Your team wants more AI training right now, and you can’t depend on L&D to get there quickly (they’ve got change management and compliance to worry about).
Instead, use AI to drill your team on AI. 46% of employees are already open to it, and the rest will come on board once they see how easy it is.
3 AI drills to increase fluency
If you’re using an AI tool like ChatGPT, be direct and tell it you’re conducting a training exercise. AI chatbots have conversational memory like we do, so they can remember and respond to things you told them earlier in the conversation.
Drill 1: Prompting practice
You have to be good at prompting in order to get high value out of AI tools. You also have to be discerning about what AI gives you, because its first answer is not always the best one. So a good drill to practice prompting looks like this:
1. Ask AI to generate 3 ideas for a project you’re actively working on.
2. Evaluate the response and tell AI to change one thing you don’t like about it.
3. Now tell ChatGPT to do more of one thing you do like about its response.
4. Now ask it to give you 3 more ideas just like that one.
This exercise teaches employees how to:
- Be more specific in their prompts
- Evaluate the quality of a response
- More strategically brainstorm with AI
Drill 2: Scenario simulation
Get your team comfortable with thinking about AI like a thought partner or a coworker, instead of a headline generator. You can train this skill by having an employee work through a problem with AI that they might normally discuss with a human associate:
1. Identify a situation you need to find a solution for and provide as much context as you can, including what goal you’re hoping AI can help you achieve.
2. Review the response and ask AI for potential consequences of using the course of action it suggested.
3. Based on the consequences it identified, ask it to amend its suggestion
This exercise teaches employees how to:
- Use AI as a strategy partner
- Be more conversational with AI
- Identify situations in which AI can be a neutral advisor
- Push back on AI’s first response
Drill 3: Integrate it into a workflow
Idea generation is a great gateway into using AI, but the best way to scale AI is to incorporate it into regular workflows that sap your time and energy (aka - “set it and forget it”). . Here’s what a drill to teach this skill would look like:
1. Pick a workflow that is currently manual and time consuming and ask AI how it can help.
2. Identify a strength AI offers and ask it to ideate specific ways it can use that to help you.
3. Now get more granular and ask it for an action plan to integrate its capabilities into your workflow.
Have the employee try out the plan and report back on how it goes. They can always iterate with ChatGPT to work out the kinks.
This exercise teaches employees how to:
- Think about the practical applications of AI in new ways
- Work with AI to identify areas where they can be more efficient
- Integrate AI more into daily work as opposed to ad hoc asks
How to get more out of each drill
Creating a culture of learning around AI fosters excitement, intrigue, and starts building the habit of considering AI for future projects. Here are 2 ways you can encourage employees to be active participants in their AI training:
- Have them ask AI for feedback and suggestions after their drill. This gives them something to chew on and try out after the drill is over, rather than closing out the tab and forgetting it ever happened.
- Encourage employees to share their wins and learnings. Add this into your weekly stand up meeting or start a Slack channel for it. Not only does this act as an accountability check, it allows team members to swap ideas and inspire each other.
If you’ve tried all of these drills and you’re interested in more, we have a whole list of some you can do in 5 minutes. And if you’re still easing your team into the whole idea of AI, here are some ways you can light the fire.
