X20 EDUCATION
Starter guide · New to AI tools

Your first AI tool.

A one-page guide for anyone new to AI tools. It shows how to open a free AI assistant, try a first request, and keep work information safe. It goes with Lesson 1 of AI Agents at Work: Start Here.

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Your first three steps
01

Pick one free AI assistant

Any of these four works for this course. Each has a free plan and runs in a web browser, with nothing to install. Pick one and stay with it for now.

✓ChatGPT, from OpenAI, at chatgpt.com
✓Claude, from Anthropic, at claude.ai
✓Microsoft Copilot, at copilot.microsoft.com
✓Gemini, from Google, at gemini.google.com

If your employer already provides one of these at work, use that one. Your employer's version usually comes with rules about what information it may see, and those rules matter more than any guide.

02

Open it and sign in

Go to the address, choose to sign up, and sign in with an email address or an existing Google, Microsoft, or Apple account. A free plan is enough for everything in Module 0. The assistant opens with a box where you type a request.

03

Try your first request

Type a request the way you would ask a capable colleague. Say what you want, give a little background, and say what form you want the answer in. For example:

I manage a small team. Draft a short, friendly email reminding them that the quarterly report is due Friday, and keep it under 100 words.

Read the answer, then ask for a change, just as you would with a colleague: "Make it more direct," or "Add a line thanking them for last quarter." Going back and forth like this is the normal way to work with these assistants.

Three habits from the first day
Habit 1

Keep confidential information out

Leave out client names, personal details, figures your company has not published, and anything your employer's policy covers. Describe the work instead of pasting the secrets.

Habit 2

Check what comes back

An assistant can state something false with full confidence. Read every answer before you use it, and check any fact or number that matters.

Habit 3

Your name stays on the result

Whatever you send or share, you answer for, whoever drafted it.

These three habits are the start of the course's three questions, which Lesson 3 covers.

Ready? Back to the course.

Return to Lesson 1 and carry on with Module 0. As the course works through each example, try the same kind of request in your own assistant, so you can see where the assistant does well and where it needs checking.

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