Whether you love it or avoid it, here’s how to make the tech work for you—and what to watch out for
These days, artificial intelligence (AI) is showing up everywhere in our daily lives, from conference rooms to classrooms, health-care assessments to dinner-table conversations. What sets AI apart from past tech innovations? These advanced systems are capable of doing things that previously only humans could do—and doing them quickly.
As a technology journalist for publications like Fortune and VentureBeat, I have been covering AI for a decade and watched its evolution firsthand. The progress has been remarkable. Although widespread use of AI has been growing since the 2010s (including under the hood of technologies you use every day, like smartphones and social media), the current global obsession with it really began in November 2022, when OpenAI launched ChatGPT.
ChatGPT was the first chatbot of its kind, capable of performing a wide variety of tasks and holding human-sounding conversations. It quickly captured the public’s imagination and became the fastest-growing consumer software application in history, reaching 100 million users in its first two months. Fast-forward to today. One-third of U.S. adults say they’ve used an AI chatbot, and about the same percentage of teens say they interact with one daily, according to the Pew Research Center.
Despite this widespread adoption, the story of AI is very much still unfolding, and the technology is far from perfect. But you can still use its unprecedented computing powers to your benefit. To engage safely, effectively and creatively, it’s important to understand what you’re working with. Here’s what you need to know.
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What is AI?
AI is technology that enables computers and machines to perform complex tasks that are typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning and problem-solving. When people talk about AI today, they’re usually referring to generative AI, a type of AI system that can create writing, images, videos and computer code.
Even more specifically, they’re often talking about AI chatbots, assistants and other conversational AI systems powered by “large language models,” sophisticated software trained on vast amounts of human language data. These systems range from general-purpose tools like ChatGPT and Claude to specialized characters and “agents” made for specific interactions.
If you’ve ever engaged with Alexa or Siri, you’ve used something similar. Chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude can also act as assistants, but they’re built on newer AI systems and capable of tasks that are far more varied and intricate. Additionally, they’re not confined to a voice mode—you can type to them, send them documents and have them analyze photos.
AI systems essentially operate as gigantic pattern-analyzing prediction machines. To create AI chatbots’ impressive language capabilities, scientists and engineers have fed practically all the text on the internet into a type of computer system designed to identify predictable patterns in human language.
When you ask a chatbot to do something (also called giving it a prompt), it draws on the original data and patterns within its datasets to predict what words could come next to deliver a logical answer in sentence form. It doesn’t know, but it’s really good at guessing and mimicking how humans talk. There has been increasing debate within the scientific community about whether we should categorize what AI does as “thinking.” Research has shown that some AI chatbots behave in ways that resemble thinking or judgment. But while we know how AI models work overall, we can’t currently trace the internal decisions they make to arrive at each specific response.
“The questions [about consciousness] are notoriously hard,” says Vincent Conitzer, a professor of computer science and philosophy at Oxford and Carnegie Mellon universities. “We really need to make progress on them if we truly want to understand in what ways we can say AI thinks.” But it’s safe to say that right now, AI is not like the sentient superintelligence you’ve seen in movies.
What can you do with AI?
The sky really is the limit. I’ve heard of people using AI to make a picture book for their kids, create a workout plan and even name a puppy. One person told me she uploaded photos of her feet and had the chatbot analyze her arch and the wear patterns on her shoes to recommend running sneakers with the best fit.
Another referred to AI as her personal chief of staff. At the end of the day, she opens up Claude and brain-dumps every worry, to-do item and miscellaneous thing lingering in her mind. Claude then organizes it into steps and creates her schedule for the week.
Overall, AI tools can be incredibly useful for quickly synthesizing large amounts of data, breaking down complex topics in a simple way and pulling key themes from text (like summarizing a dense research paper or making sense of your own scattered notes).
These tools can also work with images and videos—for example, when assembling furniture, I have uploaded photos of the parts and instructions so that AI could help me figure out a confusing step.
But one of the most popular ways to use AI is as a creative thought partner. AI chatbots can help you brainstorm and will act as a sounding board for you to bounce ideas off—whether you’re planning a garden, improving your résumé, writing a screenplay or strategizing marketing initiatives for your small business. I’ve interviewed countless executives and technology leaders who have made it a priority to figure out how AI can best serve them, and they’re almost universally using AI in this way, inviting it to offer feedback or poke holes in their logic.
Personally, I’ve found a lot of benefit in the kitchen. ChatGPT adds up tedious fractions from recipes for me instantly, and Claude actually helped me solve one of my biggest everyday burdens: feeling burned out on meal planning. I explained my weekly schedule, my dietary preferences, and what worked and didn’t work about my current methods, and we came up with a structure that has saved me tons of time and made a significant difference in my life.
How can you use AI in the most effective way possible?
How should you decide which chatbot or platform to use? Currently, there’s no “best” one—though everyone using AI has personal preferences. Tech companies are constantly rolling out new versions of their products, but as of the writing of this piece, the new products generally all do the same things, and do them about as well as one another. Overall, it’s smart to experiment: Try different platforms. Or bring the same request to different chatbots to see how each responds.
When working with AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT, be specific with your prompts. AI tools are prone to filling in the blanks, which can easily lead them to give you an output that doesn’t match what you’re looking for. “Consider what you want the AI to guess and what you need to specify,” suggests Eren Celebi, AI lead and principal engineer at advertising firm WPP.
The answer you get will only be as good as the prompt you give. Think about what level of detail you want and whether you want an answer in a specific format (like a chart, a bulleted list or a 200-word email). It also helps to break down complex requests into smaller steps.
For example, instead of giving AI a broad prompt like “Help me start a business,” first give it context about who you are and what kind of business you are looking to create. Then, have it help you research the market and develop a business plan. Many AI tools have memory capabilities, so you can have a continuous conversation on a topic, getting deeper with every back-and-forth, unlike when you’re searching the web.
With AI, context is everything. If you want help writing a difficult email to a colleague, make sure to first explain the situation, the relationship dynamics, what routes you already tried, the tone you want to strike and the outcome you’re hoping for.
What should you watch out for?
According to an analysis by Harvard Business Review, therapy and companionship are the top ways people are using generative AI, but some people form emotional dependencies, leading to detachment from their real lives. Research from OpenAI and MIT that looked at ChatGPT found that these types of harmful outcomes can stem from longer chat sessions—and that heavy daily use was correlated with increased loneliness. Tragically, several suicides have been linked to AI chat usage, sparking lawsuits against companies including OpenAI, Character.AI and Google.
Another issue: AI tools also aren’t yet fully reliable in terms of accuracy. They’re known to routinely fabricate information and present it confidently as fact—a phenomenon often referred to as hallucinating. So you shouldn’t depend on them for something crucial like health or legal advice. You can ask a chatbot to use verified or scientific sourcing and to share the links of all the articles it’s referencing, so you can ensure accuracy by fact-checking the information yourself.
Chatbots often lack the most up-to-date information as well. If you’re using AI to plan a vacation, it can certainly suggest top attractions, but it may miss crucial details (like that the museum you really want to visit is temporarily closed). As far as trust goes, it’s also vital to remember that AI chatbots are created by companies vying to beat each other in a competitive market. “Trust AI as much as you trust a car dealer,” Celebi says. “Sure, they’re here to provide you a service, but the AI doesn’t work for you. It works for a tech giant.”
Connected to that, it’s important to keep data privacy risks in mind. If you share personal details and private thoughts with AI tools, know that protection of your information is far from guaranteed.
Last year, OpenAI experimented with making users’ chat logs (records of their online conversations) discoverable in Google searches, completely unbeknownst to the users. The company also launched a health feature earlier this year, but, as reported by Time magazine, the feature’s services are not subject to HIPAA. The United States still lacks the type of data protection laws that have become commonplace around the world, and as with anything online, chatbots are at risk of hacks and data breaches.
AI-generated images and videos are increasingly commonplace online. The current tools make it possible for anyone to create images and videos so realistic that it’s often no longer possible to discern what’s real from what’s AI.
Much of AI-generated content is harmless, although some of it is the low-quality, low-effort, high-volume material referred to as AI slop. And an increasing amount is created to spread false information and deceive people about current events. So operating with a strong sense of skepticism is important as you analyze the media in your feeds.
What’s next?
Tech companies are fervently working to develop AI agents—software systems that can take action on your behalf, sometimes autonomously. Instead of just using AI to help you plan your next vacation, imagine AI doing it fully on its own, even using your credit card to book your flight and hotel for you.
Future AI agents could take the “chief of staff” role to the next level, handling your emails, scheduling meetings, adding them to your calendar and setting reminders. It’s the next step to potentially creating the kind of true AI assistant that has been a staple of sci-fi for decades.
Overall, though, it’s a common sentiment in the tech industry that no one honestly can predict how AI technology will evolve. The most important thing to know is that nothing about AI is inevitable. It’s being created by people, and we get to decide whether or not to use it, trust it and regulate it. Becoming familiar with AI is the first step to being able to help shape the role it has in all of our lives.
Even though I’ve spent a decade tracking developments in the field, I’m no superuser—and you don’t have to be either. The way I’ve been exploring AI is to start small, and this is also my parting advice. See where it can simplify complex or mundane tasks or help you enhance your creativity.
Remain discerning about where AI actually helps you, and where it introduces too much risk. And consider what you actually like doing yourself and don’t want to off-load to AI tools. You’re in the driver’s seat.
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Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of articles on personal technology, arming readers with the knowledge to protect themselves against cybersecurity threats and internet scams as well as revealing the best tips, tricks and shortcuts for computers, cellphones, apps, texting, social media and more. We rely on credentialed experts with personal experience and know-how as well as primary sources including tech companies, professional organizations and academic institutions. We verify all facts and data and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Originally Published in Reader's Digest
