How AI Will Transform Your Soft Skills in 2024

Published over 1 year ago • 2 min read

Hey there,

Let’s talk AI – You’re probably sick of hearing about how “AI can make you a 10x developer”. I am, too. But have you considered how you can use it to improve your soft skills and professionalism?

Here are just a few areas where AI can help you level up your soft skills:

Communication & Tone
Empathy
Problem-Solving

So, how can we use AI to augment our skills without losing ourselves in the sea of AI tools?

1. Improve Your Communication & Tone

Let’s face it: communication can be tricky. Enter AI tools like ChatGPT and Bard. They can help you craft messages that hit the perfect tone – professional, concise, and actionable.

For example, are you crafting an end-of-day update in Slack? Ask an AI for a draft that’s informative yet brief. Here is an example prompt you can use:

Provide an end-of-day update for my squad Slack channel, keeping it concise, professional, and informative using the following notes:

- Merged ABC-123: API for changing billing plan
- StartedABC-124: List invoices for accounts
- I am stuck with how to retrieve the count of invoices for paginating the results

2. Improve Your Empathy for Others

Here’s something you might not have considered – AI can actually help us be more empathetic. By analyzing interactions, AI can give insights into how others perceive your words and actions.

For example, if you’re puzzled by a coworker’s response in a meeting, an AI tool could help you understand their perspective, making your teamwork more cohesive.

Here is an example prompt:

My coworker seemed frustrated during a tech-team meeting about an API design where I told them I didn’t like how they structured the controller. Please give me a few reasons why my coworker may have been upset. You can ask follow-up questions for more context.

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3. Improve Your Problem-Solving

If you find yourself jumping on the first solution to a problem, you are missing an opportunity to grow your technical aptitude. AI can quickly line up alternative approaches to solve the problem and help you learn how to improve your problem-solving.

Here is a prompt you can use to help identify alternative solutions:

You are a lead software engineer walking me through different ways I could implement a new feature. Suggest different approaches for creating a React component that displays a message based on a user’s last login date. Provide context for each method and the benefits or drawbacks to consider.

AI isn’t just a tool for technical skills. It’s becoming a vital part of how we interact, understand, and solve problems in our daily professional lives.

Are you curious about how AI can specifically help you? Hit reply, and let’s chat about it. Or better yet, have you tried using AI in a unique way in your role? Share your story – I’d love to hear it.

David Ziemann

Founder of MoreThanCoders.com
david@morethancoders.com

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