Guide Library

Week 2 · Guide 3 of 5

Prompting

Explain a Technical Change So Non-Technical People Get It

Field Guide

  • 20–30 minGuided walkthrough

When something technical changes at work, the people it affects need to know what it means for them. You’ll have your agent turn what you know about the change into a plain message in your voice, then read it the way one of your readers would, so you can fix what doesn’t land before anyone else sees it.

You’ll leave with

A message about a real change, in your voice and ready to send, that tells your readers in plain words what changes for them and what to do.

What You Need for This Guide

  • A change you need to explain, and what you know about it so far.
  • Your approved AI tool, with your and, if you have it, your saved My Communication Style Guide.
  • The email, chat or notice where the message will go.

Build Your Communication Style Guide

Choose the tool you’re allowed to use

Your approved tool

The tool your company approved.

Pick your approved tool above to see the steps and screenshots for it.

Start guide
5 steps · At your own pace
About saved progress

No account needed. Checkmarks save on this browser and device when browser storage is available. If storage is blocked or full, new checkmarks last until you reload or close this page. Progress doesn’t sync to other browsers or devices. Clearing this site’s browser data removes it, and private browsing may not keep it after you close the window.

Standard Data rules for AI at work

Data Rules

Data rules for AI at work

Check with your IT Team before you paste any work data into an AI tool. Avoid names, account numbers, customer data, or anything sensitive without explicit permission from IT. If you aren't sure, redact anything sensitive and replace it with generic information. AI makes mistakes, make sure to fact check your agents outputs even if they sound right.

Before you start

  • Check with your IT teamAsk what your company allows before you put anything from work into an AI tool. Your company policy is the one that counts, and it is the one this library cannot see.
  • Use the tool your company approvedChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and Gemini are all covered here. Use the one your company approved, not the one you like best.
  • Sign in with your work accountA work account keeps your chats inside the agreement your company signed. A personal account in the same product sits outside it.
  • No approved account yetFollow the steps with made-up example text, or on paper, until IT gives you one.

Never put this into an AI tool

  • Customer or personal detailsNo names, email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses or account numbers. That covers colleagues as well as customers.
  • Regulated recordsHealth, financial, HR and legal records stay in the systems built to hold them, unless IT has told you in writing that this tool may see them.
  • Passwords, keys and access codesNo credentials of any kind, yours or anyone else’s, and nothing that grants access to a system.
  • Anything under an NDA or not yet publicUnreleased plans, contracts, pricing and source code need clearance before they go near a chat window.
  • Anything your company policy prohibitsYour company’s rules win over anything in this library. If policy keeps something out of AI tools, it stays out, whatever a guide suggests.

Do this instead

  • Swap real details for placeholdersWrite “Customer A”, “[client name]”, “$X”. You get the same quality of answer, and you put the real details back yourself.
  • Describe the situation rather than pasting the documentMost of what an agent needs is the shape of the problem, not the file it arrived in.
  • Trim a file before you upload or paste itTake out the identifying columns and pages first, or work from a short extract.

Check the answer before you use it

  • Read it as if a colleague had drafted itAn agent states wrong things with complete confidence. Your name goes on the work, so the check is yours.
  • Say where the agent helpedFollow your company rule on disclosing AI assistance, especially in client-facing or formal work.

When you are not sure

  • Ask before you paste or upload, not afterA question to your IT team takes a minute. Cleaning up after a data incident takes a great deal longer.
  • When in doubt, leave it outIf you would not put it in an email to someone outside the company, keep it out of the chat.

On this guide

  • Writing your notes about a changeKeep details that could help someone get around a security control out of your notes and your message, such as server names, network addresses or known weaknesses. If your readers need a password or access code, write a placeholder such as [door code] and add the real one yourself after you copy the message out.
Open the full page
Download Guide

Step

Choose the change and write down the facts

Pick a change the people around you need to understand soon, or a recent one they still ask about. Anything with technical words in it counts, such as:

  • A system upgrade or outage
  • A new sign-in step, such as a code from a phone app
  • A new form, portal or place to save files
  • At home, a new phone or app a family member needs to use

Nothing in mind? Send the prompt below in a new chat with your attached or pasted, or in its Project or Notebook. Replace the bracketed words in its What I’m looking for line with a change at work I need to explain to people who aren’t technical, answer its questions and pick a suggestion that’s really happening.

Find a task or decision
Using my Agent Profile and my answers, help me choose one small task to try or decision to think through. If my profile is missing from this conversation, ask me to attach or paste it before continuing. Do not assume I have a pending task or decision, or that it relates to a project in my profile.

What I'm looking for: [a task to try or a decision to make]

For now, help me identify and describe what I want to work on. Do not carry out the task, compare the decision's options, decide for me, or make a plan.

Ask me up to three short questions, one at a time, about work I need to get done or a choice I expect to face. If nothing is pending, ask about a recurring task or choice.

With each question:
- Offer two or three short suggested answers based on my role, responsibilities, priorities, or projects in my Agent Profile.
- Write these options directly in your response as a numbered list.
- Present them as possibilities for me to confirm, not tasks or decisions you assume I have.
- Include “Something else / none of these.”
- Let me choose a number, combine options, or answer in my own words.

Wait for each answer before continuing. Use my answer to shape the next question, and stop asking as soon as we have a clear task or decision I want to work on.

If we still have several possibilities, suggest up to three specific tasks or decisions of the kind I'm looking for, grounded in my profile and answers. Show them as a numbered list. Describe each in a sentence or two, including what I would give you, what you could help me produce or compare, and what I would still need to check or decide myself. Keep them small enough for me to try. Include “Something else / none of these” alongside those choices. Ask which one I want to work on, and wait for my choice.

Once I choose, write one sentence in my voice naming only the task I selected or the decision I want to think through. Use the details I confirmed in my answers; do not add details from my profile to the description unless I confirmed their connection to this task or decision. Omit details I have not provided rather than making a statement about them. For a decision, describe what needs to be decided without making the decision.

Return that description in one copyable code block. Include only the selected task or decision description. Then stop and wait for my next prompt.

If I have already named a clear task or decision I want to use, skip the questions and options and give me that description directly.

Use only facts in my profile and answers. Do not invent details, commitments or authority. If details should not be shared, let me describe the general pattern instead, and keep missing details uncertain.

Now write down what you know as rough notes, so your agent can translate the facts instead of guessing at them. Cover what you can of:

  • What’s changing, and when
  • Who it affects
  • What they need to do, and by when
  • What stays the same
  • Where they can get help

Use your normal words, jargon included, because turning it into plain language is the agent’s job in the next step. Leave a gap where you don’t know something yet. Describe contacts by role or team, such as the IT help desk, and check the data rules before you paste your notes into a chat.

Step

Turn your notes into a plain message

  1. Open a new chat where your agent can see your and Communication Style Guide. If they’re saved in your agent’s Project or Notebook, start the chat there. Otherwise, attach or paste both files.

  2. Copy the prompt below and fill in the reader line first. Be specific, because “staff” and “branch staff who use the booking system every day” get two different messages. Then fill in where the message will go, add a setting from your My Voice Dial if you’ve built one, replace the last bracket with your notes, and send it.

  3. Read what comes back. The message should open with what changes for your readers, what they need to do and by when. Under it, the agent lists the technical words it replaced, anything it left out and anything it marked [CHECK]: something your readers need that your notes don’t say. You’ll fill those in yourself in step 4, because the agent would only be guessing.

    Look down the other two lists too. If readers will see a replaced word on screen, or something left out is something they need, ask the agent to put it back.

Step

Have your agent read it as one of your readers

You know this change too well to notice what will confuse people. In a read-back, your agent plays one of your readers and answers only from what the message says.

  1. In the same chat, copy the prompt below and replace the bracket with one kind of reader, described by their role and what they know. Choose the reader most likely to get it wrong, not the most technical one.

  2. Check the reader’s answers about what’s changing and what to do, and the mismatches the agent lists after them, against your notes. This comparison is what counts: if the reader would do the wrong thing, or do it on the wrong day, the message needs fixing, however clear it reads to you.

Step

Fix what didn’t land and check the facts

  1. In the same chat, ask for the fixes the read-back showed, in your own words, such as “Move registering on the portal into the first paragraph, with its deadline.” If the reader would still ask something your notes don’t answer, give the agent the answer yourself or have it marked [CHECK]. Don’t let it answer for you. If the read-back matched what you need people to do, skip to the facts.

  2. If you changed a lot, run the reader prompt once more in the same chat to check the new version.

  3. Fill in each [CHECK] from what you know, or ask whoever owns the change. Then check every date, time, step and place to get help against your notes, and take out anything the message adds that your notes don’t support, such as a reason, a reassurance or a promise.

Step

Send it yourself and save the prompts

  1. Check the message against the What Still Needs My Review list in your style guide. Then copy only the final message, not the lists under it, into the email, post or notice your readers will see, and send it yourself. For a change that affects a lot of people, show it to one colleague like your readers first.

  2. Copy both prompts from this guide into a note or file in My Agent Files, or another folder you can find again. Edit your saved copies to fit your work. If you often write for the same readers, put them in the reader line for good.

The next time something changes, start from rough notes and these two prompts.

Explain a Technical Change So Non-Technical People Get It

Confirm your result

Confirm the outcomes below to finish this guide.

Final checks

You have a message about your change, in your voice, that opens with what changes for your readers and what they need to do, and every fact in it matches your notes or what you confirmed.

You can name what a reader was most likely to get wrong about this change, and your message now gets it right.

Provide Feedback

Thanks. That went straight to the people who write these guides.

Next in Week 2

Teach Your Agent to Give Better Writing Feedback

Continue in the suggested order, or choose another guide for your task.

View Week 2 guides