Understanding AI

Map the setup before you build it

One area of your business, what it would need to see, and the whole system on one page before anything is connected.

What you'll walk away with

A prompt that interviews you about one area of your business and draws the map, what it would need to read, work to and reach, and what should come out the other end
A second that reads the map back as the person starting the job tomorrow, so the gaps show up before you build anything
A third that sets up the first piece with you on reading and drafting only, and runs it once on something real

The map takes one sitting, most of it answering questions. Nothing is connected or sent while you make it.

Why It Works

Your AI is only as intelligent as the information you give it access to. Hire the smartest person you can find, give them no inbox, no documents and no idea how you like things done, and every answer they give you is a confident guess. A blank chat asked what you need to do this week is that new hire. The same model with your inbox and calendar in front of it knows which emails need following up, which invoices are outstanding and which meetings need prep, and the only difference is what it can see. Deciding what it can see is a design job, and it is quicker done on paper than by connecting things and finding out.

Step One, Draw The Map

Here from the video? This is the prompt. It asks which AI you use first, because that decides how anything can reach it, then interviews you one question at a time, first for the one area of your business full of admin you do not like doing, then for what a capable new hire would need to do that job well, the specific emails, the documents, the playbooks for how it is done and the logins. It finishes by drawing the system as a diagram you could copy onto paper, with a short list of what to set up first, and it connects nothing, because this part is only the map.

Paste this into your AI

I want to map one area of my business before setting AI up to help with it. I want one page showing the whole system, the job, what it needs to read, the playbooks it works to, what it needs to reach, and what the output looks like. Two rules, and nothing I say later overrides them. This is only a map, so do not connect, change or send anything. Never fill a gap with a guess, ask me, and flag anything touching money, clients or personal information. First ask which AI I use, since that decides how things reach you. Then interview me one question at a time. Start by finding the one area of my business full of admin I do not like doing. Then work out what a capable new hire would need to do that job well, the specific emails, the documents, the playbooks for how it is done and the logins, and ask for real examples, not descriptions. Finish by drawing the map as a diagram I could copy onto paper, the information on the left, how it reaches you in the middle, the output on the right, and listing what to set up first.

Step Two, Read It Back

A map drawn from memory has holes in it, and the cheapest time to find them is before anything is built. This has it walk the map as the person starting the job tomorrow, so anything it would still have to guess becomes a question for you now, and anything out of date goes on a list to fix first.

Paste this once the map is drawn

Walk through the map as if you were starting this job tomorrow. For each thing on it, tell me whether you would actually have it, whether it is current, and what you would still have to guess. Turn every guess into a question for me now, and put anything out of date on a list for me to fix before we build.

Step Three, Build The First Piece

Build one thing from the map, the first on the list, and leave the rest until it works. It stays on reading and drafting, and it runs the job once on something real from this week, so you see what it would have produced before you trust it with the next piece.

Paste this when the map has no gaps left

Set up the first thing on the list with me now, and only that. If it is a playbook, interview me and write it as a file. If it is a login, help me connect it so you can read but not send or change anything. Then run the job once on something real from this week and show me what you would have produced. Send nothing and change nothing.

One Honest Bit

More access is not more accuracy. A folder of out of date documents makes it wrong with more confidence, and every login you hand over is one more thing you then have to think about, which is why the map starts on reading and drafting. I run my whole business on a setup like this and I still do not let it send a single email on its own.

The map is the quick part. The slow part is writing the playbooks, because most of how a business runs has never been written down anywhere, and the map shows you exactly how much of yours lives only in your head.

Where This Goes Next

If you are not sure which area to start with, score the job before you hand it over puts a number on each one. The file that says who you are and how you like things done is the brief, the background it reads is the context, and for the logins, tools are how your AI stops being useless covers which accounts to connect first and the ones I never would.

Want to get better at this?

Let's set up your agent ecosystem.

This page is one job. The whole thing is a set of them running off the same foundation, the folder your AI works out of, the brief on how you like things done, the accounts it can reach and the skills that run off all of it, so your admin gets done the way you would do it. It is what I teach one to one, on your own machine and against your own work, and the quickest way to find out what yours would look like is a proper chat about it.

Book a call Or read about the course first

Not ready for a call? Start with the free agent series, what an AI agent actually is, and build up from there.