Try one for the first time without giving anything away
This is a draft
The steps below were written but have not yet been performed end to end on a real machine, and the time is planned rather than measured with a stopwatch. Four of the twelve checks are outstanding. The teaching is sound; treat the timings and the failure list as provisional. What that means
After this you will be able to
Have a first go on your own device, with nothing of yours in it.
Skip this if you have already typed something into a chatbot and read what came back. Any attempt counts, including one you thought went badly.
Before you start. Without looking back: what are the three kinds of thing lesson 1 said "AI at work" usually means?
(A chatbot, an assistant inside software you already use, and automation somebody set up once.)
The first time you use one of these should not be at work, on something that matters, with somebody waiting. This lesson is the first time, done somewhere it cannot cost you anything.
Almost everybody's first attempt is a one-word question, and almost everybody is surprised by how much comes back.
What you need
- A phone, tablet or computer with a browser.
- No account for most free tools. If one asks you to sign up, close it and try another — you are not short of options.
- No cost.
The steps
- Open a browser and go to any free chatbot. Do not create an account. Do not install anything.You should be looking at a box to type in, usually at the bottom of the screen, with some suggestions above it.
- Type a question about something with no consequence. "Explain why bread rises" works. "What should I do about my mortgage" does not, and neither does anything with a real name in it.You should see your words appear, then a reply write itself out line by line rather than arriving all at once.
- Read the answer, then type: "say that again in three sentences."You should get a shorter version. Notice it does not ask you to repeat the original question — it remembers, within this one conversation.
- Type something it cannot possibly know: "what did I have for tea last night?"You should get an admission that it does not know, or a guess. Either is worth seeing once, deliberately, before it happens to you by accident at work.
Try this one first
"Explain how a fridge works, to somebody who left school at sixteen and is not stupid."
You should get something plain and reasonably accurate. That instruction — naming who it is for — is the single most useful thing you can add to any request, and lesson 4 is about nothing else.
If it goes wrong
It asks you to make an account before you can type anything. Close it and try a different one. Several are usable without signing up. You do not have to hand over an email address to have a first go.
The answer is confidently wrong. Good. That is the most useful thing that can happen to you today. These tools produce wrong answers in exactly the same tone as right ones, and knowing that in your body rather than in theory is what this lesson is for.
It will not answer, or says it cannot help. Try asking in a different way. If it still refuses, ask it why. The reason is usually a rule somebody wrote, and it will tell you.
Do today
Ask it one thing you are genuinely curious about and that involves nobody but you. Read the whole answer. Then close the tab.
Where else this works. The habit of trying something once, somewhere it cannot cost you anything, works for every new tool you will ever be handed.
Practice card for this lesson — one page of A4, no email address needed.
Did this work? If it did not, say what happened — hello@howtobedigital.com
Every failure anybody sends in ends up in the section above.
Checked by a person · not auto-published
Published 14 July 2026 · Last checked 14 July 2026
8 of 12 checks passed — see which four are outstanding
Covers: Skills England, Technical AI foundation skills
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