Let your AI interview you before it does anything

You asked ChatGPT to help you prep for a client meeting once. It came back with a checklist that could have been for anyone, so you closed it and did it the old way.

The AI wasn't the problem. It didn't know anything about your client, and it didn't ask.

Let the AI do the asking

Google's own advice for Gemini is simple: "The more context you give to Gemini, the better it can understand your request and generate a useful response" [1]. The catch is knowing what context it needs, so let it ask. Open the free version of ChatGPT or Google Gemini, say what you need, and add one line: "Ask me questions one at a time until you have what you need. Then get to work."

Then answer like you're talking to a new hire on their first day. Google uses the same move in its own examples, telling Gemini to clarify a request "by asking pointed questions" before it starts [2]. You have to ask for it, though (researchers found AI models still struggle to spot what's missing on their own) [3]. This newsletter starts the same way: before my AI drafts an issue, it asks me questions one at a time about who it's for and what I actually think.

Turn the interview into a skill

Once you like how it asks, stop retyping that line. Save it once, and the interview becomes a skill you can reuse for just about any job: prepping for a meeting, planning your week, comparing two quotes, or getting a process out of your head and into a checklist a new hire can follow.

In ChatGPT, start a free Project (New project in the sidebar), open Project settings, and paste the line into its instructions [4]. Every chat in that project starts with the interview. In Gemini, the same idea is called a Gem (Gems, then New Gem), and Google is turning Gems into "skills" starting this November [5]. I wrote more about why skills beat better prompts in an earlier issue.

Check the work

Check the work before you rely on it, the way you would in a new hire's first week. It can still get a detail wrong, and it's your name on it. Keep client account numbers and other private details out of free apps. If you'd rather your chats not be used to train the AI, turn off "Improve the model for everyone" in ChatGPT under Settings, then Data controls [6], and turn off Keep Activity in Gemini [7].

Start with one job you've been putting off. Answer the questions, check what comes back, fix what's off. If it saved you time, save the interview.

If you want to figure out how to get your AI asking the right questions about your business, grab 15 minutes and I'll walk you through it.

Sources

1. Google: Tips to write prompts for Gemini
2. Google: Tips for creating custom Gems
3. CLAMBER: A benchmark of identifying and clarifying ambiguous information needs (2024)
4. OpenAI: Projects in ChatGPT
5. Google: Use Gems in Gemini Apps
6. OpenAI: How your data is used to improve model performance
7. Google: Gemini Apps Privacy Hub