Before You Start

Pick your tool, set it up, lock it down

5 minutes

Step 1: Pick Your Platform

All three major AI assistants will work for this course. Pick whichever one you already have an account on, or whichever sounds most interesting. You can always try another one later.

Claude ChatGPT Gemini
Made by Anthropic OpenAI Google
Free tier Yes Yes Yes
Paid plan $20/mo (Pro) $20/mo (Plus) $20/mo (Advanced)
Best for Writing & analysis, long documents General purpose, image generation Google Workspace users, video & multimodal
Memory ~150K words per conversation ~96K words per conversation ~750K words per conversation

No wrong answers here. They all handle the exercises in this course well.

A note about free vs. paid tiers

Free tiers exist so you can kick the tires. But they run yesterday’s models — slower, less capable, with tighter limits on how much you can do in a conversation. The paid tiers give you the current flagship models, longer conversations, and features like file uploads and deep research that change what’s actually possible.

Think of it this way: if someone handed you a flip phone and asked “is a smartphone useful?” — you’d get the wrong answer. Same thing here. Free tiers will let you follow along, but the paid models are where you’ll start to see why people are excited about these tools. Try one month. Cancel if it’s not worth it.

What Your $20 Actually Buys

Behind the scenes, AI platforms charge by tokens — roughly one token per word. Your $20/month subscription bundles hundreds or thousands of tasks at rates far below what you’d pay individually. Here’s what typical tasks cost at current API rates (March 2026):

Task Claude ChatGPT Gemini
Draft an email ~$0.01 ~$0.01 ~$0.01
Analyze a 10-page document ~$0.09 ~$0.07 ~$0.05
Extended research conversation ~$0.30 ~$0.23 ~$0.16

At those rates, $20 buys you somewhere between 65 and 2,000 tasks per month depending on complexity. Even moderate use pays for itself quickly.

What “memory” means in the table above: Each platform can hold a different amount of text in a single conversation before it starts losing track of earlier parts. For the exercises in this course, all three have more than enough. The differences matter when you’re working with very long documents or extended research sessions — Gemini can hold roughly 5x more context than Claude and 8x more than ChatGPT in a single conversation.

Step 2: Create Your Account

Go to the website for your chosen platform, sign up, and log in. That’s it. No software to install.

Step 3: Protect Your Privacy

Before you type anything, take 30 seconds to adjust your privacy settings. This is good practice regardless of which tool you use.

The short version: AI companies can use your conversations to improve their systems. You can turn this off. You should.

Anthropic does not use your conversations for training by default on paid plans. On the free plan, you can opt out:

  1. Click your name (bottom left)
  2. Go to Settings
  3. Under Privacy, make sure you’re comfortable with the settings shown
  4. You can delete any conversation anytime

By default, OpenAI can use your conversations for training. Turn it off:

  1. Click your profile icon (top right)
  2. Go to Settings → Data Controls
  3. Find “Improve the model for everyone”
  4. Toggle it OFF

Also good to know: Temporary Chat mode (dropdown at the top of a new chat) doesn’t save to history and is never used for training.

Google’s data practices depend on your Google account settings:

  1. Go to myactivity.google.com/product/gemini
  2. You can pause Gemini Apps Activity here
  3. With activity paused, conversations aren’t saved long-term or used for training

Also: If you use a Google Workspace account through your employer, your admin controls these settings.

General rule for all platforms: Don’t paste in passwords, financial account numbers, medical records, or anything you’d be uncomfortable seeing in a data breach. Use hypothetical examples or change identifying details when practicing.

Step 4: Tell It Who You Are

This is the single most impactful thing you can do before starting the exercises. It takes two minutes and makes every conversation better.

You’re going to tell the AI a little about yourself — your name, what you do, and how you prefer to communicate. This means it won’t start every conversation assuming you’re a generic stranger.

  1. Click your name (bottom left) → Settings → Profile
  2. In the User Preferences section, write something like:

My name is [your name]. I work as a [your role]. I prefer clear, direct answers. When explaining something technical, assume I’m a smart person who’s new to the topic, not an expert.

  1. Save.
  1. Click your profile icon → Settings → Personalization → Custom Instructions
  2. In “What would you like ChatGPT to know about you?”:

My name is [your name]. I work as a [your role]. I’m practical and prefer concise answers.

  1. In “How would you like ChatGPT to respond?”:

Be clear and direct. Skip long introductions. If I ask something simple, give me a simple answer.

  1. Save.
  1. Go to gemini.google.com/saved-info (or Settings → Saved info)
  2. Click Add new info
  3. Add entries like:

My name is [your name]. I work as a [your role]. I prefer clear, direct answers without a lot of preamble.

Alternatively, in any Gemini conversation, you can say: “Remember that my name is [name] and I prefer concise answers.”

That’s it. You’re set up. Every exercise from here forward will work better because the AI now knows a little about who it’s talking to.

Ready for your first real exercise? Start Module 1 →