Imagine producing work that is 40% higher quality.
In his visit to New Zealand earlier in the year, Section’s Greg Shove described the concept of “AI personas”: a way of thinking about how AI works and what kind of use cases it can be applied to. Matt Martel of Business Desk did a great series walking through an AI Mini-MBA Section course he went through. In it, he described three of Greg, Edmundo Ortega, and the Section’s team’s key AI personas: The Assistant, The Strategist, and The Creator. These three AI personas are a window into how AI can transform workflow and productivity.
The gains are significant. Ethan Mollick is a social scientist on a team that conducted an extensive study of AI’s impact on around 760 consultants at Boston Consulting Group. The findings were startling.
“Consultants using AI finished 12.2% more tasks on average, completed tasks 25.1% more quickly, and produced 40% higher quality results than those without.” – Ethan Mollick.
How do you begin to unlock these gains? AI has so many applications and platforms that it’s sometimes difficult to know where to start. The good news is that there are plenty of practical ways to get going once you understand AI personas, particularly with these three. We’ll share some practical ways we use them here at Europa Creative Partners.
As with all technology, but especially AI, ethical implications such as data privacy, creative IP, algorithmic bias, and responsible use must be considered, especially for The Creator persona, as part of working practice.
Introducing the personas:
- The Assistant streamlines routine tasks, automating scheduling and note-taking to free up mental energy.
- The Strategist is an intelligent thought partner, providing fresh perspectives and strategic insights.
- The Creator persona demonstrates AI’s capacity to generate ideas and create assets.
I’ve had a lot of help in my AI journey. Thanks to Section, the premier AI upskilling online school, I’ve learnt from some of the best—lecturers like Edmundo Ortega, Greg Shove, Amit Rawal, and Holly Chen. I learnt at pace while running my own business and working hard for clients.
I highly recommend Section. If you’d like access to or pricing for the platform for your team or yourself, feel free to contact me.
Three AI personas, fluid capabilities
AI personas are concepts, not rigid categories. They’re fluid capabilities that can seamlessly blend and adapt. Think of them less as distinct personas and more as dynamic tools with porous boundaries.
1. The Assistant
The Assistant
The Assistant persona is about taking care of mundane, repetitive tasks essential in modern life and working practice…. but maybe there is a better use of our time. Using AI as an assistant means taking on routine but necessary tasks—organising schedules, capturing meeting notes, and ensuring nothing falls through the cracks. The net effect frees time and energy for more profound, strategic or creative work.
Use Case: MotionAI and Fireflies AI
- MotionAI is an excellent example of The Assistant persona. It manages my calendar dynamically, blocks time for tasks and meetings, and adjusts as priorities shift. It’s like having a personal assistant, ensuring I stay productive and balanced. MotionAI integrates task management with scheduling, meaning even complex agendas feel manageable. It’s glorious for time-blocking, something I used to struggle with.
- Fireflies AI, another brilliant Assistant tool, handles note-taking and meeting transcription. It attends virtual and in-person meetings, records discussions, and creates searchable transcripts. I’m a complete note nerd, but now I can be more present in meetings whilst producing crisper notes and targeted follow-ups. And I don’t need to inflict my spidery handwriting on myself or anyone else to decipher!
How They Work Together:
By combining MotionAI for planning and Fireflies for execution, my day feels more organised. MotionAI ensures I dedicate time to what matters most, while Fireflies captures the details I might forget. Together, they create an ecosystem where productivity flows seamlessly. An often-quoted statistic is that marketers save 2.5 hours per day with AI – that seems to be the time-saving I’m experiencing.
2. The Strategist
The Strategist
The Strategist persona represents AI as a brainstorming partner, offering ideas, refining drafts, and assisting in decision-making. Unlike The Assistant, which focuses on tasks, The Strategist enhances your thinking process and provides a second perspective.
Section even uses AIs like Claude or ChatGBT to review its board papers, acting according to the personalities and concerns of its board members. This creates richer, better-thought-through documents. In a recent blog post, Section Chief of Staff Ana Silva reported that the feedback from Claude overlapped with the feedback of the real board at 83%!
The Strategist is the persona that can help you think, create, or evaluate with capabilities close to those of a deep domain expert—who is also a deep domain expert in many other fields.
Use Case: ChatGPT and Claude
ChatGPT and Claude excel as thought partners, particularly for executives navigating complex decisions. These tools help synthesise information and explore new angles when faced with strategic challenges or document reviews.
- Strategic decisions: I use them to analyse scenarios or test assumptions. They don’t replace decision-making but add valuable perspectives that sharpen my thinking.
- Document reviews: ChatGBT and Claude’s ability to handle long-form text is particularly useful. I can upload a document and receive a summary or analysis that helps me focus on the key points or give me a second pair of eyes on a document I may have read so much that I’m snow-blind.
Here’s a practical example of using the Strategist persona.
Communicating to smart people
Here at Europa Creative Partners, we are blessed to have knowledgeable, expert clients who speak to their current and future clients who are themselves experts.
“As a technical executive for a healthcare brand, please review my article….”
Because we’re writing or communicating to many different audiences, we can check how it might land by asking Claude or ChatGBT to review what we’re writing about, acting as those audiences with the same expertise and discernment.
Recent studies show that professionals who use AI can generate 59% more “realistic business documentation” per hour than those who don’t. That seems consistent with our experience: AI’s ability to produce structured first drafts helps overcome two human challenges: the blank page sometimes making it hard to get started and the ability to generate alternatives and iterate at a higher speed.
3. The Creator
The Creator
Of course, a human expert is not necessarily just a linear knowledge expert. An expert might be a master craftsperson or creative. AI is the same. That’s when The Creator comes in. From idea generation to image creation, The Creator enhances your creative process and helps you iterate and innovate quickly.
For a humble marketing agency like Europa Creative Partners, this capability is invaluable and applicable in almost everything we do.
Use case: AI Image Generator
Many AIs, including ChatGBT, have this capability, which transforms text prompts into high-quality images, allowing users to create visuals tailored to specific project needs.
Freepik, or MidJourney, are just one of many specialist AI generators that were not widely available eighteen months ago. Alongside enhanced, established tools like Adobe and Figma, creative agencies like ours find their outputs have higher quality, consistency, and speed.
The ability to explore ideas and iterate at high speed, to generate mock-ups and mood boards is powerful. It allows creatives to visualise ideas and curate them much quicker than before.
AI does have its limitations, which is reassuring in many ways. One small manifestation is that it’s not necessarily great at writing hooks. Human copywriters still seem to have the edge on this aspect of creative copy because of their emotional intelligence, sense of humour, and cultural context.
Three new workmates who work harmoniously together – with you
The power of AI lies not in replacing human intelligence but in amplifying our capabilities. The Assistant, Strategist, and Creator personas represent different facets of AI’s potential—from managing mundane tasks to providing strategic insights and creative solutions.
They work together as a sophisticated digital ecosystem, each persona complementing the others. As AI evolves, these personas will become increasingly integrated into our professional workflows, transforming how we work, think, and create.
AI is integral to everything we do here at Europa Creative Partners. Contact us to explore collaborating with us and our AI partners to grow your revenue and fame or learn more about integrating AI into your workflows.