Introduction
Welcome to another edition of our “AI Tools in Action” series. Today, we explore how AI is fundamentally transforming the way we work, featuring insights from Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder and CEO of Asana, and co-founder of Facebook. Dustin shares his journey with AI, the advancements made at Asana, and the real-world applications that have emerged from integrating AI into their workflows. Let’s go!
The Journey with AI
Dustin Moskovitz has been mesmorized by the potential of AI since his popular incemption into the tech industry. At Asana, the initial focus was on immediate breakthroughs in machine learning and natural language processing. However, Dustin never lost sight of the broader AI frontier, actively supporting leading AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic and working closely with visionaries such as Adam D’Angelo, founder & CEO of Quora.
A Watershed Moment with ChatGPT
The emergence of ChatGPT marked a significant turning point. It brought the future of AI closer than ever, prompting Asana to dive headfirst into integrating AI into their platform. This led to the creation of a dedicated AI team focused on incorporating cutting-edge models into Asana’s core functionalities in a safe and reliable manner. Collaborations with AI pioneers like Anthropic and OpenAI accelerated these efforts, resulting in the launch of Asana Intelligence and features like smart status updates, smart summaries, and smart answers. How did they do it?
Building an AI-Driven Culture
Internally, Asana fostered an AI-driven culture by encouraging hands-on experience and literacy among employees. This was achieved through immersive workshops, internal AI communities, and dedicated Slack channels like #ai-adventures-and-explorations. Sharing personal breakthroughs and new use cases at company meetings helped unite the team around AI’s transformative potential.
Real-World AI Applications at Asana
AI use cases flourished across various departments within Asana:
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- People Team: Built bots for feedback, manager reviews, and self-reflection.
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- Sales & Customer Experience: Developed an outbound bot, an Asana product expert bot, and a call prep bot.
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- Engineering: Experimented with an API script writer.
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- Marketing: Created a content creator and campaign brief bot that adhered to brand design guidelines.
These grassroots explorations led to significant improvements in efficiency and productivity. For instance, an SDR developed an AI tool for writing high-quality, personalized sales emails, eventually transitioning to a full-time role focused on AI adoption. Similarly, a product marketing manager created a competitive expert bot, which became a favorite among the sales team for its endless patience and knowledge, freeing up the manager to focus on strategic tasks.
Personal Insights and Collaborative Breakthroughs
Dustin Moskovitz personally found AI to be a revelation in enhancing cognitive processes. Using AI for personal memos and internal communication, he discovered that AI could augment his thinking. Thereby helping him write better and think more strategically. Integrating AI into collaborative workflows transformed how Asana teams worked together, with AI acting as a seamless part of the team.
By incorporating AI into the flow of collaborative work, Asana enabled high-level conversations about ideas and structure, free from the burden of line edits. This integration clarified how humans and AI could work together. By leveraging Asana’s Work Graph data model to understand complex connections between goals, portfolios, projects, and tasks.
Shaping the Future of Work Together
As AI continues to evolve, Asana envisions a future where AI is embedded in every aspect of collaborative work. This vision includes teams effectively managing product launches, resource planning, work intake, and creative production with AI as an integral team member.
Join the Journey
Join us on this journey as we explore how AI can empower teams to work more efficiently, purposefully, and impactfully. Stay connected with Inevitability AI for the latest developments in AI-powered collaborative work.
Onwards,
Inevitability AI Team
This article was originally published by Inevitability AI