Starting Point
"AI" is a big scary-sounding word for something most of us have already used without thinking about it. If you've ever asked Siri a question, used autocorrect, or had your email suggest a reply, you've used AI.
What's changed in the last couple of years is a new kind of AI that you can have a full conversation with, in whole sentences, about almost anything. That's what this session is about.
You don't need to understand how a car engine works to drive a car. You don't need to understand how an AI works to use one. But a little bit of knowledge makes you a safer, smarter user.
What an AI Chatbot Actually Is
An AI chatbot, the ones called ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot, is a computer program that's really good at one thing: guessing what words should come next.
That sounds simple, almost silly. It's not. To get good at guessing the next word, the program has to "understand" context, grammar, facts, tone, and the shape of an answer. To get that good, these programs have been trained on an enormous amount of text, essentially most of the public internet, millions of books, news articles, conversations, and reference works.
The result is something that feels like talking to a knowledgeable person. It's not a person. It doesn't have feelings. It doesn't remember you between conversations (unless you turn that on). But it's read an incredible amount of writing by people, and it's learned to produce writing that sounds like that.
You'll sometimes see AI chatbots called "LLMs", short for "Large Language Models". Same thing. "Large" means trained on a lot of text. "Language Model" means a program that predicts language. You don't need to use the term, but if you see it, now you know.
How It Works, Plainly
Imagine you've read every cookbook ever written. Now someone asks you, "what goes well with lamb?" You don't need to look anything up. Your brain just knows, because you've seen the word "lamb" next to words like "rosemary" and "mint" and "potatoes" thousands of times.
An AI chatbot works a bit like that. It's seen so many sentences that when you start one, it has a very good sense of how people usually finish it. When you ask a question, it finishes the answer a word at a time, each word chosen because it's the most likely next word given everything that came before.
Two things follow from this, and they're important:
It's not looking anything up. Most of the time, an AI is writing from what it learned during training, not searching a live database. That's why it can be wrong with total confidence. (Some newer versions can search the web, but that's a separate feature.)
It works in patterns, not facts. It can tell you the general shape of an answer beautifully, even when the specific details are wrong. That's both its superpower and its weak spot.
A Tour of the Main Tools
There are four you'll bump into most often. They all do basically the same core thing, but each has a different flavour.
ChatGPT
Made by OpenAI. The one most people have heard of. Free version is very capable. Good all-rounder.
Best for: general writing, everyday questions, brainstorming.
Claude
Made by Anthropic. Strong at long writing, careful explanation, and admitting when it doesn't know something.
Best for: reading documents, drafting letters, nuanced conversations.
Google Gemini
Made by Google. Built into Android phones and tied into Google services. Can see what's on your screen.
Best for: quick answers while you're doing something else, use on Android, voice chats.
Microsoft Copilot
Made by Microsoft. Built into Windows, Word, Excel, Outlook. Free basic version on the web.
Best for: work inside Microsoft Office, if your workplace already pays for it.
You don't need to pick a favourite. Many people keep two or three open and use whichever suits the moment. The free tiers of all four are strong enough for everyday use.
What AI Is Good At
AI is genuinely, usefully good at a specific set of tasks. These are the places it'll earn its keep for you.
Explaining things in plain English. Dense letters, technical words, legal forms, medical jargon. It can translate those into normal language faster than any human.
First drafts of writing. A complaint letter, a cover letter, a message you've been putting off. You get a decent starting point in seconds, and you adjust from there.
Summarising long things. A meeting transcript, a report, a book chapter, a long email thread. Paste it in and ask for the short version.
Brainstorming. Ten ideas for a fundraiser. Five different angles on a problem. Names for a business. It doesn't get bored and it doesn't judge your ideas.
Teaching and quizzing. Learning to drive, a new job skill, study material. It's infinitely patient and it'll change reading level when you ask.
Getting unstuck. Broken Wi-Fi, a confusing error message, a locked account. It's a pretty good help desk.
Where AI Gets Things Wrong
The honest part. AI is confident in a way that can fool you. Knowing where it fails is the single most useful skill on this page.
It makes things up. This is called "hallucinating". The AI writes something that sounds right, is written with total confidence, and is just... not true. Fake book titles, fake court cases, fake phone numbers. If the answer matters, verify it.
It's weak on current events. Most AI chatbots were trained months or even a year ago. They don't know yesterday's news unless they have a live search feature turned on.
It's unreliable on anything counted or measured. Bad at arithmetic without a calculator tool. Bad at counting letters in a word. Bad at exact dates.
It struggles with local or niche facts. It'll be confidently wrong about your town's history, a specific community organisation, or a local bylaw. The more specific and local, the less you should trust it.
It guesses at images it hasn't actually seen. If you ask about a picture without uploading it, the AI will make up a description. Always attach the actual image.
Free vs Paid
Nearly every AI tool on this page has a free version and a paid version. The paid versions are usually around 20 to 30 Australian dollars a month.
What the free versions can do. Text chat, writing help, reading letters and documents, brainstorming, translation, basic image generation, some voice chat. For most people, most of the time, this is enough.
What paid adds. Usually: the newest and smartest version of the AI, longer conversations without running out, higher limits on file uploads and image generation, priority access when the free tier is busy, and sometimes extra features like video generation or advanced voice.
My honest suggestion. Don't pay for anything on day one. Use the free versions for a month. You'll quickly know if you're hitting the limits often enough to be worth $25 a month, or whether free does everything you need.
Try It Yourself
Enough reading. The best way to understand what an AI chatbot is, is to open one and ask it something.
Pick one. Open it. Ask it three things.
1. Something easy you already know the answer to. "What's a good meal to make with mince and a tin of tomatoes?" (This lets you see how helpful the AI is, and whether the answer matches common sense.)
2. Something personal you don't mind sharing. "I'm thinking of getting a dog but I live in a small house. What breeds should I consider?" (This lets you see how the AI asks follow-up questions.)
3. Something you're curious about but could never ask in a meeting. Your choice. (This lets you see that no question is too silly for an AI.)
Then ask one more question: "What kind of things are you not good at?" Read the answer carefully. That's a glimpse at the honesty we'll build on for the rest of the day.
If the AI asks you a follow-up question, answer it. That's the AI doing its job, gathering context so it can do better. That's the mindset shift we'll keep coming back to today.