Hey {{First name|there}}! It’s Aaron.
Everyone is asking how to use AI better. Few are asking when they shouldn't use it.
This week's issue explores why that question might matter even more.
📌TL;DR
AI Intuition: Why knowing when not to use AI may become your biggest advantage.
Google Vids: AI avatars mean you no longer need to appear on camera to produce polished video content.
Google AI Mode: AI is becoming a task layer. It completes actions across apps without leaving the conversation.
More AI news…
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes.
CATCH OF THE DAY
The AI Skill That Matters Most Isn't Prompting
Source: The Rundown AI - Rowan Cheung
I recently watched Rowan Cheung, founder of The Rundown AI, share what he believes is the most important AI skill today. Surprisingly, it wasn't prompting.
It was something he calls AI intuition.
The ability to know when to use AI, and when not to.
That idea stuck with me because it made me reflect on how I use AI.
When AI first became popular, many newsletters were almost entirely written by AI. You could usually tell after reading a few paragraphs. The words were polished, but they all sounded the same.
I know because I tried it too.
When I started Bytesize Quest, I experimented with letting AI write most of the newsletter. It was fast. It was efficient. But every issue felt like it could have been written by anyone.
It didn't sound like me.
Over time, I changed how I use AI.
Today, AI helps me research topics, organise ideas, fact-check information, and tighten my writing. What it doesn't do is decide what deserves your attention. It doesn't know what my readers care about most. It can't draw from my own experiences or explain why a story matters to me.
That's still my job.
This is where I think AI intuition becomes harder than it sounds.
Knowing when not to use AI isn't easy. When deadlines are tight and AI can produce something in seconds, it's tempting to let it do just a little more each time. Before long, you've saved hours but slowly lost your own voice.
That's a trade-off most people don't notice until someone tells them, "This doesn't sound like you."
The goal isn't to hand everything over.
It's to identify the parts of your workflow that AI genuinely does better than you, while protecting the parts that make your work uniquely yours.
For a creator, that might be your storytelling.
For an instructional designer, it could be the way you simplify a difficult concept.
For a manager, it might be your judgment when making decisions that affect people.
Those things come from experience, not prompts.
It's also worth remembering that no AI company is building a feature that tells you when to close the chat window. Their goal is to make AI more useful every day. Deciding when to stop using it is a choice only you can make.
The Final Byte
The question isn't whether you're using AI.
It's whether you've decided which parts of your work should always stay yours.
Most people haven't. They've either handed too much over or avoided AI altogether. The people who benefit most from AI won't be the ones who use it for everything.
They'll be the ones who know exactly where to draw the line.
See you in the next one,
BYTE-SIZED BUZZ
Here’s a quick roundup of what’s making waves in the AI world this week.
Google Vids now lets Workspace users create AI avatars that can present scripts in their place, helping teams produce training videos, explainers, and updates without filming themselves.
The Big Deal: AI avatars don't just save recording time — they separate your presence from your content. That's useful for scale, but worth thinking about what it means for audience connection over time.
Google AI Mode can now connect with select apps such as Instacart, Canva, and YouTube Music, letting users complete tasks inside a conversation instead of switching between apps.
The Big Deal: When AI connects your apps, the assistant becomes the interface — not the individual tools. That's the same pattern showing up across Google, Meta and OpenAI this month.
Google has renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook and added a secure cloud computer that can write and execute code for deeper, source-grounded analysis.
The Big Deal: Knowledge workers can now turn research materials into deeper analysis and richer outputs within one workspace.
Roblox introduced Build, a mobile-first creation tab with AI tools that can generate playable game experiences from simple prompts.
The Big Deal: AI is lowering the technical barrier to game creation for educators, creators, and beginners.
Meta pulled its Muse Image remix feature after backlash over consent concerns tied to using public Instagram content in AI-generated edits.
The Big Deal: The incident is a reminder that creator consent must remain central to AI tools that use personal images or public content.
WEEKLY CREATOR LOADOUT 🐾
ChatGPT Work: OpenAI's Codex-powered AI agent that automates everyday work like research, planning, writing, and document creation.
Runway Dev: Runway's new API for AI video generation and real-time avatars, making advanced video workflows easier to build.
Reve 2.1: Upgraded 4K AI image model with element-level editing for creating and refining marketing visuals and thumbnails.
Copilot (Beehiiv): Beehiiv's AI assistant for newsletter analytics, audience segmentation, and campaign optimisation.
GPT-Live: OpenAI's latest voice model with more natural conversations, opening new possibilities for voice assistants, tutorials, and interactive learning experiences.
THE GUIDEBOOK
New to AI tools?
Check out past tutorials, tool reviews, and creator workflows—all curated to help you get started faster (and smarter).
SUGGESTION BOX
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BEFORE YOU GO
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