Five AI prompts to try today — no experience needed

If you've read the what-is-AI explainer, you know roughly what these tools are. This is the "stop reading, go try it" page. You already have ChatGPT or Gemini, probably for free — here's five real things to paste in and see what comes back. No sign-up, no cost, nothing to install.

Before you paste anything in

Quick, important caveat, because I'd rather say it than let you find out the hard way: don't paste real customer personal data — names, full contact details, anything sensitive — into a free public AI chat unless you've checked that tool's own privacy terms. Strip it out, or use a made-up example first, until you're sure. Same GIGO rule as everywhere else on this site, just pointed at privacy instead of accuracy: what you feed it matters.

1. The marketing email gut-check

Paste in an email you're about to send — a newsletter, an offer, a follow-up. Then ask:

"Read this like a busy, slightly sceptical customer. What's the first line that makes them stop reading, and why?"

You'll usually get a sharper answer than asking a friend, because it has no reason to be polite about it.

2. Spot the buying signal

If you keep notes on customer calls or enquiries — even a rough list in a spreadsheet — copy a column of comments in (with names stripped out) and ask:

"Which of these comments sound like a genuine buying signal — someone ready to purchase or asking about price — versus just browsing or complaining? List them in order of how ready they sound."

This is a smaller, DIY version of the audit pattern used throughout this site: check what's actually there before you act on it.

3. Clean up messy phone numbers

Copy a column of phone numbers from a spreadsheet and ask:

"Which of these numbers look wrong — too short, too long, obviously fake, or missing a UK area code? List just the ones that look broken."

Worth knowing what this actually does and doesn't do: it checks whether a number is formatted like a real one, not whether it's still live or answers. That's a different, deeper job — the kind the Working Diagnosis is built to identify properly for your own database.

4. Read my email before I send it

Paste in a reply you're about to send to a customer, especially one you're not quite happy with, and ask:

"Does this read as pushy, defensive, or unclear anywhere? Suggest one change, not a full rewrite."

Asking for "one change, not a full rewrite" is deliberate — it keeps your voice, rather than handing the whole thing over to a machine that's never met your customers.

5. The ten-second sense check

Whatever you're about to send, post, or decide — paste it in and ask, plainly:

"Is there anything here that could be misread, or that a customer might reasonably push back on?"

Not glamorous. Also the single most useful habit in this whole list, because it catches the small mistakes before a real person does.

What this is, and isn't

This is you, poking at a free tool for five minutes. It's not an audit of your actual business, and it won't find the one bottleneck that's really costing you time — that's a different, more careful piece of work, based on your real working day rather than a spreadsheet column. That's what the Working Diagnosis is for.