Disclaimer: No AI was harmed in the writing of this article. Also I’m not an expert so take my advice at your own risk.

Introduction

Generative AI is trending, its hard to miss and we all know its a rapidly growing space. Tools like ChatGPT, Dalle2 & Midjourney are making their way into our day-to-day lives and have been for some time.

The current applications aren’t limited to just typing prompts and getting responses, they are already in tools such as Miro & Notion .. they are in beta with Lucid and soon to be added to the Atlassian suite of products. AI is being designed to improve our lives, cut down the monotony and work alongside us.

I don’t see any of these tools or future applications of AI as replacements for what we do in our roles but instead a complementary symbiosis. One I welcome.

AI Caveat

As it stands, right now, AI can’t outperform a human. Its accuracy levels are much lower, its creativity ain’t got nothing on you and it’s terrible at telling right from wrong.

This is important to mention, it means you can’t just blindly trust it and get it doing everything for you. You need to question and use your own judgement as you apply it.

Basic Principles

If you are going to use tools like ChatGPT in your role or any other tool like it, here are some basic principles to follow to help improve the experience and outputs.

Write clear, specific prompts

• Start with action words e.g. Create
• Set word/sentence limits
• Provide context e.g. audience
• Use it to create prompts for other AI tools e.g. Midjourney
• Copy & paste from other sources
• Give it some data to work with before you ask your question
• “Display text in a table”

Ask follow-up prompts

Ask follow-up to gain better clarity. The first prompt is like the start of a conversation. Examples below: