DIANA’S NOTE

By now, many people have tried their hands prompting large language models such as ChatGPT to get additional support at work. I thought I would share one of my favourite podcasts on the topic, which offers a wide range of tips that helped me improve my prompting skills and get the information I need from AI. Explore these tips instantly with our 1 Minute Summary of the podcast.

WHAT YOU WANT TO KNOW

Many people use AI tools as they would a search engine, which means that they are not getting the full potential out of this new technology. If approached in the right way, however, AI can be a powerful tool for innovation, problem solving and prioritisation. Experts advise that teams should use AI like a conversational partner. Tools like ChatGPT are designed to deliver more obvious or generic answers to start with, so you have to be thoughtful about how you frame your questions and be prepared to keep digging deeper to get the information you need.

WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW

• Be specific. Be deliberate about how you phrase your initial question. Rather than just asking for recommendations, mention also why, how many recommendations you need, or how you are going to use the results.

• Take time to think about the problem. Ask yourself what you already know about the problem and what your opinions are. Keep this context in mind when you approach either your team or an AI tool with your questions to help maximise the effectiveness of your brainstorming.

• Provide sufficient context in your requests. When working on a complex issue, it can be helpful to prepare a summary dossier to upload to give your question additional context. If you don’t already have this context, have ChatGPT ask you questions about your aims to help define things more clearly for you.

• Engage in an interactive and iterative conversation with AI. Don’t just accept the first response you get. Instead, continue reframing your ask to improve the quality of response. Work out which suggestions you like and why so that AI tools narrow down what you need from them.

• Discuss the ideas you have generated with your team. Take your own ideas and those that you have created using an AI tool like ChatGPT and discuss them with your team. Then, you can start experimenting to see which ideas might work best.