AI can sound confusing because of the words people use. Here they are in plain language, with five safety rules first.
Five safety rules
- Never paste private details. Do not put customers’ ID numbers, bank details, passwords or other people’s private files into an AI tool.
- Always check the answer. AI can sound sure and still be wrong, especially with numbers, names, dates and prices.
- You are responsible. If you send it, sign it or sell it, it is yours, whoever or whatever wrote the first draft.
- Read the privacy settings. Some tools say your chats may be reviewed or used to improve them. Choose the tool’s data controls before you paste anything about your business.
- Start small. Test one task, measure the time and quality, and keep it only if it truly helps.
Plain-words glossary
- AI (artificial intelligence)
- Software that can do tasks that normally need human thinking, such as writing, summarising, answering questions or recognising what is in a picture.
- AI assistant or chatbot
- An AI tool you talk to by typing (or speaking). You ask, it answers.
- Prompt
- The instruction or question you give an AI tool. A clear prompt usually gets a better answer.
- Generative AI
- AI that creates new text, images, audio or video, instead of only sorting or finding things.
- Model
- The “engine” behind an AI tool. Different tools use different models, which is why they give different answers.
- Hallucination
- When an AI states something wrong or made up as if it were true. It is why you must check important facts.
- Training data
- The material an AI learned from. It affects what the AI knows and what it gets wrong.
- Context
- The information you give the AI during a conversation, such as your price list. The more relevant context it has, the less it has to guess.
- OCR (reading text from a photo or scan)
- Technology that turns a picture of text into text you can edit. Many AI tools can now do this, but you should still check the result.
- Automation
- Making a set of steps run by themselves. Automation does not always use AI.
- AI agent
- An AI that can take several steps on its own, such as searching, writing and sending. It needs close watching, because mistakes can spread quickly.
- Human in the loop
- A person checks and approves what the AI produces before it is used. This is the safest way to work.
- Free plan and paid plan
- Many tools offer a limited free plan and paid plans with more features or usage. Limits and prices change, so check the official website.
- Data controls or privacy settings
- Settings that decide whether your conversations may be kept or used to improve the tool. Check them before pasting anything about your work.
- Bias
- When an AI’s answers lean unfairly in some direction because of the material it learned from. Read answers with care, especially about people.
- Deepfake
- A fake picture, voice or video made with AI to look real. Be careful with money requests that arrive by voice note or video.
- Output
- What the AI gives back: the text, image or answer.
Want to see how this works in real tasks? Try the AI Clarity Finder or browse the playbooks.