What generative AI means, who this course is for, and why using it safely is part of everyday work.
8 min
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Many people now use computer tools that can write an email, summarise a long report, translate a message or draw a picture from a short instruction. These tools are called generative artificial intelligence, or generative AI.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a broad name for computer systems that do tasks we usually connect with human thinking, such as recognising speech, sorting documents or making predictions. Generative AI is the part of AI that creates new content: text, images, audio, video or computer code. You give it an instruction, called a prompt, and it produces an answer, called the output.
Why safety matters
Generative AI can save time. A first draft that took an hour may take five minutes. But the same tools can produce wrong facts in a confident voice, repeat unfair ideas, and keep what you type in places you do not control. A person who pastes a client contract into a free public tool, or sends a report with an invented figure in it, can cause real harm to their company and to other people.
Using AI safely does not mean avoiding it. It means knowing what the tool is, what it is good for, what never goes into it, and checking everything before you use it.