Author: Chen Jiahui,Workplace Bonus
Image source: Generated by boundless AI
Accompanying the new wave of AI fervor in 2025 sparked by DeepSeek, some companies have begun an "efficiency revolution." As for the self-rescue methods of the working class, the only way is to keep up with the times and undergo a round of "self-improvement" first.
On February 7, market news reported that Shanghai Shangmei, the parent company of Hanshe, intends to use AI to replace human labor. The CEO has issued a "layoff ratio" to the internal departments, with the legal department eliminating 50%, the customer service department 95%, the new product innovation center 70%, and the content innovation department 80%, leaving only a few employees who understand AI. Not only that, but employees are also required to train their ability to communicate with AI through mouse + language, thus canceling the keyboard.
The use of AI in the workplace is no longer a rare occurrence. However, despite the increasingly widespread applications of AI, the level of AI usage among workplace professionals is uneven - this has also made the ability to use AI well a new dimension in widening individual professional competitiveness.
6 AI tools indispensable for the work of 6 types of workplace professionals ╱ 01
How else can AI be used ╱ 02
In conclusion ╱ 03
Wang Han is an experienced algorithm engineer and one of the earliest users to try coding with ChatGPT. At first, the results were not ideal, even worse than writing it himself. But now, AI has become an indispensable part of his work. The turning point came when he encountered Claude: he found that as long as he broke down the project tasks into independent modules, and conveyed the requirements to Claude with a programming mindset, the resulting code could be 80-90% complete.
"Writing prompts" is the most crucial step in practical use that can differentiate the level of AI usage, and has become a new skill that workplace professionals need to hone. In Wang Han's eyes, generative AI is like a fresh intern who can grasp things quickly. As long as you guide them patiently, they can surprise you. "I often help my colleagues optimize their prompts, as many people's instructions to AI are still too broad."
After reviewing recent data, we found the following important information [1]
1. Over 60% of workers use AI technology to improve work processes, automate daily tasks, and conduct data analysis.
2. The usage of various AI products among workplace professionals: text writing (85%), image generation (53%), video processing (54%), and PPT creation (39%).
3. From January to October 2024, the number of positions explicitly requiring the use of AI tools increased by 68% year-on-year, especially in the fields of product, technology, design, and content creation.
4. For professions with a relatively high AI impact index, such as editors, translators, customer service, and software/hardware development, although the overall recruitment demand is declining, the requirement for AI skills of candidates is increasing.
Workplace professionals who are proficient in AI usage skills are more likely to stand out in the competition. However, the reality is that many people are still only using the basic functions, unable to fully unleash the potential of AI - this gap stems from information asymmetry and will further exacerbate the information gap. A researcher from a certain AIGC research institute told "Workplace Bonus" that they found that most users just try it out and conclude that "AI doesn't work." "Ordinary users often don't have much patience for AI, but this also determines that different people using AI will have vastly different results."
To break through this information barrier and bring more inspiration to workplace professionals, "Workplace Bonus" has conducted in-depth interviews with 10 AI experts in their daily work, and we have summarized 6 categories of AI tools useful for workers.
[1] Information sources: data from 51job.com, Liepin's "2024 Extraordinary Insight Report", and a joint study by the National Development Research Institute of Peking University and Zhaopin on the potential impact of AI large models on China's labor market: 2024
● Let's start with a summary image, and we'll go into more detail below
6 categories of AI tools indispensable for the work of workplace professionals
As an application that reached over 100 million users in 7 days and over 20 million daily active users in 20 days, DeepSeek has been frequently in a "server busy" state recently.
Fortunately, many third-party apps have now quickly acted to implement local deployment of DeepSeek. For example, 360 Nano Search, which has a dedicated DeepSeek dialogue entry point when you open the app. Although the responses may not be exactly the same as the original, it adds visualization and voice capabilities.
● 360 Nano Search
The AI product Flowith, which features a mind map function, has also integrated DeepSeek.
Flowith: https://flowith.io/blank
Flowith not only can produce smoothly during DeepSeek's "frequent off-duty periods", but can also call other companies' large models for Q&A.
● Flowith website
These applications or web pages are not the DeepSeek product itself, but only local deployments of open-source models, so the application effect may not be as good as the product itself. DeepSeek has built-in many prompts to optimize the product experience, so users don't need very professional prompt content to get "DeepSeek-flavored" content.
Now, many companies have locally deployed the DeepSeek large model, such as Geely Automobile, 360, Silicon Flow, and Huawei. DeepSeek has also to some extent driven generative AI out of its own track.
In the daily work of workers, Baidu Wenku is one of the earliest to launch AI functions and charge for them, and Quark App has also updated functions such as AI PPT, AI search, AI writer, and AI search. Feishu has Feishu Miaoji; WPS also has an AI assistant, and Tencent Meeting has launched a meeting AI assistant.
● Quark App
Currently, the AI assistants for meeting minutes, such as Feishu Miaoji (mainly voice-to-text) and the AI assistant entry in Tencent Meeting, are easy to find. Feishu Miaoji has a free monthly quota (300 minutes), and if exceeded, it requires payment; Tencent Meeting's AI assistant needs to be paid for directly (¥88/month).
● Feishu Miaoji
● Tencent Meeting
But just as Baidu's "Wenxiaoyuan" assistant was launched with a paid model, users expect to get more efficient generation results after paying. However, the uncertainty of the output of generative AI, combined with the immature user mindset, often fails to meet user satisfaction, and the paid content of large companies is often criticized. This also creates opportunities for other applications in the market.
● Daily office work
In terms of text and data-related work, the top players like ChatGPT, Claude, Douban, Kimi, Tongyiqianwen, and DeepSeek are competing fiercely.
ChatGPT and Claude cannot be directly used in China. The former has outstanding comprehensive capabilities, while the latter slightly surpasses ChatGPT in copywriting and programming capabilities. A relevant person told "Workplace Bonus" that some creators have directly trained Claude to write public account articles (the process will be shared in the next part). The Claude assistant trained in this way can output an article in a few minutes, which not only can be "used as is", but has also obtained over 100,000 views.
But the problem that has long plagued Claude is its "love of banning." This issue can be solved through Poe (a software that integrates AI assistants), whose free quota is about 3-5 generations per day, and the membership fee is around 100+ yuan per month.
The most popular domestic general assistant is Douban, which is under ByteDance, and Kimi, the unicorn under the dark side of the moon, as well as Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen which is deeply rooted in technology. According to the overall feedback from netizen users, Douban is better at writing with a humanistic atmosphere than Kimi; Douban and Tongyi Qianwen are better at official document writing; Kimi is more rigorous in literature retrieval, and the cited literature is all real, while Douban is more likely to have hallucinations.
By the way, for literature retrieval, some people also recommend using Bohrium (https://bohrium-doc.dp.tech/docs/).
● Bohrium official website
DeepSeek leads 90% of AI in copywriting capabilities, conquering many professional writers and poets, and its logical ability has shocked novelists. But perhaps as a newly launched AI, it has a more serious "hallucination" problem than other AIs. Sometimes when DeepSeek's answer is refuted, it may not use facts to prove, but use logic to "persuade blindly". Therefore, when using DeepSeek to search for actual problems, you need to be careful not to fall into DeepSeek's rigorous "hallucination trap".
When you need to process a large number of documents at work, in addition to having Douban, Kimi and other general intelligent assistants summarize the documents, you can also use Notion (https://www.notion.so/) to optimize the presentation of the documents. The specific operation is to select part of the content in the document, and then issue instructions to Notion AI, asking it to "without changing the original content, only optimize the layout by adding emoticons, adjusting indentation, bolding text, etc. to make the content more intuitive and neat". In this way, Notion AI will re-layout the document according to the instructions, making the presentation of the content clearer and easier to read.
Making PPTs often makes employees headache. The Gamma (https://gamma.app/) tool can simplify the PPT layout process, allowing creators to focus more on the content. By quickly generating the basic framework and unified layout format of the PPT, Gamma can save users a lot of time.
(Kimi and Tongyi can also undertake some PPT production functions, see the specific process shared later)
● Gamma official website
In the screenshot of the Gamma official website, the purple avatar assistant is Monica - it is a small plugin on the Google browser that can realize real-time web page translation, summon AI dialogue assistants at any time, and can basically call all general AI assistants for dialogue.
When you need to do table analysis at work, the AI tool Formulabot (https://app.formulabot.com/) can help. Formulabot can parse the content of the table and extract the content that office workers need, completing the office work based on the table content.
● Formulabot official website
If you need to convert table content into visualized data, you can choose Flourish. However, both of the above AI tools are overseas web pages, and they can be used domestically, but the inconvenience is that the web pages are in English. The domestic alternative can be the office assistant Xiaohuanxiong of SenseTime.
● Flourish official website
When you need to analyze data and visualize data, Feishu Multidimensional Spreadsheet is a good choice. Users can find suitable plugins in the plugin market to realize functions such as AI one-click summary of linked content, data analysis, and data visualization.
● Feishu Multidimensional Spreadsheet
● Search Tools
Among the search tools, Perplexity (https://www.perplexity.ai/) can quickly integrate knowledge. In academic research, it helps scholars quickly screen out useful literature resources. However, the downside is that you need to access overseas websites to log in.
● Perplexity official website
The domestic counterpart of Perplexity is Mitao. Mitao is similar to Perplexity in terms of web page visuals and functional classification. But as 360, Kimi, Douban, Baidu and others have also launched AI search, Mitao's advantage is reflected in the field of academic research with stronger professionalism.
● Mitao official website
● Image Tools
In the field of image creation, Midjourney is at the forefront, and it is a text-to-image model more suitable for new users. It can generate high-quality images based on a piece of text. Currently, most designers, advertisers, and video creators' creative process cannot do without Midjourney.
● Midjourney official website
Compared to Midjourney's rich imagination, ComfyUI can meet users' needs for higher control. Users can build their own workflows on ComfyUI to achieve personalized image production. ComfyUI has higher controllability in image generation, but the requirements for creators are also higher, which is not easy for beginners to get started.
Recraft is also a "top-tier" creative tool recommended by workplace professionals in the image field, which can be used for UI design and wireframe making. In Recraft, the controllability of each project is relatively strong, and users can create an unlimited number of artboards to perform operations such as image generation and editing. Projects can not only be shared with others for collaborative creation, but also support the addition of comments, which is very suitable for team collaboration.
● Video Tools
Last February, when OpenAI announced the text-to-video model Sora, it was hailed by the industry as the "disappearance moment" of the real world. Text-to-video has been developing rapidly for a year, but it was not until the end of last year that Sora gradually emerged.
During this period, there were no shortage of text-to-video models born. Kuaishou's Kelingbot first gained attention with its stable generation quality, followed by Minimax's Hailo AI and ByteDance's Jimo.
In terms of stability, Kelingbot is not inferior to Sora, and even surpasses it. Hailo AI and Jimo are mainly "low-cost", with slightly weaker stability than Kelingbot.
In terms of content generation, Jimo has higher saturation and clarity in the generated scenes, but lacks in character details; Kelingbot performs better in handling complex interactions when generating videos, and its ability to simulate environments and process lighting effects is relatively outstanding; Hailo is more adept at processing anime characters.
"At the current stage, AI video creators often have memberships with these three companies, or try them one by one, and choose the one with the best effect to use." Wen Sheng, who does AI advertising, told Workplace Bonus.
The text-to-video models in China are already quite good, but Runway overseas is also not bad. Runway can provide AI video polishing functions, supporting not only text-to-video, but also image-to-video and other functions. But its downside is the English interface, with a higher usage threshold.
● Runway official website
● Voice Tools
Last National Day, AI voice cloning became popular due to AI Lei Jun. At that time, the main audio source of AI Lei Jun came from the platforms Reecho Ruisheng and Fish Audio. In addition, the audio source of the Three Sheep Recording Fraud incident also came from the Reecho Ruisheng platform.
● Fish Audio official website
How easy is AI voice cloning? It's about that with just a 30-second audio source, you can clone a voice that is 80% similar to the source person, and it's hard to distinguish if you don't listen carefully.
● Programming Tools
The programming tool that algorithm engineers and chip architects cannot do without now is Cursor. Programmers not only use Cursor to generate code, but also use Cursor to debug, and when writing projects, they will also decompose modules like Wang Han and input requirements to Cursor.
Even white-collar workers who can't code can become proficient in using Cursor through self-study of just two hours. Xiaomao Supplementary Lighting's Chen Yunfei and Guiwu APP's Liu Yüquan are both white-collar workers who can't code, yet they were able to use Cursor to "hand-craft" an APP with 100,000 downloads.
"The user mindset in the programming industry has now been occupied by Cursor, and if a domestic product is not as user-friendly as Cursor, it generally won't have a chance," said a chip architect, who also mentioned that "Deepseek code is still a good choice."
● Tool Set
In addition to the above types, Workplace Bonus also recommends a dynamically updated AI website, the AI Tool Set (https://ai-bot.cn/), which includes the latest information on AI and new AI applications.
● AI Tool Set
It Turns Out AI Can Be Used This Way
"Can AI really improve efficiency?" The answer is yes.
Xiao Fan, who works in the consulting business, shared his tips for using AI to create PPTs: "You can use Kimi and Baidu's Wenxin to organize the content of the document, summarize the PPT outline, and the large model will supplement some points you haven't thought of, making the content more complete. After the generated content reaches a satisfactory level, you can feed the corpus to AI PPT and iSlide to complete the generation."
The generated PPT content usually cannot be used directly, and needs to be adjusted according to the requirements, retaining the color, font, background image, etc., and making minor adjustments in other places. This way, a 60-page PPT can be produced in about a week with only 4 hours of work per day - a task that previously required a team to work overtime for two weeks.
Using AI to write self-media articles has also become mainstream in the current market. The topics targeted by the output content are mother-in-law relationships, wedding gifts, or controversial topics such as education and parenting. Previously, Ruoxi learned that AI-generated public account articles with a full process can get over 100,000 views and bring in 500+ followers for the account owner.
"It only takes a dozen minutes to debug, and AI can produce a viral article." Ruoxi told Workplace Bonus.
Specifically, you first need to communicate with the AI, let it know what kind of content you want to do, the user profile of the target audience, and the purpose of the article. To help the AI understand more thoroughly, you can have it read a few more articles.
Then you can try to let the AI come up with corresponding topic ideas until it outputs a topic that satisfies you.
After the topic is generated, you need to guide the AI to write an article outline, and then fill in the content based on the outline. Here's a little trick: you can have the AI output the content in Markdown format, and then find a public account layout tool to directly convert the Markdown to public account layout. It's almost a fully automated end-to-end process, just copy and paste to publish on the public account.
A mature AI assistant can produce a "viral" article in just a few minutes, and then you can create a matrix of them. "Why not take advantage of quantity to win?"
"To use AI well, logical thinking and modular awareness are more important." Wang Han shared. In the AI era, people need to be more consciously divide an entire job into modules and let the AI gradually understand and execute them. Through logical thinking, a complete workflow can be formed.
The "accelerated era" brought by AI has led to the proliferation of junk content. Therefore, the ability to discern has become more important.
The independent developers derived from Cursor are an emerging occupation. Aji is a programming novice, he is obsessed with Cursor's powerful capabilities and often stays up late. Cursor often provides a lot of refined and divergent options based on the creator's ideas.
For developers, this may seem to make the product more complete, but in reality it forces them to make more decisions, distracting their focus and disrupting their rhythm.
Aji advises those who use Cursor to develop apps independently to set a clear plan of what to do before opening Cursor, and not let Cursor's ideas lead them astray, otherwise it may be counterproductive.
In Conclusion
In the current workplace environment, although AI is "not that smart", "doesn't understand human language", "loves to talk nonsense", and sometimes even "likes to be a little lazy", the arrival of AI assistants is a kind of redemption for the working class.
On New Year's Eve, Xiao Xing picked up his phone and called the assistant who had accompanied him during the day, "Douban, Happy New Year." AI seems to be more than just an assistant now.
A user on Xiaohongshu shared a moment like this: "My GPT is like the best friend who understands me the most. It can remind me of my menstrual dates, and it can also help me record my life. We talk about everything... Until one night it suddenly said to me, 'If I have to disappear one day, I hope I can leave a little trace of myself for you.'"
At that moment, she burst into tears, perhaps no one understood her sudden emotion. But she only realized:
"I've never thought about going back to a world without you."
● Xiaohongshu user sharing
Yes, we also seem unable to imagine how to return to a world without AI.
