Littlebird - 3 months on with an AI personal assistant

By Brian Clegg

Back in January I started using a new piece of AI software, Littlebird – three months on, it has become an important part of my working life as a combination of research assistant and PA.

To give an example, a while ago I was looking for a new author to write a title in a series for which I act as series editor. My conversation with Littlebird demonstrates how its context awareness makes it better than simply using a standard chatbot.

Firstly, I needed to remind myself how to describe the book to a prospective author, having already had an email exchange with the publisher about it. I asked Littlebird ‘How did I describe the possible Military Science book in an email.’ In a few seconds I was told what I’d said about the title, when I’d sent the email, who I sent it to and some other titles I was working on in the same series (including telling me that an author had changed the title of the book from my original suggestion).

With that background in my mind, I then asked the AI to develop a strategy to find an author from UK universities for a book like the one I had described. Littlebird came back with three types of academic to try, depending on whether I went for a focus on war studies and strategic studies, defence engineering and applied physics, or science and technology studies. It also pointed out a particular source it had used (that I wasn’t aware of) where a lot of these academics had written about these kinds of topics so I could get a feel for their writing styles.

I finished by getting a list of possible authors, with their specialties and email addresses. I then went on to send emails manually to some on the list. Currently Littlebird was unable to send emails on my behalf, though I would be surprised if that isn’t an option soon. It did offer to draft them (to be precise, it said it could ‘whip up a tailored message’), but while in a different circumstance I might be happy to take a look at a draft, I won’t ever be comfortable with an AI sending emails unchecked as I am too aware of the dangers of AI hallucination.

Some of what I’m doing with Littlebird I could do equally well with a standard generative AI such as ChatGPT or Claude, but it’s the contextual aspect that makes the difference. A few more small examples – I often review books and like to send the press officer at the publisher a note when I’ve done a review. I can ask Littlebird ‘Who is the PR person is for the book I’ve just reviewed?’ and it will give me the details I need. I’ve also used it in video call meetings and interviews, where it transcribes the discussion and provides a summary. 

It’s also possible to pop up a window while writing some text (or working on a spreadsheet) and ask it to comment or expand on something you are doing. When I did that just now, it reminded me that I had commented elsewhere that I found its daily summaries of what was achieved the day before useful (I do) and that it could help more with admin, enabling me to, for instance, ask about outstanding invoices that I need to act on.

Inevitably because the software is watching what you do on your computer to collect context, privacy is a potential issue. I went into this in some detail in my original piece on Littlebird: my personal analysis is that what it delivers outweighs the initial concern that I felt and I’m now very comfortable using it (though I do tend to do banking transactions on my phone).

I started with the free version of the product, but I switched to the paying version after just a couple of weeks as it has been so useful. This isn’t AI trying to replace me in what I do, but rather an assistant that complements my way of working. 

Littlebird has a money-off scheme for new users to give it a try (it’s now on both Mac and Windows) – if you use a link from this post you will get $20 off your first purchase (and I get a reward too). I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Image by Marissa Grootes from Unsplash

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Now Appearing is the blog of science writer Brian Clegg (www.brianclegg.net), author of Inflight Science, Before the Big Bang and The God Effect.