AI Capability Patterns
Five things AI is genuinely good at — as capabilities, not job titles. Nobody here gets fitted for a "digital underwriter" costume. Work each demo until something in your own week comes to mind, then write that sentence down. "We could use this for…" is the entire output of this page.
Live proof, exhibit zero: this page. The tool you are looking at — code, demos, copy — was built with AI by describing what it should do in plain language. One file, no meetings, part of the same working session that produced the rest of today's materials. If you are presenting this, say it out loud: "Here's an example, live. The thing on screen is the demo."
Facilitator — how to run this
Run order (about 25 minutes)
- Open with the live-proof banner (1 min). Point at the page and say it: "Everything today keeps saying AI can build things. Here's an example, live — this page was built with AI, and I'll show you the same trick right now."
- Pattern 1 — Coding (you drive, 5 min). The biggest reaction. Ask the room to pick which request to build, then let them watch the counter. Land the line: "Eighteen lines, four seconds, zero meetings. The question is no longer 'can we afford to build it' — it's 'what's worth building.'"
- Pattern 2 — The pile (room drives, 5 min). Hand the room the question choice. After the answer appears, ask: "what pile of sixty documents do you already own?"
- Pattern 3 — Dense text (room drives, 4 min). Let someone pick the clause. If anyone has real contract wording on their phone, use the "size it up" box for the honest laugh — then note the real assistant does the full version with anything pasted.
- Pattern 4 — Brainstorm (whole room, 5 min). Collect the room's ideas verbally and type them in as they come. When the room goes quiet — and it will — press the button: "That silence is where brainstorming usually ends. The machine doesn't go quiet."
- Pattern 5 — Routine work (you drive, 3 min). Run manual, then assisted. Quietest demo, biggest head-nods. Point out the confirm click: the human still signs off.
- Harvest (2 min). Read the idea board out loud. That list — written by the room, not by you — is the deliverable of this segment.
What you're listening for
The only reaction that matters is some version of "oh — we could use that for…". When you hear one, stop and type it into the capture box on screen. Ideas generated by the room outrank any list you could present.
Describe it. Get working software.
The largest capability shift, and the one boards consistently underrate: software that used to need a project, a budget line, and a queue now needs a sentence. Pick a request in plain English and watch it become a working thing.
Insurance garnish: the premium-proration helper your team never had time to request from IT — an afternoon with an assistant, not a line in next year's budget.
Sixty documents. One question.
Every organization sits on piles of text nobody has time to read: emails, call notes, tickets, reports. AI reads all of it, answers your question, and — this is the part that makes it usable — shows you exactly which documents the answer came from. Ask the pile something.
Insurance garnish: every claim file, policy wording, and inspection report you already own is a pile exactly like this one — and today nobody reads it twice.
Dense paragraph in. Plain layers out.
You do not need to be an expert in a thing to understand how it works — you need someone patient enough to restructure it. AI takes a paragraph written to be defensible and rewrites it to be understandable, in layers: what it says, what it means for you, what to ask about.
Insurance garnish: reinsurance treaty wording is exactly this kind of paragraph — and so is the actuary's memo explaining why the rate needs to move.
The machine doesn't go quiet.
Every brainstorm produces ten obvious ideas and then a silence. AI is a thought partner that never gets tired, never worries about sounding stupid, and whose fortieth idea costs the same as its first. Add the room's ideas below — and when you run dry, ask.
Insurance garnish: "ten ways to improve broker retention" — the eleventh idea is usually the one nobody in the room would have said out loud.
The retyping disappears. The sign-off doesn't.
A surprising share of knowledge work is moving information from one place where it already exists to another place where it needs to be. Watch the same intake done by hand, then with an assistant drafting and a human confirming.
Subject: FW: FW: damage at the Hillcrest site — can someone log this??
Hi — forwarding before it gets buried. Marta Okafor called this morning (cell is 555-0182) about the storm damage from March 3rd at the Hillcrest location. Account number is somewhere in the thread… found it: AC-2214-0397. She figures repairs around $2,400, mostly the fence and the side gate. Can someone get this into the system today? She's called twice already. — P
Insurance garnish: swap "account" for "policy" and this is first notice of loss — which mostly arrives exactly this messy.