Best Practices
Habits that make the Assistant produce better drafts, more accurate answers, and less back-and-forth.
The Assistant is good out of the box, but a few habits will make it noticeably better. None of these require any technical knowledge — they're just ways of asking that tend to produce sharper results.
Start With The Real Goal
Tell the Assistant what you need, who it's for, and any hard constraints right at the start. Vague openers get vague drafts.
Less useful:
Write something about the climate bill.
More useful:
I need a 200-word press statement on the new climate bill for general media. The audience is non-specialist. We support the bill but want to flag concerns about implementation timelines. Avoid technical jargon.
The second version cuts iterations in half.
Add Context Carefully
The Assistant gets better when you share the right source material — and worse when you flood it with everything you have.
Helpful:
- The text of the bill you're commenting on.
- Your party or organization's existing position on the topic.
- A previous statement you want to stay consistent with.
Not helpful:
- A dump of unrelated reports.
- An old draft you've abandoned.
- Notes from a different project.
If something doesn't directly inform this task, leave it out.
Iterate Inside One Conversation
If you're refining the same piece of work, stay in the same conversation. The Assistant remembers what you've said and gets more useful with each round.
A typical iteration pattern:
- "Draft me a first version."
- "Make it shorter and more direct."
- "Now adjust the second paragraph — we want to acknowledge the opposition's point but push back on it."
- "Give me three alternative closing lines."
Each step gets closer to what you want, and you don't lose the thread.
Be Honest About What You Don't Like
When a draft isn't quite right, say specifically what's off — not just "make it better."
Less useful:
This isn't great. Try again.
More useful:
The opening is too defensive. Lead with what we support, then add the concern as a single line near the end.
The Assistant can't read your mind. But it can take precise feedback and act on it.
Switch To A Tool When The Job Is Structured
If you find yourself describing the same task to the Assistant over and over — "transcribe this", "compare these two texts", "clean up this transcript" — check the Tools area. A Tool will usually be faster and gives you a cleaner result.
Don't Trust Blindly
The Assistant is fast and capable, but it isn't infallible. Always check claims, dates, and quotes before publishing. If a draft cites a fact, verify it. If it quotes a politician, confirm the quote. This is true for any AI tool — it's a research and drafting partner, not an authority.
Pick Up Where You Left Off
You don't need to finish a piece of work in one sitting. Come back to the conversation tomorrow, next week, or next month — the thread will be there. This is one of the reasons conversations are kept rather than discarded.