AI Makes Showing Your Work Easier

"Silos" image from Bozarth, J. Show Your Work. Wiley/ATD.

It won’t do the thinking for you, and it won’t replace the work itself. What it can do is act as a kind of documentation and communication layer on top of what you’re already doing. Used thoughtfully, AI can lower the friction involved in making work visible.

Here are a few practical ways to get started:

Build a Reflection Habit; Turn rough notes into useful updates

Most of us already have fragments of documentation, like bullet points from meetings, scribbles in a notebook, and half-finished planning notes. The problem is not always lack of information, but the effort required to turn that information into something shareable.

Try to build a reflection habit. Before moving on from a task, or heading to lunch, or wrapping up at the end of the day, pause for a moment and capture a few thoughts: What was harder than expected? What was easier? What did you do particularly well? What would you try differently next time? What related idea is worth revisiting?

AI can help transform those bits and pieces into short summaries for your team or Community of Practice. Framing this as refining something that already exists rather than starting from a blank page can make working out loud feel more manageable. Over time it will help you build a history of personal growth and organizational learning.

Capture decisions while they’re still fresh

After finalizing an idea it’s easy to move on to the next task without reflecting on what just happened. Unfortunately, that’s also when valuable insight gets lost. Try briefly describing the situation, the options considered, and the reasoning behind the decision. Send yourself an email or add the note to a working file, and ask AI to structure that into a short reflection. Over time, these small records can become a rich source of learning, for both yourself and others.

Make thinking visible without over-polishing

Working out loud does not require perfectly crafted prose. In fact, over-polishing can slow the process so much that people stop doing it altogether. If you have a draft email, project plan, or rough analysis, AI can help you generate a concise explanation of your approach that you can share with colleagues. The goal is clarity, not perfection. Visibility, not performance.

Help ideas travel

Another common challenge in organizations is translation. Technical experts explain things in ways that make perfect sense to other specialists — and far less sense to everyone else. AI can help rewrite explanations for different audiences. A dense technical description can become a clear overview for senior leaders. A high-level strategy statement can be translated into more concrete guidance for front-line teams. When ideas are easier to understand, they move more easily across boundaries. And that will accelerate learning.

Reducing the Cost of Working Out Loud

Working out loud has always offered clear benefits: stronger connections, faster problem-solving, more reuse of knowledge, and better awareness of what is actually happening in the organization. The difficulty has been sustaining the habit when time feels scarce.

AI does not eliminate the need to reflect, document, or share. What it can do is reduce the effort required to turn everyday experience into something useful. With a few intentional prompts and small adjustments to workflow, showing your work can become less of a chore and more of a natural extension of doing the work itself. It can make your own thinking and work more visible -- even to you.

For more see Bozarth, J. Show Your Work: The Payoffs and How-Tos of Working Out Loud, Wiley/ATD.