I’ve come across a couple of posts about how people use LLMs for coding, so I thought I would share how I currently use AI in general–span

How I Use LLMs for Coding and Writing

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2025-01-12 18:00:05

I’ve come across a couple of posts about how people use LLMs for coding, so I thought I would share how I currently use AI in general–spanning office work, writing, and, of course, coding and a bit of fun.

Since I know most people won’t read my site disclaimer, I encourage you to do so, and go through the rest of the post with the knowledge that despite being a Principal Architect at Microsoft and having gained recognition in areas like anomaly detection in telco networks (and working with customers to design LLM solutions for various use cases), I strive to be unbiased.

I mention Azure and Copilot frequently because I use them daily. But if it makes you feel better, I don’t use Windows outside working hours.

Again, my current day job is a mix of consulting and AI strategy (with an increasing focus on ethical AI), but I won’t go into detail about specific projects or my employer’s products, other than I think it’s fair to write a bit about Copilot use since it’s everywhere in Office and millions of people have access to it in some way–so this is effectively public stuff, and I get asked about how I use it everywhere I go.

A key point to note is that I very much dislike chat interfaces–I find they often lose context and generally have poor user experience. As someone who worked a lot in knowledge management, I find chat to be a rather tiresome, incremental and error-prone way to ask for information and an even worse way to manage the results (especially when you have to wade through thousands of lines of history).