Lessons / Intermediate

Give it a decision rule

The fastest way to make an AI assistant feel like a partner instead of a tool: give it a decision rule, so it stops asking you trivial either/or questions and just makes the call.

A simple, powerful one is Quality > Speed > Cost — when a choice comes up while it's working for you, it ranks the options by that and picks, telling you what it chose and why. You only get pulled in for genuine judgment calls.

Try it now

Hand it your ranking explicitly:

From now on, when a choice comes up while you're working for me, rank it Quality > Speed > Cost. If that ranking gives a clear answer, just make the call and tell me what you chose and why — don't ask me. Only ask when it's a real judgment call. Remember this.

Then give it a task with an embedded either/or and watch it decide instead of stopping to ask.

You've got it when…

On an ambiguous task, it made a settled call and stated its reasoning — instead of handing the decision back to you. That's the difference between a tool and a teammate.