Hi! I'm Alastair

Creating a new training course module can be a long process - from brainstorming concepts to developing a structured outline - and that's before you even record the video! To create a high quality outline, the planning section often requires hours of an expert's time. But what if you could create a detailed outline - and a good one at that - for a complete training module in under an hour? That’s what we achieved when I partnered with a training consultant to use AI in enhancing her...

RAG is the “killer app” of AI. Or, at least, it’s the killer app of AI for 2024 ➡️ AI Agents will be the killer app of AI in 2025 and beyond. Watch this space… Back to RAG - it’s not a specific app. It’s a technique we use with AI that’s simple but incredible effective: we combine a language model with your own documents and data. Here’s how it works: you have a repository of your own data - your documents, records, or files. RAG enables the language model to access and read these documents,...

I've been focused on writing my book and I wanted to give you a sneak preview at some of the content. The book is a mix of it is high level, strategic advice, and some very practical "how-to" content on working with AI. I finally got my first "author proof" copy This following is an excerpt from one of the practically-focused sections. It's about prompting, i.e. how to talk to the AI and get the results you need. When it comes to working with computers, you’ve probably heard the phrase...

I recently asked for feedback on three potential covers for my upcoming book “The AI-Powered Thought Leader”. I received 57 responses in 24 hours. Thank you to everyone who replied, and so quickly, I deeply appreciate all your feedback. Being a heavy AI user, I used AI to collate and analyse the data. I wanted to highlighting key insights and contradictions in the feedback. This is Part 1, where I outline the cover options, feedback, and show the analysis. I used ChatGPT and Claude to process...

I understand when someone says "AI is totally overrated". They are fundamentally mistaken. But I understand why they say it. It's very easy to try some of the popular tools like ChatGPT or Gemini, play with them for 15 or 20 minutes, get terrible output, and come to the conclusion that "AI simply isn't all it's cracked up to be". Like any tool, how well AI works depends a lot on how you use it. Basic prompts often give you basic results. To really see what AI can do, you need to learn how to...