With so many companies trying to win the artificial intelligence (AI) race, it can seem like there’s a new AI tool available every day. The most popular — ChatGPT for brainstorming and writing, Gemini for quick questions and Perplexity for research — are just a few among a sea of products. It’s part of why many people are feeling “AI fatigue” and have yet to try the technology.

But Frank Bergdoll, SAIT’s AI Project Lead and the creator behind the popular YouTube channel Learning and Technology with Frank, says treating AI as a partner can help expand our thinking, develop new perspectives and spark creativity.

So how do we get there?

It starts with learning how to work with AI before having it take on a task for you — much like not letting a new hire run the day-to-day operations of a business until they’ve been carefully trained.

In this installment of Pro Tips, Bergdoll talks with LINK writer Lisa Tanh to break down four simple steps to making AI work with you, whether at work or in your day-to-day life. And, to make them easy to remember, Bergdoll calls them the four p’s: purpose, position, persona and partnership.

1
Set a purpose or intention
When turning to AI for help with a task, you guide it with prompts. Bergdoll encourages beginning your first prompt with information about who you are and what you want to accomplish.

“Say, for example, I prompt AI to create a plan that helps me learn about different countries by giving me a list of books to read about their cultures,” he says.

“Writing a prompt that also says I enjoy novels, I speak English and French, and I am reading for relaxation will put the AI into a situation where it understands its role, the context, the format of what you'd like delivered, and the tonality you'd like it to use,” he says.
2
Position AI to respond to what you need
Giving an AI tool as much context as possible points it in the right direction so its responses better align with your needs. One method is to specify the results you’d like it to produce. For example, uploading examples of an outline or email you want written gives the tool a clear idea of what you’re looking for — just be careful none of the samples include personal or confidential information.

The same approach works for tailoring how you’d like information presented. “I really like bullet points and tables — especially when I’m doing initial research,” Bergdoll says. “So I put that into the prompt. Or I can go into the settings for the AI tool and set that as a universal preference.”
3
Craft a persona
“If I was researching how to do a sales pitch for an agricultural business, I would create a persona through a prompt that tells the AI, ‘You are an expert salesperson in the Calgary, Alberta region that understands the agricultural business,’” Bergdoll suggests. “The results will be phenomenal compared to a prompt that just says, ‘Help me understand how to do a sales pitch for an agricultural business.’”
4
Work in partnership with AI
Getting the most relevant results from AI comes down to choosing collaboration rather than relying on the tool to do all the thinking on your behalf.

Asking the tool one question at a time will help create a back-and-forth discussion that lets you adjust and steer the results.

“You’re using AI to generate outputs, but ultimately, you’re in charge of validating those results,” Bergdoll says. “You make sure the results meet your needs and represent what you actually would like to do.”
a view of the moutains and stream in between

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SAIT is located on the traditional territories of the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) and the people of Treaty 7 which includes the Siksika, the Piikani, the Kainai, the Tsuut’ina and the Îyârhe Nakoda of Bearspaw, Chiniki and Goodstoney.

We are situated in an area the Blackfoot tribes traditionally called Moh’kinsstis, where the Bow River meets the Elbow River. We now call it the city of Calgary, which is also home to the Métis Nation of Alberta.

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