If you haven't added generative AI to your skill set yet, you should. AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Gemini and AI image generators including Dall-E and Canva are handy, accessible and often free to use. They're also powerful gateways for getting things done, whether it's for work, a hobby or general knowledge. Now's the time to start getting familiar with them.
And many of us have, to some degree. The ChatGPT app is reliably among the top downloads from Apple's and Google's app stores, and ChatGPT maker OpenAI puts its user numbers in the hundreds of millions. Rivals Google, Meta and Microsoft are making it harder to avoid their own AI tools.
Meanwhile, AI is reshaping the workplace along with the rest of the world, and you need to be prepared. In an IBM survey of 2,000 CEOs earlier this year, respondents said that nearly 1 in 3 workers will need retraining over the next three years, and just over half said they're hiring for AI-related roles that didn't exist a year ago.
"The rate at which roles will change is far faster than most folks can imagine," says Winnie Kroculick, co-author with Antara Dutta of the new book Own Your Future: AI for All.
They advocate getting hands-on with the many AI options readily available, with a sense of play as a way to learn and grow.
"What's fun when you're using AI tools," Kroculick says, "is seeing what types of responses you can get from the different tools, so giving ChatGPT versus Copilot versus Gemini versus Claude a prompt and seeing what the outcome is."
At CNET, we're exploring, testing and thinking about AI every day, from chatbots to the phones that have gen AI built in. This article pulls together many of our learnings into a compendium of ways you can get started with gen AI, the most dynamic technology of today. The easy-to-scan short writeups below all link out to full-length articles and reviews that dig deeper into the details. Consider it your guide to the skills you'll need to develop in 2025 to be a savvy consumer of AI.
Getting started with AI
Talk to AI the right way
Ask a chatbot a question and you'll get an answer. But what kind of answer you get — how helpful it is, how close it gets to what you're after — depends on how you phrase that question ("What is...") or command ("Tell me…"). Either way, it's known as a prompt. There's a whole art to writing (or speaking) that prompt, and even a good first attempt may require refinement to get you closer and closer to your goal. And that can be part of the fun. You'll get a better idea of what it is you need and you'll see that AI brain at work. Mary-Elisabeth Combs and Nelson Aguilar lay it all out with clear, concise guidance.
... continue reading