3 Tips to Use AI More Effectively

Now that AI has entered the mainstream, more businesses are implementing these tools into their daily operations. Tasks like drafting emails, brainstorming for a new project, or debugging code have all been made easier. Here’s the secret to making the most out of AI: you get out what you put in. What do we mean by this? Let’s find out.

Mastering Prompt Creation

First, it’s important to acknowledge that AI is not a search engine. It’s more of a digital assistant, one that knows a lot of stuff that can help… but it requires the right prompting. Vague instruction will not get you the results you want, which means you need to power up your prompts to get the most out of AI. We recommend you offer three specifics: context, roles, and constraints.

Assign a Role

One neat trick is that you can explain to the AI what you want it to be. For example, if you want it to tell you about quantum physics in a way that you can understand, you might have it become a high school physics teacher. This helps the model set the tone and complexity for its responses.

Provide Context

AI can only help so much without the appropriate amount of background information. If you want to summarize a document, for example, you might upload the whole text or give it important quotes to consider. If you’re thinking about a marketing plan, you might specify the product, the target audience, and the goal you want to achieve.

Set Constraints

AI isn’t going to assume what you want. Tell it the format, the length, and the tone you want to get the best results.

Upgrading Your Example

Bad Prompt: “Write a social media post about our new product.”

Good Prompt: “Act as a friendly, engaging brand manager. Write three short, enthusiastic social media posts for Instagram, targeting small business owners. The product is ‘Cloud-Sync Pro,’ a secure file storage service. Include a call to action to visit our website. The tone should be slightly witty.”

AI is a Collaborator, Not a Replacement

If you’re using AI, you don’t want to use it as a replacement for all of the work you’d put into a task. Rather, you want to collaborate with it to get the best result. The last thing you want to do is blindly trust an AI-generated response, as they can be prone to errors, generic responses, or bland voices.

Make Sure You Check for Facts

AI models are notorious for hallucinating from time to time, creating content that sounds like it should be right, but is actually incorrect. It might make up important information, such as dates, names, or even statistics, so make sure you verify anything you discover through AI via reliable, external sources.

Take Measures to Protect Sensitive Data

While AI can be powerful, there are best practices you should follow when using it—especially as far as sensitive data is concerned. Commercial AI tools collect data for use in training and improving their models, so if you input confidential information, it can be stored and used later… and not just for your business. Here are some tips you should keep in mind for AI prompting:

  • Never input Personally Identifiable Information (PII) or proprietary business data.
    • Filter out any confidential, proprietary, or personally identifiable information, like full names, addresses, account numbers, and intellectual property.
  • Verify the privacy policies of your AI tools, and use an enterprise-level or paid business version of the app if possible. These versions can have guarantees in place that your data stays within your personal or organizational use of the model, meaning it’s not used to train it for the public. If you don’t have these tools, however, practice caution.
  • Don’t put anything into AI that you wouldn’t want on a public forum.

By following the above practices, you can become a more effective user of AI. For more info on how to make the most of AI for your business, contact us at (603) 889-0800 today.

White Mountain IT

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