Tried ChatGPT and Got Nonsense? You're Not Alone

By Ross Deane, AI Sidekick

Over the past few months, I’ve had a lot of conversations with business owners who’ve dipped their toe into the world of AI—usually starting with ChatGPT. And more often than not, I hear the same kind of thing: “I gave it a go, but it came back with a load of waffle,” or “It just didn’t sound like me at all.”

If that sounds familiar, you're definitely not the only one. AI tools like ChatGPT can do some impressive things, but they’re not mind readers—and they don’t magically understand your business, your tone of voice, or your audience straight out of the box.

So why is everyone talking about it?

The hype around AI at the moment is hard to miss. It’s being baked into everything from accounting software to email platforms, and it all sounds a bit like the future has arrived. And in a way, it has—these tools really can save time, help with writing, and even deal with repetitive admin tasks.

But there’s a catch. ChatGPT, as clever as it is, isn’t a plug-and-play solution. Left to its own devices, it tends to write like a very polite but slightly clueless intern. You might get something back that looks professional at first glance, but scratch the surface and it often misses the mark—either it doesn’t quite get the tone right, or it goes off on a tangent that has nothing to do with what you actually asked for.

The difference is in the setup

Where most people run into frustration is assuming that AI just “works” straight away. The reality is that to get anything useful out of it, you usually need to feed it some context—things like how your business talks to customers, what sort of problems you’re solving, and what kind of voice you want to come across with.

It’s not that the tool doesn’t work. It just needs a bit of steering, and sometimes a nudge in the right direction.

That’s the sort of thing I help with through AI Sidekick. I don’t just give you access to the tools—I set them up properly, wrap them into something you can actually use in your day-to-day work, and make sure the results sound like you, not like a chatbot on autopilot.

It’s okay not to be an expert

You don’t need to spend hours learning how to “prompt” AI properly or figuring out why it keeps writing like it’s applying for a job at Barclays. The point of these tools is to save you time—not give you another thing to wrestle with.

If you’ve tried AI and been underwhelmed, that’s completely understandable. With a bit of guidance, it really can become a proper time-saver, and something that quietly works in the background without you having to think about it too much.

If you’re curious about what it might be able to do for your business—or you’d just like to see a few examples of how others are using it—feel free to get in touch. I’m always happy to chat.