← Back to all free guides
A free guide by Mariah Brunner ↗ INSTAGRAM ↗ TIKTOK

Tools Die.
Skills Don’t.

AI tools will launch, go viral and disappear for the rest of your career. The people who get burned learned a tool. The people who are fine learned how to communicate with AI.

When a shiny new AI tool launches, people rush to learn its buttons and quirks and build their whole workflow around it. Then the tool shuts down, the pricing changes, or something better comes along, and they’re starting from zero.

Learning a tool is renting. Learning how to communicate with AI is owning. The skill that works in every AI tool is knowing how to give it the right context, structure and instructions. Here are the five parts of that skill.

5 Skills That Never Expire

01

Give context before instructions

AI doesn’t know who you are or why you’re asking unless you tell it, or you’ve set up memory or saved instructions. The biggest upgrade to any output is explaining your situation before you ask for anything.

Cover four things first. Say who you are, who it’s for, what the situation is, and exactly what you need back.

Without context: "Write a proposal for a client."

With context: "I’m a freelance brand strategist. I just had a discovery call with a DTC skincare brand doing $2M a year that wants to reposition for an older demographic. Write a 1-page proposal for a 6-week engagement priced at $8K. The founder is analytical, so lead with market sizing."

The Context Starter
Before you write anything, here's my context. Read it, then ask me up to 3 questions if anything important is missing. WHO I AM: [your role, industry and experience level] WHO THIS IS FOR: [the reader: client, boss, team, customer, and what they care about] THE SITUATION: [what happened, what's at stake, what I've already tried] WHAT I NEED: [the deliverable: email, proposal, plan, post] FORMAT: [length, sections, bullets or paragraphs, e.g. "under 200 words, 3 short paragraphs"] TONE: [e.g. "confident but not aggressive," "casual like a Slack message"] SKIP: [what to leave out, e.g. "no intro paragraph, no jargon, no exclamation points"] MY VOICE (optional, paste 3 to 5 short things I've written): [paste examples] When you write: - Match the voice in my examples: sentence length, formality and the words I use. - Follow the format exactly. If something doesn't fit, tell me instead of stretching it. - Don't invent facts, numbers or names. Use [brackets] where you need something from me.

02

Train it on your voice

Every AI defaults to the same bland, corporate tone. The fix is to show it how you write. Paste 3 to 5 things that sound like you (emails, posts, Slack messages) and say "This is how I write. Match this voice."

Then tell it your sentence length, how formal you are, your personality, and what you never say. "No exclamation points" and "never say leverage" matter as much as anything else.

Default AI: "I hope this email finds you well! I wanted to reach out to touch base regarding the project timeline."

Trained on your voice: "Hey Sarah, quick update. We’re on track for the 15th. The vendor is slow on approvals, so I’m building in a 3-day buffer. If that shifts anything on your end, let me know."

03

Structure what you need

Vague input gets vague output. This is less about "prompt engineering" and more about describing what done looks like before the AI starts. Name the format, the length, the sections, the tone and what to skip.

Unstructured: "Help me write a weekly update for my team."

Structured: "Write a weekly team update with four sections. Wins gets 3 bullets. In Progress gets 3 bullets with percent complete. Blockers only if they exist. Next Week gets the top 3 priorities. Direct and positive, under 250 words. My notes are below."

04

Iterate instead of starting over

Most people see a bad output, scrap it and open a new chat. That’s the slowest way to get what you want. If a coworker’s intro was too long, you’d say "shorten the intro," not "rewrite everything."

  1. "Keep everything except..." protects the good parts.
  2. "This section is too [vague, long, formal]" names the exact problem.
  3. "Rewrite just paragraph 2" fixes one spot without touching the rest.
  4. "Give me 3 versions of the opening line" works when you’re not sure what you want.

Starting over: "That’s not what I wanted. Write me a new email to the client about the delay."

Iterating: "The structure is good but it sounds too apologetic. Make it matter-of-fact. We’re informing them, not groveling. Keep the timeline section exactly as is."

05

Build reusable systems

If you do something more than twice, it should be a system. When a prompt gets a great result, swap the specifics for placeholders ("Sarah" becomes [client name]) and save it somewhere you’ll find it, like a doc, a Claude Project or a ChatGPT Project. Next time you fill in the blanks in 30 seconds.

Start with the ones you repeat most, like weekly updates, client follow-ups, meeting recaps, content drafts and proposals from call notes. Or let AI write the template for you.

Turn This Chat Into A Template
That output was exactly what I needed. Turn this conversation into a reusable prompt template I can use again in any AI tool. STEPS: 1. Look back at everything I asked for in this chat, including the corrections I made along the way ("shorter," "less apologetic," "keep the timeline section"). 2. Write one prompt that would have gotten the final version on the first try. 3. Replace every specific detail (names, dates, numbers, company, topic) with a [bracketed placeholder] that says what goes there. 4. Fold my corrections into the prompt as clear rules. OUTPUT: - A title for the template (e.g. "Client delay email") - The full template in one copy-paste block, with sections for context, task, format, tone and rules - One line on when to use it RULES: - Keep it under 250 words. - Don't mention this conversation or any tool's name inside the template, so it works anywhere.
The Bottom Line

Context, voice, structure, iteration and systems work the same way in every AI tool. They worked two years ago, they work today, and they’ll work on tools that don’t exist yet. When a tool shuts down, people with saved templates move them to the next one and keep going.

Start Today

Pick one skill and use it in your next AI conversation. The gap between "AI doesn’t work for me" and "AI saves me hours" is usually one of these five.