Nadime Trabolsi has always been interested in how we communicate. She has explored this through journalism, graphic design, web design, and digital marketing. She's someone who bridges disciplines and makes communication work, both internally and externally. Today, her work as a communications consultant for companies like Banco Santander has led her to specialize in collaborative environments such as SharePoint and in facilitating dialogue within organizations.
But in the last year, something changed. And it was AI.
Since approaching Generative Artificial Intelligence as a curious person exploring new developments and advances, as well as through one of our programs at Brain and Code, Nadime has not stopped exploring these technologies.
As she herself mentions in her LinkedIn profile: “I don’t know if it will change the world for better or worse, but as a specialist in Gen AI and prompt engineering, I explore how AI enhances creativity and redefines digital storytelling.”
Today we chat with Nadime, an active member of our Alumni community, to understand what changes AI has brought to her daily life as a Digital Marketing and Communication specialist, why she decided to train in AI, and what consequences her training has had on her professional and personal life.
Some discoveries aren't planned; they simply happen. Sometimes they arise from a news story, a conversation, or a specific need. But there's always a moment when something clicks.
→Tell us: When was the first time you came across Generative Artificial Intelligence and thought “this is for real”?
I don't know if I could talk about a single time; several "wow" moments come to mind in this regard.
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Photoshop's smart filters and features: Adobe was probably my first professional and almost unconscious encounter with AI. Photoshop has been incorporating features in this area for a couple of years now (the wonderful smart filters or generative fill!), and its generative scaling feature was my first AI lifesaver—goodbye to pixelated photos you have to upload in large format to the web! It seemed like magic; I'd upload a small passport-sized photo and the program would "create" the context/body of the person, up to the size I needed. But the "wow" moment, I think, was the first time I found some parameters in the smart filters that allowed you to change the "satisfaction" expression on people's faces! You indicated the degree of happiness/sadness with a cursor, and suddenly the tool would draw smiles or frowns in seconds, quite accurately. It's one of those features that scares me—it's going to be increasingly difficult to distinguish real reality, or to achieve a balance between ethics and aesthetics. Just like the options to choose a person's "facial age" (to make them look younger or older).
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Gen AI videos: I discovered them a couple of years ago because I needed to make a video for work. Design and video are areas I dabble in and where I have a basic understanding, though I'm not an expert. I read about Hey Gen somewhere and decided to try it with low expectations. The result was amazing. Later, I made another video in a different style using CapCut, and it was also outstanding. Both videos had professional quality—and looked like they were made by someone much more experienced than me. Two things surprised me:
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The level of detail control: from the avatar's appearance/gender/race, to the degree of "happiness", tone, accent, etc. in the voices.
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How incredibly easy it was to use both tools.
As I mentioned before, I have some training and experience with the Adobe suite, and I don't think anyone can use these programs without training. I would estimate that hours of training are needed to perform basic tasks with these tools. They are very powerful, but they are neither intuitive nor self-explanatory.
When you see tools like Hey Gen or CapCut, which aren't much more difficult than PowerPoint, you understand that this is a qualitative leap and that it's going to revolutionize everything.
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The “Ad Hoc” Music: A story a little less about work. Last summer we were in Asturias visiting a very pretty coastal town we often go to. It's a town of 500 inhabitants, on the banks of the Nalón estuary. We went into the souvenir shop looking for a memento, the typical Christmas snow globe in a lighthouse-sailor version with the town's name on it. Since I'm indecisive, we spent quite a while in the shop. Suddenly, I noticed the music playing in the background. They were songs on a loop, very similar, a catchy electro-Latin rhythm, the kind you'd rather not hear because you can't get it out of your head. But I listened to the lyrics, and they alluded to that particular town. I thought: what a coincidence, they've found a song that's about the town. Then I kept listening and heard that the song also mentioned that particular shop. And the lottery they sold there—which is one of their main sources of income… And the next song was the same. I had to go and ask the shop owner, a very pleasant man who proudly tells you the history of the area, far from being a digital native: "Where did you get these songs?" He very kindly explained that he had a young nephew who was good with AI and that one day he came to the shop and left them there, ready to play on repeat. I was overcome with conflicting feelings. On the one hand: what will become of industries like advertising or music if a kid in high school makes a soundtrack that's indistinguishable from radio jingles? And at the same time, the opposite feeling: how wonderful that a small local business, for whom hiring a professional would probably be impossible, can have its own music or advertising without spending a fortune.
Discovering something doesn't always mean taking action. It requires a decision, a personal or professional motivation that pushes us to move.
→What led you to say, “I want to understand this better,” “I want to learn how to use it”?
Actually, I'd say I didn't have a choice: I started using these tools/features out of necessity for work, almost without realizing it. In my case, because they clearly fulfilled a need I had (creating videos/audiovisual productions with little prior knowledge and achieving professional-quality results in record time, enhancing images without spending hours...). The time invested versus the results never ceases to amaze me.
But aside from the demands of daily life, I think those of us who work in content/design tend to browse the web with a professional eye. We see a website and ask ourselves: How was this made? Could I do it? If not, could I find someone to help or teach me? When you get several "no's" as answers, you start to worry and try to understand where you're stuck and how to fix it.
So, whether out of necessity or professional habit, I think that sooner or later I would have ended up experimenting or training - I think I did a mix of both.
One of the most powerful things about Generative AI is that it changes how we do things, not just what we do. Tools, processes, timelines... everything is transformed when we learn to integrate it into what we already do.
→ What has changed in your work methods since you learned to use Generative AI?
To try and explain: I'm not doing anything I didn't already know how to do thanks to AI. But almost everything I used to do, I can now do better and faster.
Let's take, for example, selecting a set of images for a new website, a task all content creators face. It's not a difficult task, but it is time-consuming. You have to think about the concept that suits the page/idea, consider which images reflect it, find those images, ensure they are consistent with each other, and then look for formats and tones that don't clash—or edit those images and apply filters and cropping to make them look similar. It can take two days of work, plus all the time you spend when you start designing the page and what seemed good in your head doesn't work in reality.
That same task of selecting images with ChatGPT or Leonardo, to give a couple of examples, can take me two hours at most. Of course, you need to know the steps in the process and understand what makes a page "attractive" or beautiful. Knowing that if the images don't have the same tone, they might not be harmonious, that if I want a page with a poetic feel, I shouldn't use photos of gadgets—even if I end up selling them—requires a certain amount of prior knowledge and experience. But if you can convey that to the tool, it will help you refine the concept and save you hours of work, allowing you to obtain personalized results and control every detail.
Beyond the tools, what ultimately makes the difference is how change is experienced from within the workplace: in projects, in collaboration, in the way of thinking.
→ What real impact has AI had on your daily professional life?
In my case, I've integrated AI into many of my work processes. It's part of my daily routine, like a kind of junior personal assistant—or one you have to supervise—but it either frees me from repetitive tasks or acts as an amplifier, allowing me to achieve more professional results (in the case of graphic and audiovisual tasks) in less time.
→ It's part of the content selection process I do every week (I do a lot of brainstorming with ChatGPT)
→ It's my English editor/proofreader, along with other tools that also use AI and are essential for me, like Deepl Write.
→ It's super useful for those "failing to get it right" situations. When I'm validating a concept, graphic design, etc., before I start working on it in a professional tool, I do several quick attempts with AI and then I move on to the other tools with a more focused approach.
→ I use them to create illustrative images or for the headers of my newsletters.
→ They are also quite useful for infographics (a mix of tools, some for summarizing and others for the graphic part)
→ I find the customization possibilities offered by these tools incredible and completely revolutionary. Right now, I'm making personalized greetings, caricatures based on people I know… Things that used to take either a lot of time or a lot of money are suddenly at your fingertips.
→ On the contrary, and paradoxically, one of my main motivations for training as an AI expert was to automate tasks such as monitoring content, news, etc. And I haven't achieved this (at least not without resorting to a niche, paid tool like Hootsuite). I still prefer the results of my "human" search, guided by intuition and familiar sources, to those provided by ChatGPT—no matter how many sources, dates, and so on I tell it.
Because when technology truly permeates our lives, it doesn't just stay within the professional sphere. It also changes how we learn, how we organize ourselves, and even how we think.
→ Have you also noticed changes in your personal life since you trained in AI?
Yes, and some for the worse. I like to write and I have a vivid imagination. And sometimes I've found myself asking Leonardo to bring to life an idea that's popped into my head—pastimes like: I'd love to see my cat starring in a cologne commercial, or what would happen if this character did this. It's generally fun, a low-cost dopamine rush and lots of laughs. But I'm also a little afraid that I'm losing the ability to imagine—because you don't need to "see" to imagine. I've developed a kind of need to "capture" and "see" things that I didn't have before, I think simply because it's easy and fun.
In return, I've amplified my ability to customize anything—images, logos—and to test and refine concepts very quickly. And, as I mentioned before, I feel like I have a mini personal assistant. I even use GPTs to file my tax return and calculate the best time to apply for a loan. I've also managed to grasp some complex concepts by asking ChatGPT a lot of questions. It has a confirmation bias—it tends to reinforce the idea it assumes you believe—but, knowing this, it's useful for understanding.
Sometimes looking back allows us to realize how far we've come. And it also helps us appreciate the steps we took (or that were difficult to take).
→ If you had your "self" from before starting this journey in front of you, what would you tell him?
That the world I knew is going to crumble—AGAIN? Haha, it's a feeling I get every now and then. No, seriously: keep an open mind and enjoy the process and the learning. Look at change without fear, because it's the only constant in this world, and you get more out of flowing with it—or trying to—than resisting it (spoiler alert: change is immune to tantrums, although we always have that "right"). And keep a part of your mind like a blank canvas so you can see with fresh eyes.
And if you think about it, the world falling apart also means we have to rebuild—or that someone has already done so and you didn't see it coming. For this, we need new ideas, or a willingness to reform the old ones. And if not, as I said before, we still have the right to complain.
There are still many people who perceive AI as something distant, complex, or even alien. But listening to those who have already experienced it might be just what they need to feel encouraged.
→ What would you like to say to someone who is hesitating to take the step and get trained?
I'm not a techno-optimist. I don't know if AI will be good or bad for humanity—I'm more pessimistic about humanity, though; we're not going to blame AI. But I think it's better to be aware and knowledgeable than the opposite. Because those who are aware and engaged have a chance and undoubtedly have many competitive advantages over those who aren't. And in the end, a technology is nothing more than how we use it and the need it solves.
In my case, while waiting to see how this dizzying development of generative AI will ultimately unfold, I've already discovered many practical applications—some I never expected—and real utility, which is more than we can say for so many other tools. All this with a negligible learning curve compared to almost any other tool I've used.
My experience with the course is that it was very entertaining; you learn by doing, and almost everything they teach you can be applied to some area of your work or even your personal life. It's hard NOT to learn that way!
Reading Nadime only reinforces a point we always make at Brain: technology, by itself, doesn't change anything. What truly creates progress is how we choose to use it. Ultimately, AI doesn't replace talent, but rather "expands" it. Because, in the end, no advancement is valuable on its own: it's the user's judgment that defines its limits. With or without AI, that's where real change happens.
More than a total revolution, its history shows that AI advances and contributes by adding improvements, small efficiencies and practical solutions that, together, end up changing routines... and saving a lot of time.
I've already gone on too long, so to add something: I hope my experience can help anyone considering training in the field of Generative AI. As I said before, changes are coming, and right now they're happening in the present, not the future. I'm not saying they'll all be good, or that we'll all be better, but I do believe we need to be prepared and try to take advantage of them—or minimize the damage, if you're the type who sees everything in a very negative light. To paraphrase Darwin: it's not about being the strongest to survive. It's about being the one who best adapts to change.
Thank you, Nadime, for joining us in the second edition of the HistorIAs section and sharing your story, your experiences and the changes that AI has brought you.
It's a pleasure to have such curious, committed, and talented people like you in our large group of ALUMNI!
We hope that your experience has given you ideas, questions, and the certainty that well-directed curiosity always finds a way to pave the way.
See you in class!