Gen Z are making chatbots to do admin and other tasks for them at work – does it give them a competitive edge or is it proof AI can replace them?

Being a 28-year-old business owner is hard work – but Freya Fine has a secret weapon.

Meet “Mini Freya” – a custom version of ChatGPT which Fine developed in early 2024 after a year of running her digital marketing agency, &Fine, and feeling the pressure of being responsible for managing both a team and clients single-handedly.

“We have between four and 12 clients at a time, and we’re a team of five. But I am the decision maker on everything, which means that I don’t have that much space in my brain,” says Fine, who divides her time between London and Madrid. “I started to feel overwhelmed, and that I needed two of myself. Or even 10.

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“Our work is data driven, insight led and the brands we work with have a very specific tone of voice. They have a lot of rules and regulations to work within. As a single person, you can’t remember all of that stuff.” But Mini Freya can.

Within ‘Mini Freya’, Fine has 12 specially-trained chatbots which she created within ChatGPT that are dedicated to specific clients and their needs. Fine spent about four hours developing the appropriate prompts and feeding in the relevant documents to set up Mini Freya.

Now it can help the real Freya with tasks such as writing emails to clients and staff, and new business proposals. It also supports her in drafting client marketing strategies and negotiating with social media influencers. For example, after a meeting, Mini Freya will dissect a transcript to assign follow up actions to the right team member with the appropriate deadline. She also posts to LinkedIn and organises Freya’s day, like a personal assistant.

On average, Freya says having this saves her around 40 hours a week in tasks she doesn’t have to do – at the cost of £20 a month, the rate of ChatGPT’s “Plus” plan. “It’s [no cost] compared to the impact it has on the team,” says Fine. “It’s like having a super-organised partner on call 24/7. Or like a junior team member you can train to take over an entire role.”

And – like a member of staff – the more resources Freya gives her mini-me, the more capable it becomes. “You feed it information – videos, PDFs, textbooks, notes – and continually refine with feedback and new inputs. Over time it learns your tone, style, and ways of working. The longer you have it, the better it gets. Naturally just by working with it, I’m improving it everyday.” Fine has since encouraged her whole team to create their own AI mini me to help with similar tasks.

Fine however makes it clear that the creative and strategic thinking her agency provides clients still comes from the team’s own actual brains. “We use ChatGPT for all of the grunt work. We by no means use it for any of the ‘love’. For example, the strategy for all our ads comes from hours of research and the experience we’ve accumulated, so there’s no way that ChatGPT could do that for you,” she says.

But using AI it’s not something she hides from clients. “Because we are in a tech space, it’s almost expected that you’re in some way leveraging AI,” says Fine. “We’re using it to give a much better product”. And rather than worrying about AI making her obsolete, Fine thinks her advanced knowledge of how to use it gives her a competitive edge in the job market.

Gen Z’s AI edge

Fine and her team are a perfect example of how Gen Z – despite often being criticised for having a looser work ethic than their Millennial, Gen X and Boomer counterparts – are demonstrating how their command of AI is giving them an edge at work.

Indeed, 55 per cent of Gen Z use AI to problem solve at work, compared with 54 per cent of millennials, 42 per cent of Gen X, and 33 per cent of baby boomers, according to recruiter Randstad’s study of 11,250 workers across 15 markets. Around 75 per cent of Gen Z use AI to learn new skills, ahead of Millennials (71 per cent) Gen X (56 per cent) and Baby Boomers (49 per cent). Yet 46 per cent of Gen Z also say they worry about the impact of the technology on their jobs – up from 40 per cent last year.

Gen Z’s competitive edge with AI, though, is at odds with the number of entry level jobs being cut because of the technology. As research by job search platform Adzuna has highlighted, the number of graduate roles, apprenticeships, internships, and junior positions have dropped by over 30 per cent since ChatGPT launched at the end of 2022.

It’s concerning Letizia Mollinedo, 26, a senior account digital executive at communications agency Fight or Flight. London-based Mollinedo has been creating custom projects in AI platform Claude over the past six months to help her with account management tasks like editing and finalising written reports. She also uses AI to help her get to grips with new topics.

People in the agency are encouraged to use AI, and everyone uses it differently without being expected to disclose it to managers or clients, provided they aren’t inputting confidential client information into the platforms.

Letizia Mollinedo uses AI at work, but is concerned about widespread use

But companies cutting roles, especially junior ones, because of AI, is short sighted, says Mollinedo. “Companies doing this are shooting themselves in the foot, because AI is meant to unlock potential. They’re cutting off new talent and replacing them with machines that all think the same way,” she says.

“An intern would be bringing in skills that AI doesn’t have, because it doesn’t have the ability to think beyond being a robot, and it will spit out the exact same answer for everybody, whereas an intern with a specific degree or background will give you something that maybe you hadn’t thought about.”

Mollinedo acknowledges that while her custom AI tools save her around five hours of work a week, she’s clear on where to draw the line. “It’s the difference between something that would usually take me an hour, and being able to do it in 20 minutes. It makes the workflow faster, which feels good, and makes me feel more efficient,” says Ms Mollinedo.

“I never use it for content creation because that’s where you have to do the strategic thinking. If you don’t do that, then you’re kind of screwed. It’ll completely destroy your ability to work. It’s important to remember that AI cannot think for you.”

Don’t let AI dumb you down

Annemie Ress is a former senior HR leader who now runs people development consultancy PurpleBeach. Ress agrees that Gen Z has an AI advantage that employers should be embracing, and those cutting entry level roles are indeed short sighted. She warns, however, that anyone using AI at work – not just Gen Z – needs to be careful not to lose sight of key skills.

“If you are going to be lazy, and it is going to dumb you down, someone will notice down the line, and you will not get the opportunities at work. You will lose those connections, and relationships will suffer,” says Ress, who is based in Brighton.

She also recommends that Gen Z get clear on how they frame their AI use, and not to position it to current and future employers as a mere outsourcing of tasks. “A lot of business leaders are either fearful of AI, or think they know everything that it can and can’t do, which is almost more dangerous. So it’s as much about educating as showcasing.”

Talk of cuts to early careers jobs because of AI hits hard for Fine, who applied for hundreds of roles after being made redundant in 2023, to no avail, before starting her agency. With her entire agency being staffed by Gen Z team members, she’s particularly passionate about putting their AI skills to good use. “We’re noticing that every year when we get new interns joining us, they’re more AI attuned, and that’s making our lives easier.”