Brief it like a capable new colleague
There is no secret wording for AI. The best way to talk to an agent is the way you would brief a smart, willing colleague on their first week. They are quick and capable, but they have not been in your meetings, do not know your clients and cannot read your mind.
That one picture explains most of what goes wrong. When an answer misses, it is usually because the agent had to guess something you knew and did not say. A new colleague would guess too.
What a new colleague needs from you
- What the job is, and what it is for.
- The background they could not know: who, what happened, where the files are.
- What the finished thing should look like.
- Anything they must not do.
An example
Imagine handing this note to a new starter: "Can you sort out the Henderson thing?" They would have to come back with five questions. Now imagine this one:
Henderson Builders say we overcharged them on invoice 4471. Read the invoice and their email in this chat's files, check the rates against our price list in the Sales team folder, and tell me whether they are right. If they are, draft a short, friendly reply offering a credit.
Same job, but now there is nothing to guess. That is the whole skill. The rest of this course is about doing it quickly and well.
A colleague who runs a team
One difference from a new starter: your agent can hand parts of the job to helpers, called subagents. Think of it this way: instead of working with one person, limited by their brainpower, memory and time in the day, you are working with a manager who has unlimited staff underneath them. So brief it like a manager, and do not be shy about the size of the job.