You’re at Stage 3 of 6: AI as an Assistant & Basic Collaborator!

Excellent! You're starting to have real conversations with AI and using it for more complex tasks. This is where the journey gets exciting.

What This Stage Means

You are starting to have back-and-forth conversations with AI. You use it for more complex tasks than simple retrieval, such as drafting content, brainstorming ideas, summarizing documents, or light editing. You begin to refine your prompts, perhaps asking for revisions or exploring slightly different angles. You understand that AI is different from a simple search engine and can be used for reasoning tasks.

Examples

Using AI to draft a blog post outline, summarize a lengthy report, brainstorm solutions to a simple problem, or generate follow-up emails summarizing key points from a meeting. You might use features like conversational mode. Completing tasks faster, like drafting a document that previously took hours.

Limitations

While you're collaborating, the depth of interaction may be limited. You might still primarily accept the AI's first output or not push it significantly beyond initial suggestions. The focus might remain on task-level assistance rather than deeper strategic partnership.

Key Tips to Advance Your AI Journey

  • Treat AI Like a True Partner: Shift your mindset. Engage in more extended, iterative conversations (3-4 rounds or more is common for complex tasks). Provide feedback on its outputs and work with it like an editor to refine responses. Learn its "foibles"—where it's strong and weak—to understand when to trust it.

  • Master Quality Communication & Context: Want a deeper AI partnership? Give it great context—all the relevant specifics about your situation, business, or problem. Assign it a role (like CFO or ideal customer) to shape its thinking, and don't fear detailed prompts. Quality input drives valuable output.

  • Ask AI to Interview You: To unlock deeper context for complex problems, ask the AI to ask you questions about the situation before it generates a solution.

  • Focus on Problems, Not Just Tasks: Identify bigger problems or strategic opportunities where AI can assist in thinking, exploring different angles, and challenging your assumptions, not just completing a predefined task.

  • Experiment with Different Roles for AI: Ask AI to play devil's advocate, simulate a customer, critique your ideas, or represent different stakeholder viewpoints to get richer insights.

Thinking Bigger: AI Across Your Organization

As you begin exploring AI for yourself, it's also a good time to consider how this journey might unfold across your entire organization. We poured our expertise into a Company AI Assessment to get it right. In less than 5 minutes, you’ll get an unprecedented AI Company Maturity report with detailed, personalized recommendations that meet your company where it’s at.

STEP 1: Take online assessment A fast and friendly rating of your company’s current AI sophistication

STEP 2: Get personalized results Generate detailed and customized recommendations for AI maturity

STEP 3: Engage your company Encourage colleagues to self-assess to get a free, multi-stakeholder analysis comparing and contrasting the different AI points of view within your company