You don't need to become an AI expert to start using AI skills. You need one afternoon and one task you're sick and tired of doing. A skill is a reusable set of instructions and examples that teaches AI how you want a job done, so you stop explaining it from scratch every time.
Help me turn this entire process into a reusable skill for drafting replies to business inquiries. Here is how I handle an inquiry today, in my own words: [paste your voice dictation] Here are the services I offer, with prices where I have set ones: [paste your list of services] Here are replies I've sent before, with private client details removed: [paste 3 example replies] Use the examples to match my voice. Ask me about anything that's unclear. Don't invent prices or promises. If information is missing, ask me. Always give me a draft to review before anything is sent.
More on each tool, with a worked example, in my status report skill guide.
An AI skill is a reusable set of instructions and examples that teaches AI how you want a particular job done. You write it once, and the AI follows the same steps every time. Claude and ChatGPT call these Skills. Microsoft 365 Copilot calls the closest thing an agent.
No. You can talk the task through out loud, paste in a few examples of your past work, and ask the AI to turn it into a skill. In Claude, turn on skill-creator under Customize, Skills and it drafts the skill with you. In Copilot, you describe the agent in plain words.
Yes. Claude has Skills on Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans. First turn on Code execution and file creation under Settings, Capabilities. Your skills then live under Customize, Skills, where you can turn each one on or off and edit it.
No. ChatGPT lists Skills for Business, Enterprise, Healthcare and Edu workspaces. On Free, Go, Plus and Pro, ask ChatGPT to write your process as instructions and paste them into a project's Project settings. Those instructions then apply to every chat inside that project.
Usually because the correction was given in a chat and never saved in the skill. The skill only knows what's written in it. Ask the AI to add the fix to the skill's instructions as a rule, show you the changed lines, and test it again on the same old example.
The two prompts I use to test a new skill against old inquiries and to save every correction into the skill itself. Plus where to check the edit landed in Claude, ChatGPT and Copilot.
Use my business inquiry skill to draft a reply to each of these old inquiries. I've removed private client details. Inquiry 1: [paste] Inquiry 2: [paste] Inquiry 3: [paste] Then check each draft against the skill's own rules and give me a table with one row per inquiry and these columns: service recommended, questions asked, any price or promise that isn't in my services list, tone compared with my examples. Mark anything that breaks a rule. Don't fix the drafts yet.
Here's what was wrong with that draft: [too formal / recommended the wrong service because ... / didn't ask ...] Update the skill's instructions so this doesn't happen again. Write the fix as a rule I'd give a new hire. Show me the exact lines you added or changed, and leave everything else as it is. Then redraft the reply to the same inquiry with the updated skill.
Prompts, step-by-step guides and checklists you can put to work today.