Blog Engaging With AI: How to Communicate With AI to Get the Most Out of It
By Insight Editor / 5 Jun 2025 / Topics: Data and AI Digital transformation Generative AI
When it comes to AI, success isn’t just about having access to the most powerful models. It’s about learning how to communicate with them effectively.
Organizations typically interact with AI models in three ways: creating, adapting, and consuming them. Understanding these paths is critical to mastering how people engage with AI tools.
Creating models
Building AI models from scratch is an enormous undertaking. It requires vast swaths of data — trillions of data points — that must be curated, cleaned, and structured. Teams of data scientists, architects, and engineers work with enormous compute and storage resources to make this possible. Leading organizations like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic invest heavily in creating foundational models on which the rest of us can build.
Adapting models
Adaptation happens in two primary ways. First, by augmenting prompts with an organization’s specific knowledge base, we can teach AI to respond with more relevant and accurate information. Second, for more advanced needs, organizations use fine-tuning.
Fine-tuning adjusts a model’s parameters to teach new tasks without requiring complex or lengthy prompts. This approach enables businesses to “teach” AI to create new types of outputs more efficiently, such as customized marketing materials.
Consuming models
Most people and businesses primarily interact with AI through consumption, using pretrained models like OpenAI’s language models, Microsoft Copilot, Adobe Firefly, or Salesforce’s AI integrations. Here, the art of prompt engineering becomes essential. How you structure your questions, inputs, and interactions matters.
Why communication matters
The most challenging part of consuming AI isn’t using the AI technology itself. It’s learning how to best communicate with it. Successful communication with AI is about:
- Providing clear, structured prompts
- Embedding necessary context or reference material when needed
- Iterating and refining instructions based on output
- Understanding that AI tools will also impact internal workflows, requiring change management and education
Adopting AI tools means adopting new ways of thinking and interacting. It demands new skills, not just technical but conversational as well. Just as you train a new team member, you must “train” your prompts and communication styles to get the best results from AI.
The new skillset: AI communication
As AI becomes integrated into everything from creative workflows to customer support systems, mastering the art of communication with AI isn’t optional. It’s a competitive advantage.
Getting the most out of AI starts with a simple question: How clearly and effectively can you tell it what you need?
