How to use AI in 3 simple steps: Just ASK 

Generative AI tools such as Microsoft Copilot can help you be more creative, jumpstart your productivity, assist with research and save you time.

And you don’t have to be a computer scientist to get the most out of your results. Three basic steps for giving Copilot instructions, called prompts, make it as easy as ASKing for what you need:

Action
Explain what you want Copilot to do.

Style
Describe the format you want the response presented in.

Key details
Set the stage with more context about your situation.

Let’s dive into the nitty gritty of how to use AI.

Start by opening Copilot on your computer or phone, and then simply type or say what you want it to do, asking for the result you’re looking for. Even if this is all you do, you’ll get a response from Copilot, and it might be enough for what you need.

“Please give me three novel recommendations for my book club.”

“I need help with scheduling 15 minutes of daily mindfulness time, please.”

“Can you please assist me in creating a budget for my family trip from New York to Paris?”

Most people have learned how to use search engines by stripping down commands to the basics: “good books.” But since Copilot helps you do more than just search, it works best if you break out of that keyword mold, expand your requests and “talk” to it conversationally, as you would to an assistant.

Copilot might respond to certain requests with simple lists and to others with a full page expounding on its response. But you can add more to your prompt to specify the delivery or format that would be most helpful to you. 

“Please give me three novel recommendations for my book club. Give your answer in a table that includes the book title, summary and four discussion questions for each.”

“I need help with scheduling 15 minutes of daily mindfulness time, please. For each day of the week, please include daily prompts to help me get started with meditating and journaling.”

“Can you please assist me in creating a budget for my family trip from New York to Paris? I’d like all elements of this trip listed for easy transfer into a spreadsheet.”

Copilot can present answers in nearly limitless formats, from sonnets to rap. It can draft a professional email to a company’s customer service department to help you resolve a problem. It can give you a list of pros and cons for a decision you need to make. And it can tailor the delivery to provide a middle school-level explanation of something you don’t understand. 

Specifying what style you want helps it best meet your needs. 

How does Copilot know what type of books you want to read, though, or what inspires you, or how you like to travel? That’s where it helps to add a few details about yourself, your story and situation. This narrows down the search by giving it context to help it provide a more personalized response. 

“Please give me three novel recommendations for my book club. Give your answer in a table that includes the book title, summary and four discussion questions for each. My club consists of millennials, aged 30 to 35. We are avid readers who are interested in mystery, drama and romance novels. We meet in-person weekly, so please give me a reading schedule corresponding to the meeting cadence.”

“I need help with scheduling 15 minutes of daily mindfulness time, please. For each day of the week, please include daily prompts to help me get started with meditating and journaling. I am a nature enthusiast who loves spending time in the park.”

“Can you please assist me in creating a budget for my family trip from New York to Paris? I’d like all elements of this trip listed for easy transfer into a spreadsheet. We’re planning a five-day trip for a family of four this summer, intending to visit tourist attractions and museums while dining out for three moderately priced meals a day, with one being upscale.”

The more details you give it, the better answer you’ll get. That’s because Copilot combines the reasoning capability of a large language model — a complex statistical model with input from enormous amounts of historical data — with the benefits of Microsoft’s technology and search index that give users more relevant and timely answers.  

While including Action, Style and Key details will help you get more useful results, it doesn’t matter in what order you ASK for help — Copilot will understand. You can mix these elements up any way you like as you craft your prompts, telling it about your situation first, or even starting with the format you want for your results.  

Working with generative AI tools is a dynamic and interactive process, and your initial prompt may be just the beginning — you might need to have a more in-depth conversation with Copilot by asking follow-up questions, providing more context, or clarifying the outcome you’re aiming for. If you want more information, you can also ask Copilot to explain how it came up with its response. 

To get started putting Copilot to use in your everyday life, just ASK for what you want.