A beginner-friendly guide
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You do not need to be technical. Begin with what generative AI can do, where it goes wrong and the simple safeguards that keep people in control.
Try the Practice LabThe short explanation
What does generative AI actually do?
Generative AI produces a response by finding patterns in enormous amounts of training material and predicting what is likely to come next. It can organise, draft and explain information remarkably well.
It does not know a person, understand a service or carry professional responsibility. It may leave out crucial context or create a false answer. Treat its output as material to examine, not a decision to accept.
Plain English
Six useful terms
- Artificial intelligence
- A broad term for computer systems designed to perform tasks that usually require human abilities, such as recognising patterns or working with language.
- Generative AI
- AI that creates new text, images, audio or other material in response to instructions. ChatGPT and Gemini are examples.
- Large language model
- A system trained on very large collections of text to predict likely words and produce a response. It does not understand a client or situation as a practitioner does.
- Prompt
- The instruction and context you give an AI tool. A clearer prompt usually produces a more useful answer.
- Hallucination
- An answer that is inaccurate or invented, even though it may be written confidently and sound plausible.
- Multimodal
- A tool that can work with more than text, such as images, audio, documents or video.
What it does well
Use AI as a capable assistant
Good uses have a clear task, non-identifiable information and an answer a person can check.
Often helpful
- Structuring a report or workshop
- Explaining a complex idea in simpler language
- Generating questions and alternative approaches
- Summarising an approved, non-confidential document
- Creating a first draft for human improvement
Poor or unsafe use
- Making a safeguarding or clinical decision
- Processing identifiable case notes in an unapproved tool
- Trusting references without opening them
- Assuming a response is unbiased or complete
- Replacing a practitioner relationship
Common platforms
Different tools, similar responsibilities
Products and policies change. Always check the current privacy terms and your organisation’s approved-use guidance.
ChatGPT
Useful for drafting, explaining, structuring and working conversationally with text, documents and other media.
Google Gemini
A general AI assistant that can be especially convenient alongside Google’s document and productivity tools.
NotebookLM
Works from sources you supply and can help you explore a bounded collection of approved documents.
Claude
A general AI assistant often used for careful drafting, analysis and work with longer documents.
Perplexity
A research-orientated tool that provides linked sources, which still need to be opened and checked.