The One Thing That Will Immediately Make AI More Useful for You

Think about the last time you hired someone great.

Getting them up to speed took weeks. Real productivity took months. You answered the same questions repeatedly. You explained the same context over and over. Gradually they built an understanding of how you work, what you value, and what good looks like in your organization.

Then they left. And that knowledge walked out the door with them.

Working with AI works the same way.

Every time you start a new session with ChatGPT or Claude, you are starting with a blank slate. The AI has no idea who you are, how you think, what your brand sounds like, or what decisions you have already made. You are bringing a new person up to speed every single time.

Most people accept this as the nature of the tool. It doesn't have to be.

The solution is something called a context artifact. A document that captures foundational knowledge and feeds it to the AI at the start of every session. Your brand voice. Your customer profile. Your decision frameworks. Your operating principles. Your standard of excellence.

The more you capture, the less you repeat. The less you repeat, the faster and better the output becomes. Over time the AI starts from your foundation instead of from zero.

I use a document I call a Voice Codex. It captures how I think, what phrases I use, what positions I hold, and what language I never touch. Every time I work with AI on something I am publishing, I share it first. The output is materially stronger than starting cold every time.

Most organizations are starting from zero every session. That is the equivalent of bringing your best person up to speed every single Monday morning.

You don't have to.

Start with one artifact. Your brand voice. Write down how your brand sounds, what it never says, and what it always stands for. Feed it to your AI tools before you start any creative or communications work. See what changes.

Then build from there.