This essay is based on a conversation with Karanveer Ananda 29-year-old technical program manager at Google. Business Insider has verified his identity and employment.
I joined Google about three years ago and over the last year and a half I’ve watched the company evolve into an AI-first company.
We offer numerous company-wide AI training courses, organization-specific AI training for different teams, and hackathon challenges to drive innovation.
AI will do even more in the coming months and years, but for now it’s helping me reduce tasks so I can create more value and work on multiple projects at once.
This is how I use AI for specific tasks in my job.
AI takes over my administrative tasks
Google employees have access to Gemini for Google Workspace, which provides a built-in AI assistant for Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Sheets. It helps me streamline my workflow and reduce time spent on repetitive administrative tasks.
Gemini helps with tasks like scheduling meetings, project reports, and data entry. These types of tools were particularly useful when I was working on a Workspace project to improve the reliability of products in different regions. It was time-sensitive and critical to EU regulations, so efficiency was key.
But it also helps save time on everyday tasks such as writing emails.
English is my second language, so Gemini in Gmail has helped my communication to be very fluid. With Gemini, there are no grammar mistakes and I don’t have to focus on improving my English. It also offers options for communication style, such as formal or informal, and summarizes my emails.
In my role, I’m responsible for assigning tasks to hundreds of software developers. The AI in Google Sheets helps me assign employees to different tasks based on a spreadsheet that contains their roles and skills. This saves me about two hours of time.
It helps with risk planning
As a technical program manager, I have to anticipate risks.
To help assess risk factors, I feed AI models historical data on various problems or failures and ask them what kind of risk they see in six months.
The tool can map the problem and predict future problems. This helps program management reduce risks because we can anticipate them and prepare in advance. The tool can also help me set the schedule of a project or predict delays.
Management should consciously engage with AI
AI increases productivity, but it doesn’t teach leadership skills, strong soft skills, or strategic thinking. So we need to know when not to use AI – and we only know that once the basics and training in AI have been taught.
As a technical program manager, I explain to employees which tasks should use AI and which should be done without it.
When there is a lack of clarity, it is difficult to track the extent to which AI is actually being used and helping employees.
