AI amazes me from time to time.

Yesterday, I caught up with an old friend from my hometown, Penang. We were discussing a collaboration to run an AI workshop in Penang.

Naturally, we slipped into speaking Penang Hokkien, because that’s how we talk. We could discuss in English, but it just felt off.

Before we got deep into the discussion, he casually asked, “Eh, you using AI notetaker or not?” I replied, “Yes, but I doubt it’ll work. We’re speaking Hokkien leh.” (Translated from Hokkien)

Still, we turned it on, just to see.

After the meeting, I checked the summary. It. Actually. Worked.

Here’s the lesson I’m reminded of (again): 💡 Adopt an AI-first mindset. Before you assume “AI can’t help,” try it anyway, especially for the tedious stuff (i.e., preparing minutes of meeting in this case).

I shared this advice candidly during a panel discussion at the Business Plus AI Forum last year. Many attendees told me this was one of the best advice in their AI learning journey when I met some of them recently.

Since then, I’ve run a few small “AI experiments” that I didn’t expect to work — but they did: ✅ Bulk renamed 100+ files by replacing space with dash (just zipped the folder & uploaded to ChatGPT) ✅ Scanned name cards → got VCF files ready for import ✅ Scanned an event brochure → got ICS calendar file ✅ Sketched a dashboard → got demo-ready code ✅ Wrote multi-file codebases almost identical to how I would have ✅ Transcribed a full meeting in Penang Hokkien (!) ✅ … many more that I can’t recall

Sometimes AI fails. But sometimes it blows your mind.

💬 What’s the most unexpected thing AI has helped you with?

#AI #Productivity #AIWorkshop #Penang #PersonalTechHacks #ChatGPT #Hokkien