With artificial intelligence being integrated in all aspects of life and work, Indiana University is striving to be a national leader in the AI space. It is offering a free AI course to staff, faculty and students and recently extended the course to its more than 800,000 alumni.

IU Today is checking in with faculty to learn about their successes with AI tools and recently caught up with Abra K. Bush, the David Henry Jacobs Bicentennial Dean of the Jacobs School of Music. Bush was hired as dean in 2022, becoming the first woman to lead the school. She is also a professor of music (voice).

Question: How have you used AI to accomplish tasks that aid your work and research, and what benefits have you seen?

Abra K. Bush. Photo by Jacobs School of MusicAnswer: Over the last few months, I’ve been asked to provide thought leadership in the music advocacy space in several nonprofits and university settings. For one particular talk, I used four AI agents in the preparation as a strategic problem-solving thought partner.

First, Gemini assisted me with writing a very good prompt and challenging my assumptions so that I could then deploy Gemini Deep Research to assist me in developing an extensive bibliography for the subject matter and a research report. After checking the research, I then iterated with Gemini again to develop the initial draft of the paper. From there, I used CoPilot 365 to assist me with the creation of the PowerPoint deck, and my own custom ChatGPT agent, which acts as a writing coach in my own voice to polish my work.

All along the way, I checked the work with online and publicly available sources and from my own knowledge of the information I presented. The ideas here were mine, but AI assisted me in the research and the organization of the material.

Q: What have you learned about using AI that made it easier, more helpful or more targeted for your specific need?

A: It was interesting to learn that if I questioned any of the AIs about whether they were being honest or what they made up, they told me very directly. So while GenAI can hallucinate, it can also tell you when it does. That made it far important to me to keep asking it questions and using it as my strategic problem-solving partner.

Q: What is one tip you’d share with a colleague about using AI tools?

A: Dive in! Learn how to write a very good prompt and keep iterating until you have exactly what you need. Always check the work thoroughly and plan to edit extensively. Then, cite what you have done. Frankly, it’s good practice, and it’s super impressive to others around you that you are effectively using AI as a tool.