AI gets hyped as either the magic solution to everything or the looming threat to our jobs. 

At RapDev, AI isn’t replacing people - it’s helping people.

Our most valuable AI asset is a homegrown tool we rely on to get the menial stuff out of the way so we can focus on what’s important. Meet Clippy: our AI sidekick.

And before I get into the details, I want to address those of you who are unenthusiastic or downright wary of AI. AI is not a replacement for original thought or hard work. It's a tool that we use to make our lives more efficient and productive, just like your computer, email, online banking, or dating apps (ok, maybe not dating apps).

Meet Clippy

At RapDev, the number one way we use AI is Clippy. Yep, I said Clippy.

That’s the adorable name we use for our internal AI tool that helps us:

• Manage meeting notes
• Create status reports
• Build user stories
• Generate SOWs
  

Clippy originated as a much simpler version in one of our 24-hour hackathons. The first version was a chatbot and over time, Clippy has evolved into workflows and AI agents integrating with a lot of the tools we use like Slack, ServiceNow, Notion, and HubSpot. We have dedicated workstreams focused on Clippy development and a backlog of Clippy features we’re excited to build.

Right now, I can go into my project folder in Slack and type /s to pull up Clippy’s status report UI.  I verify the project, hit submit, and get a Slack update that my status report is being built and a link to it once it's created. 

What is Clippy Doing?

It uses the last status report, updates a few fields, and pulls in project updates from Slack and this week’s meeting notes.

I still have to review the notes and curate the key updates, but Clippy has just saved me from looking for the last status report, making a copy, updating fields, digging through meeting notes, and scrolling through Slack channels to find this week’s key updates.

What Else Can Clippy Do? 

It keeps an eye on new projects in ServiceNow. If I’m assigned as the PM, I get a message:

Not all the stories Clippy creates are used or useful. However, since it's based on our internal data, a lot of the stories are great, so I send them to my tech lead for review and get the go-ahead for which ones work.

There’s no better way to understand the benefits of a hackathon than to love this new tool our team created.

Beyond Clippy

We also use ChatGPT. Looking back at my history, I’ve used it for everything from summarizing milestones to proofreading documents to reviewing health plans. When I asked which health plan is best? I got ‘it depends’ and a really helpful breakdown of pros and cons.

Writing This Post

I wrote this post on my own, and when I was done, I asked ChatGPT to “find me some vetted articles about how to write an engaging blog post.” 

It did, and then gave me: 

✍️ Common Best Practices (from across these guides)

When I looked at the common best practices, I had some of them down, but definitely missed this one: Hook with the Intro

So I fed this post into ChatGPT, and the intro it created was a great base to work from.

The Takeaway

Embrace AI! At RapDev, we have it, and it's helping us to be more productive and efficient. 

A great place for more resources is Arlo: AI Agent by RapDev and the Free AI course from IBM.

Reach out to RapDev to learn more.