AI prompting for business: lessons we can all learn
Most of us have tried it. You open ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot, type “write me a LinkedIn post about our new service”, and get back something that sounds like everyone else’s LinkedIn post. Polite, tidy and instantly forgettable.
This week I sat in on a free online seminar about AI prompting for business, and it changed how I think about that moment. If you run a small business in Surrey and have ever felt AI is more hype than help, this one is for you. Good prompting is not a dark art. It is mostly about giving clear instructions, and that is a skill any of us can learn.
Where this came from
The session, Master AI prompting for business, was run by business.gov.uk through its Business Academy as part of International Trade Week. The presenter was Jai Khan, AI Transformation Director at Push, a digital marketing agency that has been building AI into its work since 2022.
What I liked straight away was his honesty. He opened by saying he does not consider himself an AI expert, just someone who has practised a great deal. That set the tone for an hour of genuinely useful, jargon-free advice.
If you have not come across the Business Academy, it is well worth a look. You register for free on business.gov.uk, then join live webinars or catch up through the on-demand video library. I have already bookmarked a few more.
Why now is the time to get to grips with AI
One point has stuck with me more than any other. Jai shared research from METR, an independent AI research group, showing that the length of task AI can complete on its own is doubling roughly every four months.
Every 4 months
The length of task AI can complete on its own doubles.
Source: METR time-horizon research
To put that in context, in 2022 the AI tools most of us were using could read about six pages at once. Today the leading models can take in around 1,100. That is the difference between pasting in a single email and handing over a whole year of customer correspondence.
Jai quoted Wharton professor Ethan Mollick, who says that today is the worst AI you will ever use. My own view, and the Chamber’s, is that this is exactly why now is the moment to take AI prompting for business seriously. The tools will keep changing every few months. The skill of giving a clear brief will not, and if you build it now you will be ready for whatever comes next.
He also had reassuring advice for anyone who has tried something and been disappointed. If AI cannot do a task today, try again in a couple of months.
1,100 pages
What AI can read at once today, up from just 6 in 2022.
The 10:70:20 rule for using AI in your business
Before getting into prompts, Jai shared an effort ratio his agency lives by, adapted from a leadership and learning model by Morgan McCall. Ten per cent of the effort goes into setting things up and training people. Seventy per cent is AI doing the work. The final twenty per cent is a human, ideally someone who knows the subject, checking what comes out.
He explained why that last twenty per cent matters with a story I will not forget in a hurry. After a tricky first call with a new client, Jai left the meeting and let off steam to his team in a private chat. Unfortunately, a colleague’s AI notetaker was still connected to the call. It recorded every word and emailed a neat summary to the client, including an action point about Jai speaking to the client’s boss. His team now checks every set of AI meeting notes before anything goes out.
How to write better AI prompts: think of a new starter
The heart of the session was prompting, and Jai’s framing made it click for me. Treat AI like a junior member of staff on their first day. They are bright and have endless stamina, but they know nothing about your business, your customers or how you like things done.
You would not give a new starter a one-line instruction and expect a perfect result, so do not do it to AI either. Jai calls his framework the six boxes, and it turns a vague question into a proper brief.
The six boxes of a good AI prompt
Role: who should AI be? For example, an experienced bookkeeper or a local estate agent.
Context: the background, plus anything you have attached.
Audience: who the output is for and what they care about.
Task: exactly what you want done.
Output: the length, layout, tone and format you need.
Constraints: what to avoid, what to do instead, and a request to ask you if anything is unclear.
So instead of “write a post about our Christmas menu”, a Dorking café might try something like this: “You are the owner of an independent café in Dorking, writing to regular customers who love local produce. Write a 150-word Facebook post announcing our Christmas menu, which is attached. Keep it warm and chatty, in British English, with no more than one emoji. Avoid the word ‘festive’, because every other café uses it. If anything is unclear, ask me before you start.”
Notice that last constraint explains why. That small habit makes a surprising difference.
Let AI interview you
If writing long instructions is not your thing, Jai’s tip is to let AI do the heavy lifting. Brain-dump everything you know, typed or spoken, then add one line: “Ask me up to five questions, one at a time, before you start.” Once you are happy, ask it to turn the conversation into a prompt using the six boxes, and save it to reuse.
I will let you into a secret. That is exactly how this article began. I gave AI the seminar transcript and slides, asked it to interview me, and answered five questions about what I wanted to say. Then I read and edited the draft myself, which is the twenty per cent in action.
Three things AI companies rarely tell you
Some of the most valuable parts of the session were the things you will not find in a glossy product launch.
The old prompting tricks no longer work
Telling AI it is a “world-class expert” does not make its answers more accurate, Jai explained, citing research from 2025. Neither do magic phrases like “take a deep breath” or offering it a tip. Even writing NEVER or MUST in capitals can backfire, because newer models tend to over-follow instructions. A clear brief, with a short explanation of why a rule matters, beats any trick.
AI cannot tell guidance from gospel
Give AI a folder containing your price list and a separate note on when you might offer a discount, and it may well start applying that discount every time. Unless you label a document as guidance, AI treats it as fact. The same goes for old files: out-of-date material in, out-of-date answers out. Tidy what you share, and say what each document is for.
Long chats and personal accounts quietly cost you
Every time you send a message, AI re-reads the whole conversation. Jumping between unrelated jobs in one chat burns through your usage and muddles the results, so start a new chat for each new task. Jai’s clever check is to ask AI to begin every reply with “Hi” and your name. When it forgets, the chat has run too long.
And if someone on your team is building useful assistants in their personal AI account, those assistants leave the business when they do. Jai calls this shadow AI, and it is worth a conversation with your team.
Five tips to try this week
1
Brief it like a new starter. Cover role, context, audience, task, output and constraints.
2
Attach, don’t describe. A real document or example beats any explanation.
3
Swap vague words for specifics. “Shorter, warmer, no jargon” beats “make it better”.
4
New task, new chat. Old conversations muddle new work.
5
Check before you send. Ask for sources, then open them, especially numbers.
Save what works, and let it do the repeating
Once you have a prompt that works, there is no need to write it again from scratch. ChatGPT, Claude and Copilot use different names, such as projects, skills, assistants and agents, but the idea is the same: write the long brief once and reuse it. This is where AI prompting for business really starts to pay you back.
It is also how I now work on Chamber content. I have a project set up with our tone of voice, British English, sentence case headings and, yes, a firm ban on em dashes. Every newsletter, LinkedIn post and blog draft starts from those rules, so I am no longer repeating myself in every chat. One useful detail from Jai: whatever you type in an individual prompt overrides your saved instructions, so you always stay in control. And everything still gets read by a human before it goes out.
Learn more about AI prompting for business with the Chamber
The Chamber has already run an AI workshop led by Selda Seyfi of Quantum Lane, one of our members who specialises in helping businesses put AI to work. It was a lively, practical session, and the response showed us there is a real appetite for more, so we are planning a follow-up.
That is one of the things I value most about Surrey business networking. You can read articles like this one, but there is nothing quite like sitting across the table from someone who has already solved the problem you are wrestling with. Several of our members work with AI every day and are happy to share what they have learned.
If you would like to find out where you can get some AI training, contact us directly at marketing@molevalleychamber.co.uk and we will point you in the right direction. Better still, come along to one of our events. You do not need to be a member to try one, and you might just meet the person who saves you hours every week.
Richard Excell
Excell Design & Marketing
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