The AI Cheatsheet for 2026

🚀 Your First Hour with AI

Don't overthink it. Here's exactly what to do:

Go to claude.ai — Create a free account
Ask it something real — Not "hello", ask it to help with something you're actually working on
Have a conversation — Ask follow-ups, push back, ask for alternatives
Save what works — Copy useful outputs somewhere you'll find them

That's it. You're using AI now.

🧠 The AI Landscape

AI	Best For	My Take
Claude	Writing, analysis, long documents, coding	My daily driver. Best reasoning.
ChatGPT	General tasks, quick answers, browsing	Most popular. Great all-rounder.
Gemini	Google integration, multimodal	Best in Google ecosystem.
Perplexity	Research with sources, fact-checking	Replaced Google for research.
NotebookLM	Document analysis, audio summaries	Upload anything, ask questions.

💡

Bottom line: Start with Claude or ChatGPT. Add Perplexity for research. That covers 90% of use cases.

✍️ Prompting That Actually Works

The 3 Rules

Be specific — "Write a professional email declining a meeting" beats "write an email"
Give context — "I'm a marketing manager at a SaaS startup" changes everything
Show examples — "Here's one I liked: [paste]. Write something similar..."

The Universal Formula

CONTEXT: [Who you are, what you're working on]
TASK: [What you want the AI to do]
FORMAT: [Bullet points, paragraphs, table, etc.]
TONE: [Professional, casual, technical, etc.]

Power Moves

"Act as..."

"Act as a senior PM reviewing this spec"

"Before you answer..."

"Ask me 3 clarifying questions first"

"Give me 5 options"

Don't accept the first output

"What am I missing?"

Ask what you haven't considered

💼 Copy-Paste Prompts for Real Work

Writing — First Draft

Prompt

Write a first draft of [type] about [topic]. Target audience: [who]. Goal: [action]. Length: [short/medium/long]. Tone: [professional/casual].

Email Response

Prompt

Write a reply to this email. Be [professional/friendly/direct]. Keep it under [X] sentences. Here's the email: [paste]

Research Summary

Prompt

I need to understand [topic] for [reason]. Give me: 1) Core concept in 2-3 sentences 2) Why it matters 3) Common misconceptions 4) Where to learn more

Meeting Prep

Prompt

I have a meeting about [topic] with [who]. Help me prepare: 1) Key points to cover 2) Questions to ask 3) Potential objections and how to handle them

Decision Making

Prompt

I'm deciding: [decision]. Context: [background]. Help me: 1) What are the real options? 2) Best/worst case for each? 3) What would I regret not considering?

Brainstorming

Prompt

I need ideas for [project]. Context: [background]. Give me 10 ideas, ranging from safe/obvious to creative/unexpected.

🎨 Creative AI Tools

Images

Midjourney — Best quality, artistic
DALL-E 3 — In ChatGPT, easy to use
Ideogram — Best for text in images

Video

Kling AI — Best motion, most realistic
Runway Gen-3 — Professional quality
Pika — Simple, fast, social content

Audio & Voice

ElevenLabs — Voice cloning, text-to-speech. Scary good.
Suno — AI music generation. Full songs from text.
NotebookLM — Turns documents into podcast-style audio.

⚡ Power User Tips

Get Better Outputs

Iterate, don't restart — Keep refining in the same conversation
Push back — "That's too generic. Make it more specific."
Ask for alternatives — "Give me 3 more options"
Request reasoning — "Walk me through your thinking"

Stay Safe

Don't share secrets — API keys, passwords, confidential data
Verify important facts — AI can be confidently wrong
Check before sending — AI-written content still needs your voice

📱 My Daily AI Stack

Task	Tool	Why
Writing & thinking	Claude	Best reasoning
Quick questions	ChatGPT	Fast, simple stuff
Research	Perplexity	Sources everything
Documents	NotebookLM	Upload, ask questions
Code help	Claude Code	Best coding assistant
Images	Midjourney	Worth the quality
Voice/Audio	ElevenLabs	Unreal voice cloning

🔮 What's Coming

Pay Attention To

Agents — AI that takes actions
Computer use — AI controls your PC
Personalization — AI learns you
Multimodal — Text + images + audio

Ignore For Now

Most "AI wrappers"
AI hardware (pins, glasses)
"AGI is coming" hype

🎯 Your Next Steps

      Pick one AI (Claude or ChatGPT) and use it daily for a week
Replace one Google search per day with Perplexity
Save 3 prompts that work well for you
Tell a friend what you learned

    

The best way to learn AI is to use it. Start today.