I use AI bots to attend meetings for me and manage my diary – now I run my company from the beach and my weekly hours are down from 50 to 32 

• Remi Gutteridge is the founder and CEO of a UK-based social media agency 
• AI has enabled her to work from New York, Santorini and Corfu, she reveals 
• READ MORE: Warning issued to cruisegoers after passenger gets £1K phone bill

One British businesswoman is living the nomadic lifestyle she always wanted, thanks to AI bots.

Remi Gutteridge, founder and CEO of social media agency RG Creatives, uses AI tools to attend meetings for her and manage her diary, which has enabled her to work from New York, Santorini and Corfu instead of the business’s central office in the UK.

Thanks to AI, her hours have come down by as many as 18 a week.

Thanks to the bots, Remi, 35, has been able to plan more globetrotting while keeping up her day job, with more Greek islands on the itinerary and the Balearics in her sights for the festive season. She spends 70 per cent of her time on the beach that’s running the agency.  

Before introducing AI tools into her business, Remi – who is originally from St Albans – says she ‘spent a whole lot more time at [her] desk in very long meetings or working [her] way through lots of admin’.

Remi Gutteridge (above), who is the CEO of a UK-based social media agency, uses AI tools to attend meetings for her and manage her diary, which has enabled her to work from overseas

She tells MailOnline Travel: ‘Keeping on top of client and team schedules can be an entire job in itself – so I found I would work longer hours than I would’ve liked.’

She used to work about 40 to 50 hours per week – and wasn’t fulfilling her dream of seeing the world.

After introducing AI tools into the running of her company, Remi discovered that it meant she didn’t need to be ‘in the room’ for every meeting – giving her the flexibility to work from overseas.

Now she works a more manageable 32 to 35 hours a week, which sometimes involves working from co-working spaces abroad.

Remi says: ‘Using AI has really allowed me to free up time in my day so I’m able to focus on other things that are important to me. I’ve found that these days I’m able to take much longer breaks, and generally finish much earlier than I used to!’

What’s more, in the past six months, her business has gone from strength to strength. 

What role does AI play in the company? Remi explains: ‘I mainly use AI to take care of small, boring daily tasks such as managing my diary and scheduling appointments or meetings.’

These bots help with her to-do list each day. Remi says she uses ‘AI as a sort of personal assistant to figure out things like the best meeting times for catching up with [her] team or clients or generating project timelines’.

‘Using AI has really allowed me to free up time in my day so I’m able to focus on other things that are important to me,’ says Remi

Remi and her friends on a boat trip. Thanks to AI, when she’s spending time with loved ones, she doesn’t feel the need to check her email inbox

And when she instructs bots to attend virtual meetings for her ‘the system will take a recording of a meeting, feed it through the system, and then provide me with key takeaways and actions’.

She continues: ‘It means I don’t necessarily have to be in the meeting, and my team doesn’t need to spend time catching me up on what I missed so it’s great for all of us.’

AI tools respond to certain emails automatically on Remi’s behalf, while important emails will be flagged for her attention so she can ‘pick it back up’ when she returns to her desk.

Remi says this means that when she’s travelling or spending time with loved ones, she doesn’t feel the need to check her email inbox, which has made a ‘huge difference’ to her life.

In general, AI allows her to ‘spend time offline’ comfortable in the knowledge ‘that the business is still ticking along without [her]’, she reveals.

In the early days of bringing AI on board, there were a few teething problems, Remi admits, though ‘nothing drastic’.

She says: ‘When I was playing with the tools and trying to figure them out, I had a couple of stray emails that went to the wrong person or meetings which were scheduled at incorrect times, but luckily, they were mainly internal errors so there was nothing that couldn’t be fixed.’

Remi also takes steps to ensure that no serious errors are made.

She explains: ‘I make sure that any notes that are made and shared with clients are proofed, so they’re accurate and have the context they need – the tools are there to help me along, not to do my work entirely for me.’

Most of Remi’s clients are ‘intrigued’ when they hear she’s working with AI, she reveals: ‘Many of my clients know that I use AI to help make smaller day-to-day admin easier… many are already using the likes of ChatGPT in some way. The tech hasn’t replaced my staff, only made life easier and has freed up time for us.’

The clients that were ‘more sceptical’ have ‘begun to think about how they can implement AI in ways that help their day-to-day too’, she says.

Did anything surprise Remi about using AI in the workplace? She says she was taken aback by how ‘easy’ it is to work with, noting: ‘Once you get a hold of it, you’ll be keen to figure out the other ways the tech can work in your favour. ‘

Remi isn’t the only British worker using AI in the hopes of bettering their work-life balance – and business – LinkedIn reveals.

New research by the social media site finds that 76 per cent of UK workers say they are excited to use AI in their work, and 65 per cent believe it will help move their careers forward.

Remi used to work about 40 to 50 hours per week – and wasn’t fulfilling her dream of seeing the world. Now she works a more manageable 32 to 35 hours a week

The research suggests that UK workers see AI as a tool that will help them focus on what they do best and be more productive. Half (51 per cent) are planning to use AI to say goodbye to boring work tasks, and 42 per cent admit they’ll use AI tools to answer the questions they’re too embarrassed to ask their colleagues.

A further 40 per cent plan to help solve conflicts by asking for advice on difficult scenarios at work.

However, the majority (66 per cent) of UK workers have been provided with no formal AI training, leaving many to figure it out for themselves. Over half (56 per cent) have already taken steps to boost their knowledge of AI through practical experience – including experimenting with Gen AI tools such as Chat GPT (22 per cent) – or reaching out to friends and colleagues for advice (16 per cent).

Despite this, many still feel that they’re falling behind. Thirty per cent of professionals think their colleagues know more about AI than they do, and over a quarter (26 per cent) have even pretended they know more about AI to appear ‘in the know’ in front of teammates, LinkedIn reveals.

The research also finds that two in five UK workers (38 per cent) predict ‘significant’ change to their jobs in the next year as a result of AI, which has led to mixed feelings. Over a third (36 per cent) admit to feeling overwhelmed by AI, and a further 38 per cent are worried they won’t be able to keep up with the AI developments sweeping through their workplace.

Employees predict interpersonal skills such as communication (48 per cent), adaptability (48 per cent) and problem-solving (46 per cent) will become even more important as AI grows in prominence.

And LinkedIn suggests that gaining an understanding of AI could be beneficial to those in the job market – its data shows that since November last year, there has been a 21-times global increase in English-language jobs mentioning new AI technologies such as Chat GPT.

Commenting on the research, LinkedIn Career Expert Charlotte Davies says: ‘Hot off the heels of the pandemic, once again professionals are adapting to another wave of change as AI becomes more prominent in the workplace. It’s understandable that getting up to speed can feel overwhelming, but it’s positive to see people embracing the shift and focusing on the many benefits AI technology can bring to their working lives, including more time to focus on the work they care about and helping with career progression.

‘It’s also clear that people are eager to learn more about AI. We’re seeing a significant increase in conversations on LinkedIn, with members already adding AI skills to their profiles, but our data also highlights the enormous value of soft skills and how important these will be for the future as we continue to navigate this new tech and the change it brings.’

To help initiate workers into the world of AI, LinkedIn is offering its most popular AI LinkedIn Learning courses for free.

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