The Fundamentals of AI: A Practical Guide for Work Today

Most teams are experimenting with AI tools, but very few understand the core principles that make these tools useful. Without those fundamentals, outputs feel inconsistent, results vary, and the value never compounds.

This guide highlights the essential skills that apply across every AI platform. Once you understand these basics, you can work effectively with any model, in any environment.

Miro’s new “Fundamentals of AI” course teaches these skills in about 30 minutes. Register for free.

1. Understand What AI Can and Cannot Do

Before putting AI into your workflow, you need a clear sense of its strengths and limitations.

AI is effective at tasks that involve summarizing, transforming, reorganizing, and generating information. It can help you explore options, accelerate early drafts, interpret unstructured inputs, and restructure ideas.

It is less reliable when information is missing, when the task requires precise factual knowledge, or when instructions are unclear.

Treating AI as a capable assistant, rather than an all-knowing system, creates far better outcomes.

The course provides simple mental models for understanding AI behavior.

2. Identify Work You Can Delegate Confidently

Most knowledge work contains steps that follow predictable patterns. These are ideal to hand off.

Examples include:

• Creating first drafts of plans or documents

• Organizing notes from meetings or research

• Turning scattered ideas into clear structure

• Producing variations or alternative approaches

• Compressing long materials into digestible summaries

• Preparing templates for repeatable workflows

A helpful question is:
Which part of this task is structured or repetitive enough that another person could follow it without much context?

That portion is usually a strong candidate for delegation.

The course includes practical examples of how to spot these opportunities.

3. Provide Clear Instructions and Expectations

Strong outputs come from well-defined inputs.

Good instructions explain the context, the goal, the audience, the format you want, and any constraints the result must follow. The more specific you are, the more consistent the output becomes.

Instead of asking for something broad, break the task into the key elements and state the result you expect. Clarity always improves the outcome, regardless of which tool you are using.

Miro’s course introduces simple frameworks you can apply in any workflow.

4. Review and Refine to Improve Quality

Working with AI is an iterative process. The first version is rarely the best version.

Effective users take a moment to check for clarity, quality, accuracy, structure, and alignment with the goal. When something feels off, they ask for adjustments or alternatives.

A small amount of review and refinement leads to significant gains in precision and usefulness.

The course teaches a short feedback loop to help you improve results quickly.

Bringing It All Together

The fundamentals above are now essential skills for modern work. Once you understand them, you can use any AI tool more effectively and integrate it smoothly into your day-to-day tasks.

These principles apply across platforms, and they help you move from experimentation to reliable, repeatable value.

Miro’s “Fundamentals of AI” course covers everything in about 30 minutes. It is free, practical, and designed for anyone who wants to build confidence with AI. Start here.