What is Generative AI and How Does it Work?

Generative AI (often just called "AI" or "GenAI") is software that generates content — text, images, code, or documents — in response to something you give it. That "something" is called a prompt, and it can be words, questions, files, images, or a combination.

Well-known examples include ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot, among many others.

Where Does it Get its Information?

AI tools are trained on vast amounts of text — a huge portion of the written internet. This includes academic research papers, books, forums, news articles, code repositories, and yes, the occasional angry rant someone posted online at 2am.

This means AI can be excellent on well-documented topics — coding, widely covered subjects, established processes — but may be less reliable on niche, recent, or contested topics.

Think of it less like a library and more like a very well-read colleague who has absorbed an enormous amount of information and can synthesise it on demand — but who can also occasionally misremember things, fill in gaps with plausible-sounding nonsense, or state something completely wrong with total confidence. The last bit is important enough that it gets its own section.

How to Interact With it

AI tools work through a simple text-based conversation. You send a message, it responds. Many tools also let you attach files, images, or documents for the AI to read and analyse.

Most AI tools maintain memory within a conversation — it remembers what you said earlier in the same chat. Some carry memory across conversations, though this varies.

• Quality in, quality out. Vague questions tend to get vague answers.
• You can give AI a role. Starting with "Act as an experienced project manager..." can meaningfully shape the tone and focus of responses.
• You can always ask for a redo. If the first response isn't right, ask it to explain, simplify, or try again.

Ask vs. Do — Being Clear About What You Want

One of the most common sources of frustration is not being explicit about the type of response you want. There's a significant difference between asking for an opinion and asking for an action.

If you're not clear, AI will make an assumption — and it may guess wrong. Get into the habit of being explicit about format too: if you want bullet points, say so. If you want it short, say so.

Understanding Tokens — Why There Are Limits

AI tools run on a system of tokens. Every piece of text you send, every file you attach, and every word of the response generated uses tokens. The more complex or lengthy the task, the more tokens are consumed.

Most AI tools offer a free tier with token limits — for example, a cap on how many images you can analyse per day, or how many long documents you can process in an hour. Paid versions significantly increase these limits.

Hallucinations — The Most Important Thing to Know

This is not a bug that will simply be fixed one day. It is a characteristic of how these models work.

• Never use AI output for anything important without checking it
• Be especially cautious with specific facts, figures, dates, names, and citations
• If something sounds surprising or too convenient, verify it independently
• The more niche or specific the topic, the higher the risk of inaccuracy

Privacy and Data — What to Share and What Not To

Anything you type into an AI tool may be stored, reviewed, or used by the provider depending on their terms of service. For personal use, it's worth reading the small print.

For professional or work use, this becomes more important. Many organisations have specific policies on what can and cannot be shared with external AI tools.

• Don't paste in confidential client data, personal data, or sensitive commercial information unless you're using a tool your organisation has specifically approved and secured for that purpose.
• Be aware that some corporate AI deployments are specifically designed to keep data within a secure environment — know which you're using.
• When in doubt, anonymise or generalise the information before sharing it.

Is it Cheating?

Using AI is not cheating by default. It's a tool. Using a calculator is not cheating. Using a spell-checker is not cheating. Using AI to help you work faster, clearer, or better is not cheating — in most contexts.

Getting the Most Out of AI

• Start with clarity. Before you open a conversation, spend a moment thinking about what you actually want. A clear goal produces a better result.
• Chunk your work. Don't ask AI to take two complex documents, compare them, and produce a new one all in one go. The output will almost certainly be poor. Break the task into steps and work through them one at a time.
• Treat it like a capable but occasionally unreliable colleague. It will sometimes misinterpret your instructions, make assumptions, or go off in completely the wrong direction. That's normal — correct it, redirect it, and carry on.
• Experiment. Some AI tools are better at certain tasks than others. It's worth trying a few approaches to find what works best for your specific needs.

Example Use Cases

To give a sense of the range of what's possible:

Working Through a Bigger Project

For more complex tasks, a step-by-step approach works best. Here's how that might look in practice:

1. Describe the overall goal to AI and ask it to suggest a structured approach. Save that as your working plan.
2. Feed the plan back in and say "Let's start with step 1."
3. Work through step 1, review the output, make any edits, and save the result.
4. In the next message, include the updated plan and the output from step 1, then say "Let's move to step 2."
5. Continue this way, keeping the AI informed of where you are and what has already been done.
6. Keep going until you're satisfied with the outcome.

This is a living guide. As AI tools evolve, some specifics will change — but the core principles of clarity, scepticism, ownership, and common sense will remain relevant.