The best way to understand what AI does is to ask people what they’re using it for. We reached out to thinkers across different fields with a simple question: How have you recently used AI to solve, create, or figure out something?
Their answers skip past the theoretical debates about what AI might mean for humanity and get straight to the practical reality of how it’s already changing daily work. Some responses are surprising. Others unearthed new approaches to old problems. Together, they show what happens when curious people get access to a new tool and start testing its limits.
Futurist and founder of WAYE
As a futurist, my work is heavily data-driven, spanning early technological and scientific discoveries, economic trends, shifts in human behavior, and geopolitics. I spend much of my time tracing the early signals that could quietly reshape entire systems a decade from now. AI has expanded what’s possible in that process. It helps me move through dense technical material much faster and, in many ways, lets me “converse” with the data in front of me. I also use AI to challenge my own thinking. Sometimes I’ll ask it to assume the role of a leader I’m engaging with who holds strong assumptions, to see how my ideas might land or where they might meet resistance.
Chief Operating Officer, Google DeepMind
Our team at Google DeepMind uses AI as a collaborator; it assists our work so we can apply our human expertise to decision-making. For example, employees use Gemini to gain fresh perspectives through the creation of “AI team- mates”—each with unique prompts assigning different viewpoints. One might challenge assumptions, while another might focus on user experience. It’s an amazing tool that helps our team quickly explore ideas, pres- sure-test thinking, and increase the impact of our work.
CEO of Jigsaw
Imagine everyone featured in this issue was together speaking at once. It would be impossible to make sense of that conversation—until now. Our team at Jigsaw has used AI to facilitate groundbreaking online conversations, including hosting one of the largest town halls in U.S. history in Kentucky. We then scaled this technology from county to country through our We the People initia- tive, engaging a microcosm of America. Thousands of participants spoke, listened, and responded to one another on the country’s founding ideals. A remarkable 92 percent said they felt represented in the conversation.
Nobel laureate, CRISPR pioneer, Innovative Genomics Institute founder
For years, vast genomic data sets held answers we couldn’t reach—too big, too complex, too slow to analyze. AI has changed that. In our labs at the Innovative Genomics Institute, we’re now uncovering new CRISPR genome editors that were hiding in plain sight, and identifying new therapeutic targets for genetic diseases. Experiments can be designed more quickly, and we spend less time in the lab going down dead ends. We can finally explore the full landscape of biology within our data, accelerating new therapies and improved crops and advancing biomanufacturing. AI is clearly a powerful tool that has expanded what we can explore, but human curiosity and creativity still drive every discovery.
Economic commentator and author of In This Economy?
I’ve been able to understand the value of communication in facilitating ideas. I like to talk to the various chatbots about an idea and find them useful for refining some of the stuff I can’t quite articulate yet. And then I enjoy chatting to humans about those ideas and refining them even more. I find the entire process complementary.
Vice President, Google Labs, Gemini, & AI Studio
I’m amazed by how quickly new AI tools can translate ideas into images, videos, slides, and web interfaces. At work, we use Flow to create quick videos and Stitch to prototype new interfaces. It allows us to explore a wider creative space in less time. Gemini’s personalization and image editing have also gotten especially powerful. I can edit photos simply by describing the changes I want and even create a custom bedtime storybook for our kids.
Cofounder and CEO of Apolitical
There are few training challenges more high stakes than supporting government AI adoption. Public budgets are squeezed everywhere, and generative AI presents an efficiency opportunity estimated to be worth $1.75 trillion. Apolitical is the world’s largest network of public servants: Our training and tools are integrated into government workforce platforms supporting 40 million public servants globally. Our course AI assistant provides instant responses, drawing from our course materials and community insights. It will soon assess assignments, giving government officials instant and personalized feedback on their work—all contextualized to the public sector. Prior to generative AI, this was impossible.
Vice President, Global Solutions & Industries, Google Cloud
AI is now focused on making advanced technology accessible to everyone and gaining a comprehensive understanding of various data types. Our models can process social media content, call-center conversations, videos, spoken words, text, and images all at once. This enables us to accurately gauge how consumers feel about products, brands, or specific subjects. With AI, businesses can speed up innovation, resolve issues faster, offer more personalized customer service, gain important insights into quality, and ultimately build stronger relationships with customers.
President of Global Affairs, Google and Alphabet
AI is giving our Global Affairs team a new superpower: the ability to look around corners and anticipate what’s coming next. Tools like Gemini Deep Research and NotebookLM make work like sifting through thousands of policy documents or news alerts a lot less time-consuming. That means we get to spend more of our time on the human side of the job—focusing on strategy, talking to people, and making those tough calls that need a personal touch.
Vice President, Technology & Society, Google
For me, as an artist, AI has unlocked the ability to explore the latent space of human aesthetics. It’s like having a direct interface with our collective visual subconscious. Artists have always experimented with new technologies. This time is no different. Now, I can navigate the vast, interconnected network across images, styles, and concepts humanity has created. This allows me to create art that mixes abstract qualities as concrete ingredients and engage in a dynamic dialogue with the machine. How amazing is that?
Chief Information Officer, University of California, Riverside
What I find most revolutionary is how AI is augmenting the role of our educators. By automating the analysis of learning patterns, AI provides a holistic map of a student’s academic journey—revealing where they excel and where they may stumble. This frees our faculty to do what they do best: mentor, inspire, and engage students in the higher-order thinking that truly prepares them for the future. It allows us to understand not just what a student is learning, but how, advancing pedagogy and enabling a more profound and impactful mentorship.
Media artist, director, and cofounder of Refik Anadol Studio and Dataland
Artificial intelligence has opened a new space for creativity, one that connects technology, nature, and human imagination. For the first time, I can collaborate with nature itself by transforming vast data sets of winds, corals, glaciers, or rainforest ecosystems into living sculptures and paintings. These works are conversations between machine perception and the natural world, revealing patterns of beauty and fragility we could never see before. Through AI, art becomes a shared language with nature and a complex dialogue between data, light, and life itself.
