By: Bria Hutchinson

AI is everywhere nowadays, and it can save you a lot of time when used right. But what does that mean? And how can you implement Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, Jasper, etc. effectively in your business?

Those are the questions we’re focusing on today. AI is a very effective tool, but you need to understand what it can help with and what its limitations are.

Key Takeaways

1. Understand that AI has limitations
2. Take time to train your AI
3. Get specific with your prompts
4. Edit!
5. Practice Makes Progress

AI Limitations

Every tool has its pros and cons. Before we get into how to use AI to your advantage, it’s important to understand what it can’t do.

The first and biggest limitation is that AI’s main mission is to give you an answer. Which means it might make up an answer in order to fulfill its programming. It’s even been known to fabricate entire websites and sources. So make sure you ask it to cite its sources. And then double-check its claims if you’re not sure of its answer.

Some LLMs have been trained on data from the Internet only up until 2023 or 2024. Which means if you ask it about current events, it could make something up or tell you that it can only give you answers using data from previous years.

Another limitation is the longer your requested output, the more editing you’ll need to do. Where LLMs really shine is when you use it for idea generation.

For example, you can say, “Give me ten highly engaging headlines similar to ‘How to Use AI WIthout Sounding Like You Used AI.’” And from there, you can mix and match its suggestions, give it more specifics, or use your own idea that it helped to spark.

With this knowledge in mind, let’s look at how you can use it to effectively help your business.

How To Use AI To For Your Business

1. LLMs are only as good as the data they’re trained on.

Take the time to train it on your voice, style, tone, brand, everything. Give it multiple writing samples you created in the past so it can analyze it to understand how you write in various situations. The more data it has, the better.

2. Be detailed in your prompts.

Tell your AI exactly what you want. Using a prompt like “write a paragraph on how to get more followers on Instagram” is very generic. You’ll get a result, but you’ll likely need to heavily edit it. 

Instead, try a prompt like, “Write a 5-10 sentence paragraph on how to get more engaged followers on Instagram for a seafood restaurant owner in Denver. Include at least 3 tips with explanations as to why this works, how quickly it will work, and remember to cite any sources you use.”

3. Edit!

Most likely, you will still need to do some editing, so make sure you do. Keep an eye out for words that you don’t normally use, and switch out with a synonym that sounds more like you. Another common indicator that AI was used in a piece of writing is using multiple em dashes, emojis, and lists of three. Using these here and there if you did so before AI is fine. After all, the LLMs use them for a reason! But AI tends to overuse these, making it fairly obvious that it wasn’t written by a person.

4. Practice Makes Progress

Lastly, don’t be afraid to play around with your AI model. It takes some time to get used to writing the prompts you need, so don’t get frustrated if it’s not working how you want it to initially. Both you and the AI continue to learn. And you both become better for it!

Hopefully, this overview of how to use AI without sounding like you used AI helps your business grow and become more efficient, so you can spend more time doing what you want to do.

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