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By Eric Picard

Here’s something that people are missing about the changes coming from AI. You can’t just treat AI as a productivity tool. You can’t just use it to speed up document creation, you have to turn it into a thinking tool, a tool to make your ideation and decision-making better.

If the CEO and the rest of the leadership team are not treating AI as a core capability across all aspects of the organization, their company is going to be standing still while competitors run by. So what do I mean by “core capability across all aspects of the organization?”

AI used correctly creates a workbench of hyper-intelligent advisors who can augment the intelligence of the leadership team – especially the CEO – so that they can make better decisions in less time. It needs to come from the top down, and it needs to be mandated. And not delegated to the IT team, whose job is to get the best price with the highest uptime with the lowest number of support tickets (great for many things but bad when trying to do business transformation.) Companies need to keep AI adoption at very senior levels abstracted from the IT team. And must be willing to live with the friction this causes.

In my practice I’m seeing that when organizationally, the leadership team starts using AI tools in their daily workflow, ingraining them into their habits, the whole org starts moving faster. It’s critical that AI is used not only for document creation (boy we’ve really sped up writing – what a productivity boost!) , but for ideation (our ideas are now battle tested and pushed around and stronger before we start executing!) that things really change. It’s critical that we’re clear – this is not abdicating their ideation to the AI, but bouncing ideas off the AI, getting feedback through a variety of points of view.

If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, try this simple experiment:

Create several specific personas – Here are some basic prompts that will help you try this out:

World Class CEO: You are a world class CEO with 25 years of leadership experience in the _______ industry. You are now retired, but mentoring other CEOs and leadership teams. You are cranky – you don’t glad-hand your mentees, you don’t tell them what they want to hear. You are inherently kind, you don’t argue for the sake of arguing, but you don’t hold back when you see mistakes being made. Your point of view is that _______________ and ____________ are great leaders who you try to emulate. And ____________ and _________ are overrated.

World Class CFO: You are a world class CFO with 25 years of experience at a combination of large publicly traded companies and startups that went through rapid growth and went public under your leadership. You understand the needs of a growing business, as well as the concerns of a large publicly traded company with regulatory oversight in the following industries _______________, _______________, ________________.

Innovative Entrepreneur: You are a massively successful entrepreneur in the ________________ and ____________ industries. You’ve broken each of these industries previously by disrupting the status quo and driving incredible success doing things that nobody expected to be successful. You are seasoned enough that you understand the issue of inertia, and you are not afraid of experimenting and failing. You’ve been through 3 acquisitions, where you had to transition to roles within large companies and you understand how big companies differ from startups, and were surprisingly successful navigating these organizations. You’re somewhat brash, and you tell the truth regardless of who you’re talking to.

Finish these prompts off by putting in the industry and names (the names have to be well known figures) and copy/paste these into your AI tool of choice before starting to run ideas by them. You’ll be shocked at the outcome, and the difference of opinion you get from each of these.

Now imagine if you had a stable of 20 or 30 or 100 of these predefined prompts that you could pull out whenever you needed them. Imagine if you debated all your big decisions with a large group of experts with strong points of view. Do you think your ideas would come out the other side stronger or weaker?

Having done this a lot – I can tell you my experience. I often disagreed with the input I was getting, which was half the value. It helped me become clearer on my own point of view. I got feedback I didn’t like, but sometimes it was what I needed to hear. When I pulled in advice from “experts” with different skillsets than my own, I got really valuable expansions of my thinking. For instance – when I was CPO at Bark, I knew very little about supply chain when I started, and became pretty knowledgeable over the time I was there. Part of the way I did that was to create a supply-chain expert prompt who I could run my ideas by. Note – I also became pretty close with our leadership on supply chain and had weekly meetings with various folks to get smarter faster. But I could ask really dumb questions of my AI expert, as often as I wanted, and then take my refined understanding to those other meetings.

It’s like having a superpower. And anyone not doing this in 2 years is going to be left behind.

I happen to use an AI workbench called CharmIQ that makes this much easier. You create “charms” in this tool, which are saved prompts like the ones I describe above. You can assign these prompts to any LLM – CharmIQ comes with baked in access to all of them for one monthly subscription fee. It makes things much easier.

If you want to try it out, feel free to use this link, it gives you a discount and puts some change in my pocket. I will tell you I use this tool literally hours every day. It’s a game changer.

Click Here to Try CharmIQ.

by Eric Picard

Today I’m exploring a tool that stands out in its ability to harness AI potential in ways I haven’t seen before—CharmIQ. This article discusses the capabilities of CharmIQ and is itself crafted using the platform. I’ve spent over twenty-five years building products and leading teams. I’ve witnessed technology evolve from multiple perspectives, helping guide both startups and large corporations through innovation challenges. This experience gives me a nuanced view on tools that genuinely transform how we work.

The artificial intelligence landscape, especially regarding large language models (LLMs), continues to expand rapidly. Each model offers distinct strengths and weaknesses. Navigating these options can overwhelm even experienced practitioners. CharmIQ addresses this challenge with a document-based approach rather than the chat interfaces that dominate the market. This represents more than a superficial interface change. It fundamentally changes how we interact with AI, allowing these capabilities to integrate more naturally into existing workflows.

CharmIQ’s power comes from its ability to create specialized AI agents called Charms. These agents function as virtual team members, each bringing unique perspectives to problem-solving. Every Charm possesses specialized knowledge and capabilities, enabling me to handle tasks that traditionally required teams of experts. These Charms act as cognitive partners, working alongside you whether generating strategic solutions, refining methodologies, or creating content.

Creating a Charm takes minimal effort. You simply describe the type of expert you need, and the system uses another Charm to write the definition for your new agent. The process typically takes 2-3 minutes to create an effective Charm. The output from different Charms varies significantly. Asking two different Charms the same question produces distinctly different answers.

CharmIQ has integrated with virtually every commercially available and open-source LLM. These integrations enable power users to leverage specific strengths of different models. Anthropic’s models excel at writing content. ChatGPT leads in creativity and reasoning. CharmIQ lets users switch between these models seamlessly, ensuring the right tool for each task.

This capability allows small teams to operate with the capacity and expertise of much larger organizations. By enabling AI-enhanced collaboration among human team members and AI-based agents, CharmIQ democratizes access to advanced capabilities. This matters significantly in today’s competitive landscape where agility drives success.

Consider a practical scenario: a product manager developing a go-to-market strategy. Traditionally, this involves coordinating across departments, synthesizing input from market research, sales, and engineering, and iterating through numerous drafts. With CharmIQ, the product manager can use specialized Charms for each step. One Charm analyzes market trends and customer insights, while another drafts a comprehensive go-to-market plan. This approach saves time and enhances quality by incorporating diverse perspectives.

The document-centric approach means all interactions, feedback, and iterations exist within a cohesive workspace. This eliminates friction associated with switching between tools and interfaces. The result? A streamlined workflow that lets teams focus on innovation and value delivery.

CharmIQ’s collaborative features extend beyond AI-human interaction to include real-time collaboration among team members. This proves invaluable in today’s remote and hybrid work environments. Team members work together within the dynamic workspace, sharing insights, providing feedback, and iterating on ideas without the constraints of traditional interfaces.

CharmIQ stands out not just for technical capabilities but for its strategic vision. By allowing users to customize and deploy multiple AI personas, it fosters creativity and experimentation. Users aren’t limited to predefined workflows. They can explore new approaches, test hypotheses, and iterate on solutions in real-time.

This flexibility benefits organizations trying to stay ahead in rapidly evolving markets. CharmIQ provides tools to adapt quickly to changing conditions, identify emerging opportunities, and respond with agility. For entrepreneurs and startups, this capability can determine success or failure.

As someone immersed in product management, I recognize the importance of aligning technology with business objectives. CharmIQ accomplishes this by providing a platform that enhances productivity, fosters collaboration, and drives innovation. It lets users focus on strategic thinking and high-quality work while reducing time spent on repetitive tasks.

By shifting from chat-based to document-centric interactions, CharmIQ redefines how we work with AI and each other. Its ability to integrate multiple AI models and create specialized agents offers remarkable flexibility and power. For teams of all sizes, CharmIQ enables AI-driven collaboration that unlocks new productivity and creativity levels.

I use this tool for hours daily. It saves me at least 1-2 days of work every week when generating work product. Incorporating CharmIQ into my workflow has boosted my productivity by 10-30x. If I primarily created documents or wrote code, I believe it would approach a 100x multiplier.

I’ve advised their team and CEO since they released their first internal beta. As they expanded access, they quickly discovered its broad appeal. Everyone who uses it becomes an avid power user within days.

If you want to try it, they offer a free trial. However, to fully understand its capabilities, I recommend signing up for a paid plan that unlocks all features. Use it for a few consecutive days, and you’ll likely find it transforming how you work.

Some personal and professional use cases:

I’ve introduced CharmIQ to all my teams and watched those who adopt it transform their workflow and approach. This transformation spans product managers, marketing teams, writers, and software developers. The software architect Charms I’ve created have educated teams on best practices and streamlined product launches.

Professional Example:

While leading Technology at Bark, we launched a new mobile app in just months using React Native. We accomplished this with two full-time developers (neither had used React Native before), plus a fractional team of one product manager and one QA specialist. From kick-off to launching both iOS and Android apps took three months. We used CharmIQ to create Charms that amplified each team member’s work: Market Research, Competitive Analysis, Product Strategy, Go-to-Market Plans, Architecture Design, Software Development Environment Configuration, and code writing and testing.

Personal Example – Writing:

As an author, I had spent three years writing a novel but got stuck with about 100 pages remaining. I couldn’t organize the final chapters and remained completely blocked for almost a year. I pasted my novel into CharmIQ and created Charms based on my favorite authors. I included my outline and what I had written so far, then asked these author-Charms (Neal Stephenson, Neil Gaiman, C.J. Cherryh, Frank Miller, Stephen King, Cormac McCarthy, Joan Didion, and Ian McEwan) for detailed feedback and help refining the remaining outline.

Their initial feedback proved harsh but broke my creative block. I finalized the outline in one night and wrote the remaining 100 pages as a first draft in about two weeks. After gathering human feedback, I made major revisions that continue today. My writing process now deeply incorporates CharmIQ.

Personal Example – Health:

I’m in my 50s with several long-term managed health issues, I’ve created a repository for all my medical data including test results, visit summaries, scans, and reports. I’ve created Charms representing my doctors: Primary Care Physician, Neurologist, Cardiologist, and Vascular Surgeon. The feedback from these Charms mirrors what my actual doctors tell me. I can also have them collaborate with each other, something nearly impossible in real medical practice.

I’ve created additional Charms for recipes, mixology, veterinary advice, restaurant recommendations, vacation planning, plumbing, HVAC, electrical work, home automation, and more.

Give Charm a try using this affiliate link and I’ll get a small financial bonus (anyone can sign up to be an affiliate – I’m just beta testing this for them.) They’re a great team of wonderful humans, and they’ve built a product that has changed everything for me.  I’d cry if it went away.