3 ways)

9. Generate visual concepts or diagrams from text

You need a diagram for a new process or system—something your teammates can understand at a glance—but you’re not a designer.

How to use AI:

• “I need a simple block diagram for a process with these steps: [list steps]. The audience is non-technical. Suggest 2–3 ways to draw this (boxes, arrows, swimlanes, etc.), and describe what should go in each box/label.”

• Request a “simple” version and an “executive overview” version.

• If your org uses a specific modeling style (e.g., swimlanes, BPMN), share an example and ask AI to mimic the structure (not the content).

• Use PowerPoint, Miro, Lucidchart, or your internal tool to draw the diagram using AI’s description.

10. Create analogies or metaphors for non-technical stakeholders

You’re trying to explain a complex engineering or process concept to sales, finance, or leadership—people who don’t live in your world.

How to use AI:

a) Describe the concept and audience:

• “Explain [concept] to a non-technical stakeholder who understands budgets and risk but not engineering. Give me 3 analogy options (e.g., traffic, logistics, construction). Keep each one to 2–3 sentences.”

• If your team loves sports, music, or travel analogies, tell AI that so it uses the right flavor.

• Make sure the analogy doesn’t oversimplify in a misleading way.
• Add your own clarifying line: “This isn’t perfect, but it’s a useful way to think about…”

• Save the best analogies in your internal wiki so others can use them.

11. Develop training scenarios or case studies

You’re responsible for training new team members or running a lunch-and-learn. You want realistic scenarios that reflect your world, without spending hours inventing them.

How to use AI:

• “I’m training new operations coordinators. I want 3 realistic scenarios about [topic: late shipments, mis-keyed orders, vendor delays] that they can discuss in small groups. Each scenario should have: context, a problem, and 3 decision options.”

• Don’t include actual customer names, contract terms, or proprietary data. Generalize: “large retail client” instead of “Target,” etc.

• Provide feedback: “Make the scenarios more ambiguous and closer to real life. Include conflicting priorities and unclear instructions like we often see here.”

• Pull your company policies or “ways of working” from your internal knowledge base (escalation rules, SLAs, etc.) and ask AI to align the scenarios with those.

• Ask it to suggest “good, better, best” responses for facilitators.

Supply Chain / Operations (2 ways)

12. Analyze supplier performance (AI finds patterns, you dig into causes)

You’re managing or supporting a vendor portfolio. Leadership wants to know which suppliers are improving, which are slipping, and where to focus.

How to use AI:

• Metrics like on-time delivery, defect rates, response time, etc.
• If you can’t share raw data externally, summarize:
• “Supplier A: 92% on time, 3% defects, etc.”

• “Given this supplier performance data, help me categorize suppliers into: top performers, watch-list, and risk. Suggest 3–5 key insights and questions I should ask the operations and procurement teams.”

• Ask for: A simple table layout, a few slide ideas, and talking points

• Use AI to brainstorm hypotheses (“Could this be due to seasonality, region, or product mix?”), then validate them with real stakeholders and system data.

• Check your company’s vendor management playbook and ask AI to rephrase the findings in that framework.

13. Optimize inventory levels with scenario modeling

Your manager asks, “What if we adjust safety stock for these SKUs?” You’re not a supply chain modeler, but you can drive the conversation.

How to use AI:

• “We manage inventory for [product types]. We track demand per month, lead times, and current safety stock levels. Help me think through how to model ‘what if we increase/decrease safety stock by X%’ and what tradeoffs I should highlight (stockouts vs holding costs).”

• It can:
• Explain basic tradeoffs
• Suggest a simple spreadsheet or table structure
• Highlight which inputs you need from your internal systems (historical demand, lead time variability).

• Use your company’s supply chain policies to bound what’s realistic.
• Ask AI to rewrite its suggestions within those rules.

• Once you’ve run numbers locally, ask AI to help write a “Option A / B / C” summary with pros/cons.

Fun / Culture & Team Stuff (2 ways)

14. Plan team-building activities that don’t suck

Your manager says, “Can you plan something for the team?” You don’t want another awkward Zoom happy hour, and your budget is limited.

How to use AI:

a) Describe your team reality:

• “I need team-building ideas for a team of 12 people. Mix of remote and in-office, ages 25–50, fairly introverted. Budget is low. Activities should be inclusive and not alcohol-centric. We have 60–90 minutes.”

• 3 low-prep ideas
• 3 ideas that require some setup
• 2 longer-term ideas (like recurring rituals)

• Tell AI what won’t work: competitive stuff, cameras required, etc.
• Ask it to refine ideas based on that feedback.

• Have it draft instructions you can paste into a calendar invite.
• Create icebreaker questions tailored to your team’s work.

15. Organize a company trivia night or competition

You’re organizing a fun trivia or quiz session—maybe for a town hall, offsite, or Friday social—and you want it to feel relevant to your company without leaking secrets.

How to use AI:

a) Decide on themes:

• “Help me design a 30–45 minute trivia game for [company type] employees. Themes: company history (high-level only), our industry, general pop culture, and light ‘guess the meme’ questions.”

• Pull any official company facts from your public website or approved internal wiki.
• Don’t include confidential financials, private roadmap items, or client names.

• For each theme, ask for: 5 easy, 5 medium, and 5 hard questions.
• Example prompt: “Using only this information about our company [paste public ‘About’ text], generate 10 trivia questions with answers.”

• Have it:
• Create a scoring sheet.
• Write a short host script or banter lines.
• Suggest tie-breaker questions.

• Double-check every question.
• Make sure nothing exposes internal or sensitive info.

You Don’t Need to Be an Expert, Just Curious

If you take nothing else from this, let it be this: you don’t have to “be good at AI” to start using it, you just have to be curious.

Pick one of these 15 tasks you already do every week, and try inviting AI in as a helper: ask it to tidy your notes, structure your spreadsheet, sketch a training scenario, or storyboard your next deck. You still bring the judgment, the context, the relationships, and the taste, that’s the real value. AI just helps you get to a solid starting point faster, so you can spend more time on the parts that actually need you.

Start small, experiment safely, learn what works for your style, and you’ll look up in a few weeks and realize you haven’t “become an AI expert”… you’ve just quietly become a lot more effective at the job you already do.