Working with AI
Turn occasional chats into reliable daily work: prompt patterns, documents, projects, verification and repeatable workflows.
The Beginner course got you talking to an assistant. This course makes it part of how you work. You will learn the prompt patterns professionals rely on, get clean structured output you can paste into Excel, work with real documents, set up Projects and custom instructions so the assistant knows your context, verify what it tells you, use images and voice, and build a personal library of workflows that save hours every week.
What you will be able to do
- Apply few-shot, step-by-step and constraint patterns to get reliable results the first time
- Get tables, extracted data and comparisons in a form you can paste straight into Excel or a report
- Upload and interrogate PDFs, spreadsheets and screenshots, and know the limits of the context window
- Set up custom instructions, Projects and memory so the assistant works from your context
- Run a verification routine: sources, second-model review and deep research, before you rely on an answer
- Build and maintain a personal prompt library and measure the time it saves
Course outline
Prompt patterns that work
5 lessons · quizFour patterns that turn a decent prompt into a reliable one, and a template habit that makes them reusable.
- Examples beat instructions: few-shot prompting 8 min
- Think step by step: reasoning, decomposition and checklists 8 min
- Constraints, personas and audience 7 min
- Prompt templates you reuse 7 min
- Exercise: build a three-template starter kit exercise · 25 min
- Module quiz 6 questions
Getting structured output
3 lessons · quizTables, extracted fields and decision matrices that land in Excel or a report without reformatting.
- Tables, lists and formats you can paste into Excel 7 min
- Extracting data from messy text 8 min
- Comparisons and decision matrices 7 min
- Module quiz 5 questions
Working with documents
4 lessons · quizUpload real files, ask real questions, and understand the context window that limits what the assistant can hold at once.
- Uploading files: PDFs, spreadsheets, images 7 min
- Summarise, question, compare and cross-reference 8 min
- Long documents and the context window 7 min
- Exercise: interrogate a real document exercise · 25 min
- Module quiz 5 questions
Projects, memory and custom instructions
4 lessons · quizGive the assistant persistent context about you and your work so every conversation starts from the right place.
- Custom instructions and styles 7 min
- Projects: persistent context for a piece of work 8 min
- Custom GPTs and reusable assistants 7 min
- Memory: what it remembers and how to control it 6 min
- Module quiz 6 questions
Verification workflows
4 lessons · quizA repeatable routine for deciding how much to trust an answer: sources, second opinions and research modes.
- Ask for sources, then check them 7 min
- Second-model review and self-critique 7 min
- AI search and deep research: when to use them 7 min
- Exercise: fact-check an AI answer exercise · 20 min
- Module quiz 5 questions
Images, voice and vision
3 lessons · quizAssistants can see and speak. Use screenshots, photos, generated images and voice mode for real tasks.
- Reading images, screenshots and photos 7 min
- Generating images 7 min
- Voice mode and dictation 6 min
- Module quiz 5 questions
Building repeatable workflows
4 lessons · quizFrom one-off chats to a personal system: a prompt library, AI inside the tools you already use, and honest measurement.
- From one-off chats to a personal prompt library 7 min
- AI inside Word, Excel, Outlook and Google Workspace 8 min
- Measuring whether AI actually saved you time 6 min
- Capstone: automate one weekly task exercise · 40 min
- Module quiz 5 questions