Delegate like you prompt

Since ChatGPT created such euphoria, we have made significant progress in understanding the power and endless possibilities that the Generative AI technology unlocks for people and businesses. It is all still very recent, but every few months seem to be equivalent to a geological era for the AI evolution. Billions of dollars have been invested in promising startups, big techs have quickly adopted it as a new product line and large corporations began to incorporate Gen AI as a tool to boost productivity and bring efficiency to their workforce.

Artificial Intelligence has eclipsed data to become the new oil. The corporate world is increasingly captivated by technologies such as ChatGPT. Any organization striving for success and seeking to elevate its stock value should seriously consider allocating time and resources to these groundbreaking tools. Consequently, Business Schools, Coaches, Influencers, and TED speakers have generated an abundance of AI-related content and courses. In addition, numerous books on Gen AI have been written and rapidly sold thousands of copies.

Many of these resources focus on teaching us how to guide AI to write, draw, paint, and create music. Essentially, they're showing us how to instruct AI in the most effective way to achieve impressive results. Despite still being at the dawn of Gen AI, knowing how to communicate with it correctly is already proving to be a key factor in achieving success.

A friend of mine compared Generative AI to an ultra-fast and highly efficient intern. He said, "If you give it the wrong instructions, it'll end up producing a mountain of stuff you don't need, and you won't make any progress." Indeed, the more you use Generative AI, the clearer it becomes that open or general instructions often lead to a lot of back-and-forth before you finally get the results you're after.

This intern metaphor made me realize that, in a lot of ways, AI is just like us humans. Think about how many times we've been given, or given others, vague directions that ended up taking hours and leading to frustration and results we didn't want. Or consider those extra meetings we've had because the instructions we gave to others weren't clear.

Learning how to properly instruct Gen AI can be a meaningful exercise for us all on how we can also improve on delegating tasks to… humans! It's a reminder that being specific is just as important when we're talking to AI as when we're talking to each other.

So, as we continue to learn how to effectively use Gen AI, we can also use this as an opportunity to become better at delegating. Whether we're telling an AI what to do or asking a team member for help, let's strive to be precise and detailed. Remember, whether it's people or AI, good instructions are the key to getting things done right. Your team, coworkers, and your AI will thank you.