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Every organisation is buried in documents.Meeting notes, internal reports, strategy decks, policies, training guides, compliance logs—the information is there, but finding it when you need it? That’s where the real problem lies.Google has quietly released a tool that solves this: NotebookLM.What is NotebookLM?NotebookLM is an AI-powered research assistant that works directly with your documents. You upload files—Word, PDF, Slides, even notes—and it creates a private AI model trained on your content.Then you talk to it in plain English. You can ask:<ul><li>“What are the main actions from last quarter’s leadership meeting?”</li><li>“Summarise the key risks from all our vendor contracts”</li><li>“What’s changed in our onboarding policy over the last two years?”</li></ul>It reads your files, understands the content, and gives you answers that are specific to your business—not general internet knowledge.There’s no coding, no setup, and no need to integrate anything. It works out of the box.Why does it matter?Most teams spend a staggering amount of time finding, re-reading, or summarising internal material—especially across:<ul><li>HR</li><li>Legal and compliance</li><li>Project management</li><li>Council and government operations</li><li>Education and research admin</li></ul>That’s not work. That’s waste.NotebookLM turns that waste into value.Because when your staff can ask a question and get the right answer—without digging through folders or rereading old documents—you free up time, improve decision-making, and cut admin.Here’s how different sectors are already using this tool:<ul><li>Legal teams upload 20 contracts and ask the model to highlight key differences in termination clauses</li><li>Project managers load meeting decks and task logs, then ask “What decisions still haven’t been actioned?”</li><li>Policy officers feed in legislation and internal strategy documents to generate summaries and community comms</li><li>Educators upload previous curriculum reviews and ask for a synthesis of outcomes and recommendations</li></ul>In all of these cases, the process takes minutes not hours.How to use it safely and effectively It’s tempting to throw everything at a new tool. But the right approach is simple and staged:<ol><li>Start with non-sensitive documents:&nbsp; Upload files like training guides, planning docs, policy manuals—anything publicly shareable or internally approved.</li><li>Set a clear task: Don’t just test the tool. Use it for a real workflow: building a summary pack, preparing a Q&amp;A brief, consolidating past decisions.</li><li>Check the output: AI tools are fast, but they’re not perfect. Always validate outputs against the source material, especially early on.</li><li>Use version control: Keep your original documents untouched. NotebookLM works with copies, so there’s no risk of content loss.</li><li>Trial in teams with high information load: Focus on functions with long documents, repeat queries, or overlapping responsibilities. That’s where ROI appears fastest.</li></ol>NotebookLM is part of a wave of AI tools that don’t need developers or engineers. They’re no-code tools that give everyday staff the ability to work faster, search smarter, and focus on what matters.But tool selection is only half the work. The rest is:<ul><li>Knowing which use cases actually save time</li><li>Testing them securely</li><li>Measuring impact before scaling</li></ul>That’s where our No-Code AI Implementation service comes in. It’s designed for service businesses like legal, government, education, and beyond—to trial tools like NotebookLM in a controlled, practical way.If you’ve got more documents than time, AI can now handle the reading. You just need to know where to start.

NotebookLM: Google’s AI Tool That Reads Your Docs So You Don’t Have To

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You don’t need to build AI from scratch. But you do need to understand where it's heading—because it's already reshaping how work gets done across law firms, councils, banks, universities, and beyond.At the centre of that shift is DeepMind.What is DeepMind?DeepMind is Google’s advanced AI research lab. Think of it as the place where the foundational breakthroughs happen—years before they show up in the tools your teams use day-to-day.They’re best known for building AI systems that mastered games like Go and StarCraft. But now they’re focused on something far more relevant to you: how to make AI think and plan like a human.They’re designing AI agents that can reason, strategise, and solve problems across domains—not just one narrow task.What are they working on now?Their latest work isn’t just interesting for engineers—it’s commercially relevant for anyone exploring how AI could reduce admin, speed up decisions, or improve service delivery.Recent developments include:<ul><li>AlphaGeometry: Solves Olympiad-level geometry problems by “reading” examples and figuring out logical solutions—like a top high school student.</li><li>SIMA: A general-purpose agent that learns how to play complex 3D games from scratch. It interprets natural language instructions, sets goals, and adapts.</li><li>Generative dashboards: Early prototypes of agents that generate business dashboards from a simple brief. You say “Show me how customer wait times changed after the new policy”—and it builds the report using your data.</li></ul>What does this mean for your organisation?The shift is clear: we’re moving from AI as a helper (e.g. “write this email”) to AI as a co-worker (e.g. “analyse this report and recommend the next three actions”).That unlocks new use cases you couldn’t automate before:<ul><li>A compliance officer prompts AI to find gaps in quarterly audit reports</li><li>A policy team generates summaries across multiple stakeholder submissions</li><li>A customer service leader asks, “What are the top 3 reasons complaints spiked in April?”—and gets a full breakdown pulled from internal tools</li><li>A local government uses AI to review community feedback and recommend changes to project planning documents</li></ul>These use cases are now real options for your team.So what should you do now?This is where most businesses get stuck. They either chase tools too early or wait too long, hoping someone else will figure it out for them.Here’s what a smart move looks like:<ol><li>Understand the building blocks: You don’t need to know how to build an LLM but you do need to understand what they can and can’t do. You need to know where reasoning-based models like DeepMind’s fit into your workflow, versus more basic tools like ChatGPT.</li><li>Start with high-friction work: Look at where your people are spending time pulling reports, rewriting content, summarising data, or checking compliance. These are your quick wins.</li><li>Test agent-style tools in a safe, scoped way: Don’t roll out 10 tools at once. Pick one process (e.g. internal reporting, onboarding) and test how AI can reduce time or improve outcomes. We help clients do this using structured pilots and evaluation plans.</li><li>Build internal confidence: Staff won’t adopt tools they don’t understand. That’s why we run tailored AI education and change programs—focused on commercial leaders, not data scientists.</li></ol>We work with government, education, legal, financial, and travel organisations to help them do one thing: use AI to solve business problems without wasting time on hype or overengineering.We translate AI breakthroughs like those from DeepMind into strategic actions:<ol><li>What should you automate first?</li><li>Which tools are secure, tested, and actually usable by your teams?</li><li>Where can you unlock margin or capacity using AI today, not in five years?</li></ol>Because while DeepMind pushes the science forward, your job is to make the right moves now.Book our AI Strategy Business Case if you need a clear, low-risk roadmap for applying AI inside your organisation.&nbsp;

What is Google's DeepMind’s and What does it Mean for You

The first set of tools we covered were about improving communication, content, and consistency, core to how service businesses build trust and stay visible.But that’s only part of the story.The next layer of value comes from what happens behind the scenes. Where AI supports the delivery, scale, and structure of how your business actually runs, without asking you to rebuild your operations or learn how to code.That’s where these tools sit. They’re about removing bottlenecks, saving time, and helping small teams feel a lot bigger. Whether you’re handling marketing, operations, sales, content, or client delivery—these AI tools do real work.Start with automation.<ol><li>SaveMyLeads is built for a task every service business knows too well: collecting leads, chasing forms, syncing systems. It automates that bridge—capturing and routing leads without human error or delay. The value here isn’t novelty. It’s flow. The faster you can get data from Point A to Point B, the faster your team can act on it.</li><li>AutoCut takes on the small, repeated tasks that chip away at your focus—think file renaming, report compiling, or calendar processing. It’s a quiet time-saver that removes admin friction. Multiply those savings across a week, and you’ll see where it fits.</li><li>TimeSentry goes one level deeper—automating your timesheets. For billable services, compliance-heavy roles, or team tracking, this tool cuts out the end-of-week scramble. It integrates with your systems and keeps everything in sync without nagging people.</li></ol>Then you’ve got tools built for insight and action.<ol><li>Impakt AI gives you performance visibility. Not vanity metrics—but real signals about what’s working across your business or projects. It’s for operators who want to know how effort turns into outcomes, without spending hours buried in dashboards.</li><li>Backflip focuses on marketing campaign execution—automating delivery and optimising based on what’s working. For lean teams running multiple channels, it means you spend less time guessing and more time fine-tuning what gets results.</li><li>Apollo.io is a full pipeline tool: prospecting, contacts, and outbound coordination. For firms that rely on direct sales or outbound lead generation, this turns a manual grind into a structured flow. It’s one of the more mature tools in this space—and one that supports growth without growing headcount.</li><li>LeadsNavi helps you know who your visitors are, not just how many. By identifying website traffic and linking it to contact data, it gives marketers and sales teams the visibility they actually need to prioritise outreach.</li></ol>Now layer in creativity.<ol><li>HeyGen has evolved into one of the sharper visual AI tools around. It allows you to build personalised video content, podcasts, or avatar-led explainers without needing production skills. It’s a strong asset for anyone using video to build trust or educate clients.</li><li>Otterly AI focuses on collaborative creativity—especially for agencies, learning providers, or media teams. It removes friction between scripting, storyboarding, and delivery so teams can create faster and iterate more easily.</li><li>Temporal helps you build more dynamic content—combining visual, audio, and interactive elements. Think digital products, learning resources, or branded experiences. If your client offer includes more than just words, this one matters.</li><li>VideoSeal is for AI-generated video content with realistic avatars and voiceover. It’s useful when you want to create customer-facing explainers, product walk-throughs, or even event content at scale—without a camera crew.</li><li>AirCaption automates captioning in over 60 languages. For content creators, educators, or anyone working in accessibility or multilingual markets—it turns a manual bottleneck into a fast process that enhances reach.</li></ol>Then there’s the business edge.<ol><li>ApplyHero automates job applications—writing cover letters, customising CVs, and speeding up the process. While designed for jobseekers, it also reflects a broader trend: AI reducing the friction between admin and outcomes. Useful for firms coaching clients through career transitions, or testing internal tools for hiring at speed.</li><li>iMerch does the same in e-commerce—automating product listings, inventory sync, and categorisation. For businesses that run product-based offers alongside services, it simplifies ops and scales presence across platforms.</li><li>SEO Katana bridges SEO research and content creation. It analyses competitors, identifies what’s ranking, and generates content that stands a chance. For content teams and marketers who want speed without sacrificing quality—it’s a solid tool.</li><li>AIPPT turns documents into slide decks. For anyone creating pitch materials, learning sessions, or internal presentations—it gets the bones of a deck right so you can focus on the polish. It's a major time-saver in a deck-heavy business.</li><li>Pointer pulls information from multiple sources and organises it into useful summaries. Think: research briefs, client updates, or strategic overviews. For senior leaders or account managers juggling information, this cuts noise and sharpens focus.</li><li>SiteRails offers a straightforward website builder for people who want a good-looking site but don’t want to wrangle WordPress or pay dev retainers. It’s fast, functional, and easy to manage—ideal for services businesses that need to test or update online presence often.</li></ol>None of these tools will transform your business overnight.But together, they give you real leverage—helping you communicate better, automate the right things, and operate more efficiently without adding headcount or complexity.The real benefit? You spend less time stuck in admin or chasing tasks. More time doing the work that matters—client delivery, strategy, growth.Want help building your own AI stack tailored to your business?<ul><li>We work with services businesses to:</li><li>Identify your highest-friction workflows</li><li>Map them to no-code or low-code AI tools</li><li>Pilot fast, cheap, and useful tools—before you commit</li><li>Build internal capability so the tools actually get used</li></ul>

AI Tools You Should Be Using (Part 2)

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There are thousands of AI tools out there.Most of them? Built for people who have time to play.But if you run a services business: law, finance, education, consulting, travel, you don't need tools for fun. You need tools that cut time, improve communication, and keep you present for clients and teams.That’s what this list is.No fluff. No gimmicks. Just AI tools that actually help you stay visible, work faster, and keep your quality up without burning out.They’re not built for engineers. They’re built for people doing real work: presenting, pitching, delivering, and communicating.The most valuable shift happening right now isn’t full automation. It’s how AI quietly improves how we work and how often we can show up with value.Writing clearer. Publishing more. Responding faster. Getting things out the door without a week of back-and-forth.That’s where these tools sit.This is Part 1 of your short stack: the tools I recommend to clients who want business-ready, no-code, commercially useful AI without hiring a product team.<ol><li>NewOaks.ai helps you centralise your operations with AI—automating tasks, cleaning up processes, and giving you a platform that scales with you. Ideal if you’re managing a lot of moving parts and want one home for ops, content, and systems. It’s especially helpful if you run a lean team and need your tech stack to do more, not just cost more.</li><li>MagicMail takes the blank page out of your day. It turns your bullet points into smart, on-brand emails—so you stay in touch without getting stuck on what to say. It’s the kind of tool that quietly lifts your communication consistency across the board.</li><li>Linguix isn’t flashy, but it’s the sort of thing that sharpens your daily writing. It corrects grammar, tightens tone, and gives you peace of mind when hitting send. If you run a business where reputation rides on clear communication, it earns its keep fast.</li><li>Twig AI is for internal knowledge sharing—so you don’t lose hours searching for that one doc, answer, or client template. If you work in a growing team and want a smarter way to remember what you already know, it’s worth using.</li><li>Rabbit Holes AI is a research assistant that helps you learn fast and go deep. You give it a topic, it gives you a guided path. For client-facing experts—advisors, strategists, consultants—it saves time and makes your thinking sharper.</li><li>SuperPodcast.ai is podcasting without the pain. Record your thoughts, and it handles the editing, structuring, and production side. It’s a fast way to show up with authority if you want to grow a loyal client base through voice.</li><li>Reword AI helps you sound better, faster. It takes rough drafts and refines them—without turning everything into generic AI-speak. If you write reports, newsletters, or sales material, it speeds up the path from idea to asset.</li><li>Typeset AI helps you package and publish professionally—especially for those building reports, presentations, or knowledge products. It automates the layout, formatting, and styling, so your work lands with polish.</li><li>Pykaso is for visual content. Whether it’s a LinkedIn graphic, email header, or internal deck—this tool helps you get it done without needing a designer. Great if you want to stay fast and still look good.</li><li>RetroDiffusion brings a nostalgic style to modern content. If your brand has a retro aesthetic or you just want to stand out visually, this is a tool that gives your content more personality with minimal effort.</li><li>Flick Social is a content scheduler and optimiser that actually helps you write. It doesn’t just help you plan posts—it helps you get better at writing them. If social presence matters for your pipeline, this one saves time and builds quality.</li><li>Topical AI is a marketing tool that makes sure your content is aligned with what your audience is searching for now, not three months ago. It gives you a tighter focus on what’s timely, not just what’s generic.</li><li>ManyChat lets you automate conversation on your channels without sounding robotic. It’s a lightweight way to create engagement loops through DMs, landing pages, or site bots. Very handy for client onboarding or lead capture.</li><li>Brand24 helps you listen. You’ll see who’s talking about you, what’s being said, and how sentiment is tracking. It’s like an early warning system for reputation—useful for agencies, advisors, or anyone building public trust.</li></ol>This is just Part 1 of the stack, but it’s enough to improve how you write, publish, share, and respond. These tools aren’t magic. But they’re smart, reliable, and built to support the work you already do.The commercial value? More output, more consistency, fewer hours wasted.The operational value? Less friction. More signal. Fewer blind spots.If you want help picking the right tools I’ve got something for you.We run fast, practical sessions to match you with no-code and low-code AI tools based on your real workflows.Fit-for-purpose tools. Mapped to real business tasks. Rolled out with you—not dumped on you.Book a no-code AI tools session → We’ll help you build your AI stack. → You’ll get clarity and a rollout plan. → No product team needed.

AI Tools You Should Be Using (Part 1)

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We talk a lot about AI readiness at AI Strategy Consulting.But there’s something even more foundational that’s still missing in boardrooms:Data literacy.It sounds like a basic skill. Something everyone in leadership already has. But they don’t. And it’s showing.The illusion of understandingYou’d be surprised how many senior leaders still see data as a numbers problem or a tech team’s job. They delegate dashboards, avoid questions that start with “how was this calculated?”, and sign off on strategies built on weak data stories.In the AI age, that’s not just risky—it’s reckless.Because AI doesn’t replace your judgement. It depends on it. And if you don’t understand what data’s being used, how it’s structured, or whether it's even reliable, your decisions become guesswork dressed up as insight.So why is data literacy so elusive?<ul><li>It’s not&nbsp; spreadsheets or SQL.</li><li>It’s about asking the right questions:</li><li>Where did this data come from?</li><li>What assumptions are baked in?</li><li>What does this pattern not tell me?</li><li>Is this data representative—or just convenient?</li></ul>These are commercial questions. Strategy questions. Risk questions. Yet most exec teams still treat them like optional extras.You don’t need to become a data scientist But you do need to build the muscle.That’s why our <a data-mce-href="https://aistrategyconsulting.com.au/ai-fundamentals-masterclass" href="https://aistrategyconsulting.com.au/ai-fundamentals-masterclass">AI Masterclass </a>starts with the fundamentals:<ul><li>Not AI tools. Not buzzwords. But data literacy.</li><li>The ability to read, challenge, and interpret the information your decisions are built on.</li></ul>We don’t throw graphs at people. We build confidence through real examples:<ul><li>How to spot misleading metrics</li><li>How to ask sharper questions in meetings</li><li>How to avoid being swayed by flashy, AI-generated nonsense</li></ul>The truth is, most AI mistakes aren’t technical. They’re human. And they start with poor data judgement at the top.

Understand Data - That’s the First Real AI Problem

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When I first heard the word Transformer in an AI context, I thought someone had mixed up a pitch deck with a Marvel script.But once you understand what a Transformer is—and how it changed everything about AI—you realise this isn't technical trivia. It’s commercial context.And most executives don’t have it.Here’s the short version:Until 2017, most AI models were slow, narrow, and not particularly useful outside research labs or niche use cases.Then Google published a paper titled “Attention Is All You Need”. That phrase introduced a new architecture—the Transformer—which replaced older, less efficient models like RNNs (Recurrent Neural Networks) and LSTMs (Long Short-Term Memory).In plain terms: the Transformer made AI faster, better at understanding language, and scalable enough to train on massive amounts of data.That’s how we got to GPT, Claude, Gemini, and all the tools you're hearing about today.So why should this matter to you?Because the breakthrough wasn’t just about more computing power or more data. It was about changing how AI understands context.The Transformer architecture does something simple but powerful: it pays attention to everything at once rather than processing words one at a time like older models did.That small change led to a huge leap. It’s the reason AI can now write emails, summarise documents, write code, and even reason across multiple steps.In other words, if you want to understand the limits—and potential—of AI in your business, this is the starting point.Here’s where most teams get stuck They don’t know what matters.They sit through AI demos or strategy sessions and nod along, but walk away unclear: What’s hype? What’s real? What applies to us?You don’t need to become a machine learning engineer to lead with AI. But you do need to understand the mechanics of progress—especially when it’s changing how people work, serve, and compete.<a data-mce-href="https://aistrategyconsulting.com.au/ai-fundamentals-masterclass" href="https://aistrategyconsulting.com.au/ai-fundamentals-masterclass">That’s why our AI Masterclass starts here.</a>We break down the foundations in plain English: what a Transformer is, why it matters, and how this shift is reshaping every function from sales to HR to operations.No fluff. Just what your team needs to make decisions with confidence.

AI Blog

NotebookLM: Google’s AI Tool That Reads Your Docs So You ...

What is Google's DeepMind’s and What does it Mean for You

AI Tools You Should Be Using (Part 2)

AI Tools You Should Be Using (Part 1)

Understand Data - That’s the First Real AI Problem

Why Everyone Should Understand Transformers