1. Start Here: Your First Five Minutes with AI
Confident with AI course contents
Start here
Open an AI assistant and get your first useful result.
Estimated time: 5 minutes. Last reviewed: 11 August 2026.
What you need to know
This page stands alone. No previous AI knowledge is required. You need access to an AI assistant only for the activity.
Go to www.chat.com and ask your first question.
We use ChatGPT for this first exercise because it provides a simple starting point. In the next module, you can choose a different assistant.
Learning outcome: By the end, you will have asked an assistant for something useful and improved its first answer.
Before you begin: Do not enter private, confidential or identifying information during this exercise.
The lesson
An AI assistant is a service you can talk to by typing or speaking. It generates a response based on your request.
Treat its answer as a draft or estimate, not proof.
You can ask follow-up questions: the conversation is part of the tool.
Notice that you do not need to start again. Your second instruction changes the answer within the same conversation.
Try it
Open www.chat.com. Find the message box and ask the assistant to explain something you already understand.
If you cannot think of a subject, ask: “Explain why we have seasons.”
When it replies, say:
Make that shorter and give me one example.
If you get stuck
You may be asked to sign in or create an account, and the service may work differently in different places. If you cannot reach the message box, use the General AI Assistants Tool Card to find another way to continue.
Checkpoint
You received an answer, asked for one change and can explain how the second response was more useful.
About this course
Confident with AI was created by Charli-Jo Tyrer in association with the Technology Association of Visually Impaired People (TAVIP).
Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.