The more AI tools you use, the more productive you get. Right?

Not exactly. Boston Consulting Group leader Gabriella Rosen Kellerman studied what actually happens to people who are using AI intensively at work, and what she found is that beyond a certain point, something breaks. Not burnout. Something different, something the existing research wasn't equipped to explain, and something that organisations are currently making worse without realising it.

In this episode, I sit down with Gabriella to unpack AI Brain Fry: what it is, who is most at risk, and why the sweet spot for productivity might be far fewer tools than you think. We also get into what managers are doing, often unknowingly, that adds 15% more mental fatigue to their teams, and the one cultural message that does more to protect employees than any AI policy.

If you have ever ended the day feeling strangely depleted despite not having done anything physically tiring, this episode will name what's happening and tell you what to do about it.

Gabriella and I discuss:

• What AI Brain Fry is and why it sits outside the existing burnout literature

• Which roles are showing the highest rates of brain fry and what that signals about AI oversight work more broadly

• The productivity cliff: why two to three AI tools is the sweet spot, and what happens to output beyond that

• What the most sophisticated AI users do differently to the people with 25 browser tabs open

• The two manager behaviours that either cut mental fatigue by 15% or actually increase it

• Why some common organisational messages about AI are making employees more vulnerable to fatigue, not less

• The 10/20/70 rule that most organisations are skipping entirely in their AI rollouts

• How to do an informal audit of whether your team is currently suffering from brain fry

Key quotes

"The goal is to develop acute self-awareness of our own intelligence as we come to meet this new alien intelligence."

"AI is completely changing the psychology and behaviour of work. Brain Fry is a proof point of that."

Connect with Gabriella Rosen Kellerman on LinkedIn and her website, and check out her research and writing at Harvard Business Review.

If you enjoyed this chat with Gabriella, I think you'd also love the first time she came on How I Work, where we talked all about thriving in times of uncertainty. You can find that episode here.

My latest book The Energy Game is out on July 7, 2026. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M

Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha-imber.ck.page/subscribe

Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

Credits: Host: Amantha Imber Sound Engineer: The Podcast Butler

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Every time you open a new AI chat, you're starting from scratch. You type out the background, explain your role, describe the project. Then you do it again tomorrow. And the day after.

There's a better way, and it takes about 15 minutes over a cup of coffee.

In this How I AI episode, Neo and I walk through the briefing document - a single context file that gives AI everything it needs to understand your world before you've typed a single word.

Neo and I cover:

• Why context now matters more than a well-crafted prompt, and why even a clever prompt without background will give you a great average response rather than something targeted
• What a briefing document is and why recreating that context in every new chat leads to lazy, generic results
• How to use AI's advanced voice mode to interview you about your job so the briefing document gets built conversationally, not typed from scratch
• The exact interview prompt we give Inventium AI workshop participants
• Real examples from Neo's setup, including documents for Inventium's products and services, his AI programs, and a current client project
• Real examples from Amantha's setup, including documents for managing her team, the How I Work and How I AI podcasts, and her upcoming book
• Two ways to store and deploy briefing documents

The prompt for creating a briefing document:

“Run a short, adaptive interview that captures only what matters about my role, context, stakeholders, and how I work, then produce a single structured briefing that covers all information.

Be efficient, inquisitive rather than prescriptive, and tailor the depth and questions to my role and signals.”

Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.

My latest book The Health Habit is out now. You can order a copy here: https://www.amantha.com/the-health-habit/

Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha-imber.ck.page/subscribe

Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

Credits: Host: Amantha Imber

Sound Engineer: Martin Imber

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're in sales. Even if your job title has nothing to do with sales, you are selling every single day. Ideas, proposals, budget requests, buy-in. The only question is whether you're any good at it.

In part two of our chat, I sit down with Sabri Suby, founder of King Kong and a shark on the most recent season of Shark Tank Australia, to get into the skills that have helped him close over $300 million in deals. We cover how he trained himself to communicate with clarity and authority, why he believes the video sales letter is the single most powerful tool any business can have, and the negotiation mistakes that cost people deals before they've even started.

Whether you're pitching to a client, selling an idea to your leadership team, or trying to get your team bought into a new direction, this episode will change how you think about communication.

Sabri and I discuss:

• How Sabri built his communication skills from scratch, starting at 16 in a Byron Bay call centre
• The "game tape" method: why watching and listening back to yourself is the fastest way to improve
• How to eliminate filler words and why pausing is more powerful than filling the silence
• What a video sales letter is and why Sabri believes it's the most leveraged tool in any business
• How to apply the VSL approach inside a corporate setting, from pitching ideas to running internal meetings
• Why the deal is closed in the discovery, not the close
• The one mistake almost everyone makes going into a negotiation
• Why you should always negotiate price and terms separately

Key quotes

"Communication is the number one superpower that you can ever get."

"Whether you like it or not, you're in sales. Everything that you want is a commission."

Connect with Sabri Suby on Instagram and LinkedIn and check out KingKong.

My latest book The Health Habit is out now. You can order a copy here: https://www.amantha.com/the-health-habit/

Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha-imber.ck.page/subscribe

Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

Credits: Host: Amantha Imber

Sound Engineer: The Podcast Butler

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.