A Guide to Collaborating With ChatGPT for Work

Imagine what you could accomplish if you had a team of colleagues you could lean on whenever you had to tackle a task that wasn’t in your wheelhouse, or whenever you got stuck, or whenever you needed a piece of information that wasn’t at your fingertips. And imagine if those colleagues were available whenever you needed them—and replied instantly!

Well, those colleagues are now here, in the form of generative AIs that will be embedded into more of our work environment over the coming months and years. Give them prompts about what you want, and they will retrieve information, draft documents, create images or even write computer code.

As of now, AI collaborators are most readily accessible in the form of image-generation tools like MidJourney and DALL-E, text-generation tools like ChatGPT (which can produce everything from essays to data tables, and is especially powerful if you spring for access to the latest model, GPT-4), and Bing’s new chat-basedweb searching. (OpenAI’s GPT is the “large-language model” under the hood of both Bing and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.) Also, Microsoft and Google have both announced that generative AI will soon be embedded in tools like Google Docs, Microsoft Word, Teams and Google Meet, as it will be in many other products in the coming months and years. And generative AI is evolving so quickly that the capabilities of a given system may change from one week to the next.

I’ve helped organizations develop and use digital collaboration tools for more than 25 years, and have long used AI as part of my data-analysis work, but there’s something different about generative AI. Traditional search engines and word processors were tools, and a tool has to adapt to you. If you don’t like how it works, you have to choose a different tool.

But working with generative AI feels a lot more like working with another human. And you can only do your best work as a team if you adapt to one another, learning to make the most of your respective strengths, and to mitigate one another’s weaknesses.

Here’s how to get the best out of these new collegial relationships.

Imagine you’re working with a junior colleague

Start your work with AIs just the way you would start out working with somebody with less experience: Give them small assignments, get a feel for their strengths and limitations, and then gradually scale up. Start with something really low-stakes. My own explorations of GPT began with asking it to write silly poems and stories—a project with zero professional risk.

Figure out where you need help.

Once you’re ready to try your new collaborators on actual work assignments, think about where it is you could really use some support. What are the tasks you currently delegate to or rely on a colleague to deliver? What are the tasks you wish you had colleagues to help with?

For example, I would love to have an assistant who could reformat invoices to meet the requirements of our records-keeping system. Alas, I don’t have one. But I realized I could feed a table of data to GPT (along with one sample invoice), and get the info back as a series of identically structured invoices.

Get specific

Like a junior colleague, your AI collaborators benefit from getting really specific assignments and instructions: A prompt like “Help me think about my Acme presentation” would be too vague for a freshly hired human—and it is too vague for an AI, too. You’ll get better results with a prompt like, “Please outline the 5 key points for my Acme presentation, by combining this outline from my recent SmithCo presentation with the key insights in this page from Acme’s latest corporate report.” (Since there’s a limit on how long your prompts can be, you may need to paste this in over a couple of prompts, but you can tell an AI to “stand by” while you feed it information and then provide its answer when you finish your final input with a note like “Provide a draft now.”)

Provide feedback

As you start working together, give your AI colleagues feedback on how they are doing, just as you would a human. If you don’t get the results you want from your initial prompt, follow up with a comment like, “That was good, but make it shorter,” or “that is the right length, but incorporate a point about climate change, and write in a voice like the following example.”

Experiment with adding follow-up instructions until you get the results you want—but be aware that the next time you start a new chat session, ChatGPT will be learning your preferences from scratch. (Which is why it’s often more useful to resume a previous chat session by finding it in the session history ChatGPT displays in a sidebar.)

Treat AI like a nonjudgmental colleague

Sometimes I have a grab bag of ideas I can’t quite mash into a coherent article, or a charming turn of phrase I can’t bear to give up—or figure out how to use. So now I treat ChatGPT as a kind of creative sounding board: I’ll take a half-baked set of ideas and notes, and an unsuccessful or partial draft of an article or proposal, and say, “Rewrite this draft, incorporating the following ideas.” (You can also paste draft text into ChatGPT and ask it to correct or improve your writing.)

Seeing a draft instantly lets me think about what does or doesn’t work, and allows me to fine-tune and iterate multiple drafts over the course of minutes instead of days. It is like having a nonjudgmental colleague accelerate my writing process.

Get a reality check

You can also ask an AI colleague to let you know if you should give up on something. I recently spent the better part of an evening searching the web for some data that I just couldn’t find anywhere. Finally, it occurred to me to ask my Bing AI if it could find what I was looking for. After I asked for the data a few different ways, it told me that the data just didn’t exist. That saved me a lot of wasted time.

Be skeptical

I recently asked ChatGPT to create a spreadsheet for me with three columns of financial data. Within seconds, it spat out a perfectly formatted set of columns ready for me to copy into a spreadsheet for analysis. Just as I was about to hit copy-paste, though, it occurred to me to cross-check the financial figures. Sure enough, the numbers were completely invented: Because (unlike Bing Chat) ChatGPT wasn’t hooked up to a live internet feed, it didn’t actually have access to the data I wanted, so it just injected some random numbers instead.

Know when you need a human

To recognize the stages of work where your AI colleagues can be helpful, you also need to know when it is time for you to take over, or pass the baton to a human colleague. For all that AI helps me get my stories off the ground, it still can’t get me through the last mile like a human editor or my own eyes. I gave GPT-4 a half-dozen chances to edit my 1,727-word first draft of this article down to something like my 1,100-word assignment, but it just couldn’t get the feel for which elements were essential—or for what we could live without.

For years, Australian interiors have been ruled by restraint. Pale palettes, clean lines and an almost reverential devotion to minimalism dominated living rooms and bedrooms alike. In 2026, that aesthetic is finally softening.

Designers are responding to a cultural shift that favours comfort and emotional connection over perfection. Homes are becoming warmer, more layered and more expressive, reflecting a growing desire for spaces that feel restorative rather than simply impressive. The new look is not about excess, but about depth.

Colour plays a central role in this evolution. Cool whites and greys are giving way to warmer, earth-based tones such as sandstone, oatmeal and soft mushroom, often lifted with muted greens or gentle spice notes. The effect is grounding and quietly sophisticated, creating interiors that feel calm without tipping into blandness.

Texture matters just as much. Natural materials, tactile fabrics and layered finishes are being used to add softness and movement to rooms that once relied on sharp contrasts. Raw timbers, stone and linen sit alongside more refined details, striking a balance between polish and authenticity. This look feels considered without being clinical.

Diana Altiparmakova, Head of Product and Marketing for Luxaflex Window Fashions, recognises that this movement toward layered softness marks a distinct shift from 2025.

“Last year’s approach leaned into minimalism and simplicity, but 2026 expands into a more expressive and sensory direction as designers and homeowners are favouring depth, tactility and warmer tones to create environments that feel cocooning and emotionally supportive,” she said.

“No longer just a practical addition, window coverings are also helping shape this design evolution by enhancing comfort, mood and individuality within the home.

“Window coverings in 2026 aren’t just about blocking light or adding privacy, they’re about shaping atmosphere, improving comfort and supporting wellbeing.

“Often seen as the finishing touch to a home’s overall design, the right window coverings can elevate a room, creating depth and warmth, while providing functionality tailored to the homeowner’s individual needs.”

Light has become a defining feature of how homes are designed and lived in. Rather than flooding interiors indiscriminately, there is a growing emphasis on controlling and filtering natural light to suit different moments of the day. Window treatments are no longer treated as an afterthought but as part of a space’s architectural language, shaping mood as much as function.

Technology is quietly supporting this shift. Automation is being embraced not for novelty, but for ease. The ability to adjust light and privacy seamlessly throughout the day speaks to a broader desire for homes that work intuitively around daily life, rather than demanding attention.

In particular, across regional and coastal homes, softer interpretations of farmhouse and coastal styles are emerging. These interiors lean into relaxed elegance, using filtered daylight, natural textures and unfussy forms to create spaces that feel timeless rather than trend-led. Fabric-forward window dressings, in particular, are used to soften hard architectural elements and create a sense of ease.

What defines this new design direction is not a single look, but a mindset. In a world that feels increasingly loud and accelerated, the modern Australian home is being reshaped as a place of retreat. Beauty still matters, but so does comfort, warmth and emotional resonance.

Minimalism is not disappearing. It is simply growing up.