Every new technology promises to save people time. Artificial intelligence is beginning to promise something more ambitious: memory.
Instead of asking chatbots to answer questions or draft emails from scratch, a growing number of professionals are spending hours – sometimes days – teaching AI who they are. They are feeding it years of curriculum vitae, portfolios, writing samples, work histories, career decisions, and personal preferences until the software can represent them almost as consistently as they can.
The goal is not to write better prompts, but to build an AI that understands the person behind the prompt.
For Olanrewaju Habeeb, a Lagos-based communications professional, that shift began with frustration.
Finding remote work had become almost a full-time job. After finishing his day job in public relations, he spent his evenings searching job boards across the United States, Canada, and Europe, researching companies, tracking down hiring managers’ email addresses, and rewriting his CV and cover letter for every application. Most applications disappeared without a response.
