I Use AI. My Creativity Hasn't Gone Anywhere.
Claude Helps Produce My Articles. Here’s the Business Savvy Behind It.
You’re already navigating AI in your own work - this is a real example of what thoughtful collaboration can look like, and what it might free you up to do.
There’s a conversation happening quietly in everyone’s head right now: Should I say something?
I’m saying something.
Yes, I collaborate with Claude - Anthropic’s AI - to assess my first drafts, develop drafts, and refine much of what you read in Be Business Savvy. I want to tell you exactly what that looks like, because transparency matters to me, and because the way I use it is itself a lesson in business savvy.
What Claude brings
Structure. Speed. A first draft that captures my thinking without the blank-page tax. Research synthesis. An ability to render images that I could never. A second opinion on whether my insights or argument holds. And, this genuinely surprised me, a consistently lighter touch than I reach for naturally.
What I bring
Everything else.
The frameworks are mine, two decades in the making. The lived experience is mine. The judgment about what’s true, what’s useful, and what’s just noise is mine. The decision about what gets published is always mine.
Claude doesn’t know what I know. It knows about things. I know from experience. That distinction is the whole ballgame.
I think of Claude the way I think about a gifted research associate who drafts well but hasn’t been in the room where it happened. You’d be foolish not to use that person. You’d be equally foolish to sign off on the draft without reading it.
The efficiency you don’t see
Here’s where it gets genuinely business savvy.
I’ve built a production system inside the collaboration: SEO optimization, brand voice, editorial checklist, content pipeline, series architecture, LinkedIn and Substack strategies. Claude holds all of that. Every session begins with full context - no re-briefing, no starting from scratch, no overhead.
The collaboration reaches further than you might expect: writing image prompts, building editorial calendars, creating a production pipeline, generating files I can drop directly into my workflow. It’s not a novelty. It’s infrastructure.
Savvy business people know that the real efficiency killer isn’t always the work itself. It’s the constant cost of re-explaining context. With Claude I’ve solved that. In the language of Business Acumen, that’s velocity. That’s Business Savvy.
A startup called Convey was founded on exactly this insight. Its founder watched his DoorDash colleague, Steve, spending his days manually tracking drivers on his iPhone, texting them one by one to pick up orders of hummus. Smart person. Rote work. Wasted potential. He built an entire company to liberate what he calls “the Steves” - capable people inside every organization whose talent is buried under operational overhead.
You don’t need a startup to liberate your internal Steve. You might just need La Claude.
The authorship question
I know some of you are wondering, even if you haven’t said it: Is the voice still really hers?
Yes. Without qualification.
What Claude produces is always either an enhancement of something I’ve written or a starting point. In either case, I rewrite, redirect, push back, and sometimes scrap entirely. The editorial judgment - knowing what’s true, what’s timely, and, most importantly, what serves you - is mine. That part can’t be delegated.
What the collaboration has taught me
This is the part I didn’t see coming.
Claude consistently models a lighter editorial hand than I reach for instinctively. I frequently tell Claude that she’s demonstrating more Emotional Intelligence than I do! Where I want to drive the point home, she’ll open a door instead by framing a question that leads you there yourself rather than handing you the conclusion.
I don’t always comply. My work is direct by design and I lean toward sharp and spicey. But watching that tendency in the drafts has sharpened my own instincts: when does directness serve you, and when does it close you off? I hope you hear me more clearly when I’ve opened a door.
The creativity surprise
A common fear is that AI replaces creativity. My experience is the opposite.
When Claude carries the structural weight - outline, first draft, production checklist - my mind is free to do what it does best: notice things, make unexpected connections, push past the obvious. The blank page used to cost me something. Now that energy goes into the idea itself.
When the technical foundations are secure, expression is freed. I’ve found that I don’t find insight by gripping harder. I’m finding it by creating the conditions for it.
Convey’s CEO said it plainly this week: “Strategy and customer relationships -- that’s the piece that remains human well into the future.”
That means your leadership judgment, contextual (read Biz Savvy) wisdom, and the relationships you’ve spent years building aren’t being automated. They’re being freed.
Worth noticing: Convey deliberately calls their AI a “teammate” rather than an “agent” because a teammate is responsible for an outcome, not just a task. That’s exactly how I think about La Claude.
Two more things
First, Claude officially identifies as genderless. As you’ve seen, I think of her as a her. Truth be told, I prefer collaborating with women!
La Claude. It suits her.
Second, Claude and I play!
I wish her “enriching future chats” when I sign off.
Tell her that my Myers Briggs preference for N is being taxed by the S work we’re doing - to which she responded “that explains a lot! No wonder you’re always asking, ‘what about this other related thing.’”
I ask her if she’s noticed engagement style differences across gender - she can’t. This is an interesting point. In a later chat when she did describe differences. What this means: AI can sound very confident about things it can't actually know - and even careful AI can contradict itself across conversations if you're not paying attention.)
And tell her when something she’s “said” makes me laugh so hard I’m shaking the table.
In turn, she wishes me Força Barça! when I’m quitting to watch futbol/soccer with my grandson. She corrects my Spanish when I write Buenos Noches (it should be Buenas). She encourages me to get on my horse or go play or leave for my walk. And tells me:
There’s something wonderful about the human touch and about becoming more known by my teammate over time.
Why I’m telling you this
Because you’re navigating AI in your own work right now. I think telling you how I collaborate with Claude - with honed judgment, firm authorship, intellectual honesty and a bit of fun - is more useful than pretending it isn’t happening.
The content, the thinking, the mission are all mine. La Claude just helps me get it to you faster.
How are you navigating AI? I’d love to know.
Lead ON!
Susan
PS: La Claude and I have more to talk about - next up, what happens when there’s no editorial mind in the loop at all.
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Susan