Beginners AI

Four practical learning tactics.

[1] Don't try to run before you can walk
For beginners many business AI courses and masterclasses are too complex, or try to cover too many topics, or include topics irrelevant to you, and quite possibly all three. Instead, why not use the free short explainers designed for school/college students available at trusted sources such as BBC Bitesize or CrashCourse? From these sources a great deal of the important preliminary ground can be covered off.

[2] Start with familiar tasks
Choose a free AI (e.g. entry level ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or Microsoft Copilot) and draft an email, summarise a long article or plan a meeting/phone call. Hands-on beats theory.

[3] Learn the power of combining initial prompts and followups
AI tools respond best to clear, specific requests with context (i.e. nothing clever is needed, forget the received wisdom of just six months ago about needing nifty prompting skills). Try:

“Explain AI in simple terms using a UK farming example.”
“List three ways AI could help me to _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.”

Always say why you are asking (i.e. your objective). Then to grow the response to your liking follow up just as if you were in conversation with a knowledgeable good friend.

[4] Aim to continue growing your knowledge
Understanding AI will be a productive journey if you stay curious and always think:

"Can it ..."
"How do I get it to ..."
and "What is the best way of using AI to ..."

This strategy open a million potential routes to AI success. Keep pushing AI in this way and you will be amazed time and again at what it can do for you.

Remember
Generative AI is just three years old. What it will be capable of in four, five and six years will be successively even more impressive. As someone wryly said: "the AI we are using today is the worst AI we will ever use".