Updated May 28, 2026
Stop Making AI So Complicated: 3 Simple Steps That Actually Work
You don't need 47 prompts or another framework to use AI well. Here are the three simple steps I teach marketers that you can start this week.
You don’t need 47 prompts. You need three simple steps that actually work.
I write this for the overwhelmed small business owner. For my students. For the friends and family who are just now trying to figure out where AI fits. I want no one left behind on this.
Every week I see another “Ultimate AI Framework” or “47 Prompts That Will Transform Your Marketing.” Courses, certifications, prompt libraries with a thousand entries. There’s a whole sprawling world of AI marketing out there, and somehow the loudest version of it convinces smart people they have to master all of it before they’re allowed to start.
You don’t.
I recently ran a full-day AI bootcamp for senior marketers at UNH. Directors, VPs, business owners. Sharp people. And the thing that actually landed wasn’t a framework.
It was three embarrassingly simple steps. You can start this week.
1. Find an AI you actually like using
The big four (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot) are all good. The one that wins is the one you’ll actually open tomorrow morning.
ChatGPT has the largest user base by a wide margin, so it’s the easiest starting point. But if you’re a Google person, Gemini fits right into your workflow. If you live in Microsoft 365, Copilot is already there. If you want the best coding partner, Claude is hard to beat.
Pick one. Pay for it. The free tiers are a poor starting point. Paid plans get you bigger context windows, better reasoning, and actual data protection.
Then just… use it. For real work. This week.
2. Talk to it. Actually talk.
This is the part that changed everything for my students.
Use voice mode.
When you type to AI, it feels like a search engine. When you talk to it, it feels like a colleague. That shift matters more than any prompting technique I could teach you.
Here’s what I tell people: talk to your AI. Tell it about your business, your problems, the client who’s driving you crazy, the campaign that flopped. Let it get to know you the way a new coworker would.
You wouldn’t expect a new hire to do great work after one email. Give your AI the same courtesy. It’s a teenager with a genius IQ and no idea how your company works yet: capable, eager, and in need of context and supervision before it earns the keys. (I wrote a whole piece on that, daycare for teenage AI.)
Talk to it. Often. Out loud.
3. Give it YOUR context (this is where the slop stops)
Here’s why most AI output sounds like it was written by a committee of robots: people ask AI to write things without telling it anything about who they are, who they’re writing for, or what they actually sound like.
That’s not an AI problem. It’s a you problem.
Every prompt I built for the bootcamp starts the same way. It starts with your context:
- Your brand voice. Not just “professional and friendly.” Specific. “We sound like a smart colleague explaining something over coffee. We never sound like a corporate press release.”
- Your audience. Who they are, what they care about, where they are in their journey.
- Your constraints. No jargon. No superlatives. No filler paragraphs. Every section earns its space.
Here’s a stripped-down version of what that looks like:
You are a content writer for [your company]. Your tone is [2-3 words]. You sound like [one sentence]. You never sound like [one sentence]. Your audience is [who] and they care about [what]. Write a [thing] about [topic]. Mark anything you’re unsure about with [VERIFY].
That’s it. That one paragraph of context is the difference between AI slop and a draft you’d actually send to your boss.
The real secret
The people getting real value from AI right now aren’t prompt engineers. Prompting as a standalone skill is fading. They’re not taking courses. They’re not building elaborate automation stacks.
They’re people who picked an AI, started talking to it, and gave it something unique to work with.
I’ve started calling them operators: not the ones who know every model name, the ones who built the habit. (The split between operators, experimenters, and holdouts is the real divide in marketing right now, and it has almost nothing to do with technical skill.)
Three steps. Go talk to your AI. Tell it who you are. Ask it for help.
That’s the whole plan.
I send one of these every week. Real workflows with AI, no hype, no 47-prompt frameworks. If you want the next one, it’s free.