Just Start Talking: What to Say to AI When You Don't Know Where to Begin

The simplest way for a non-technical beginner to start using ChatGPT or any AI.

You open ChatGPT. Or Claude, or Gemini, or whatever someone told you to try. The box is empty and the cursor blinks at you, patient and a little smug. You know this thing is meant to help. You’ve heard people use it for emails, plans, all sorts. But sitting there with your fingers over the keys, one thought arrives and won’t leave: what am I actually supposed to say?

If you’ve felt that, you’re not slow and you’re not behind. You’ve just hit the one moment almost nobody bothers to explain.

What do you actually type into AI?

Here’s the short version, in case you only read one paragraph. When you don’t know what to type into AI, stop hunting for the perfect prompt. Just start talking. Tell it your situation, say what’s hard about it, and say what you want, the same way you’d explain a problem to a helpful person who knows nothing about you yet.

That’s the whole idea. Everything below is just permission to believe it, and a few lines you can use today.

Why the blank box feels so hard

The blank box feels hard because of a quiet assumption sitting underneath it: that using AI is a technical skill, and there must be some right set of words that unlocks it. So you try to compose the perfect first question, decide you haven’t got one, and close the tab.

Two beliefs usually do the damage. The first is “I’m not a tech person.” The second is “I need to get the first question right.” Both feel completely true from the inside. Both are wrong, and between them they’re the reason the box stays empty.

You already know how to do this

You explain situations to people all the time. You tell the doctor where it hurts and how long it’s been going on. You tell the plumber the tap has been dripping since Tuesday and it’s getting worse. You text a friend the messy background before asking what they’d do.

You never open any of those with a perfectly worded command. You just say what’s going on. Talking to AI works the same way. It’s a conversation with someone capable who happens to know nothing about you yet, so the most useful thing you can do is the thing you already do without thinking: explain.

Just start talking

So that’s the principle, and it’s worth saying plainly: just start talking.

When you’ve got something specific in mind, the natural shape of it tends to look like this:

Here’s my situation: [what’s going on]. The hard part is [what’s tricky]. What I want is [what you’re after]. Where should we start?

That isn’t a formula to memorise or a system with a name. It’s just the ordinary way a person explains a problem out loud. You don’t need all four parts every time, and you don’t need them in order. You’re only telling the AI enough about your world that it can actually help you, instead of guessing.

What this looks like in real life

Say there’s a message you’ve been putting off. A friend has invited you to something and you need to say no without it landing badly.

The thin way to ask, the way most people try first, is a command: “Write a message declining an invitation.” You’ll get something back, and it will be grammatically fine and slightly hollow, the sort of thing nobody actually says out loud.

Now the talking way:

A close friend invited me to her birthday dinner next weekend and I can’t make it. Money’s tight right now and I’d rather not spell that out. I want to say no warmly, so she knows I mean it, without making a big thing of it or sounding like I’m inventing excuses. Can you help me get the tone right?

Same task. Completely different result. The second version hands over the situation, the hard part and what you want, so the reply comes back sounding like a real person who understands the friendship. You didn’t write a clever prompt. You just explained.

Lines you can use right now

If you want to try this today, here are two openers that cover almost anything.

When you roughly know what you need:

I’m trying to [the thing] but I’m not sure where to start. What do you need to know about my situation to help me?

And for the days when even that feels like too much, when you can’t quite put words to what you want, this is the one to keep:

I want help with something but I’m not sure where to start or what you need from me. Ask me a few questions first.

That second line is the floor. It hands the hard part, starting, straight back to the AI. All you have to do is answer a few simple questions about your own life, and you’re the world expert on that.

Where this goes next

The worst first message is the one you never send. A clumsy, honest, half-formed sentence will always beat a perfect one you’re still quietly composing in your head an hour later.

This is the central idea of my first book, Just Start Talking, the opening step in The Simplest Beginner’s Guide to AI. The book takes this single principle and walks it through real life: writing things that sound like you, getting through long documents, thinking a decision through, and knowing when to trust what comes back.

You can find Just Start Talking on Kindle here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0H4M9FHF5