AI Unleashed · Vol. II · IHMC Pensacola · July 23, 2026

You were
in the room.

The Field Guide — plain-English AI for people who run businesses
Most people are still reading headlines about AI. You spent a lunch watching it actually work. This is the part you keep: the prompts, the crash course, and the plan — written in plain English, built to live on your desk, not in a drawer.
Want this on your phone? Text AWESOME to +1 720-730-8806
Everything from today — this packet, the demos, the prompts — also lives at ai-unleashed.pages.dev
Drew Waltrip
AI Systems Architect · Summit Intake Systems
Take it home. Write on it. Put one thing to work this week.
AI Unleashed Vol. II · Institute for Human & Machine Cognition, Pensacola · Hosted with Butcher & Associates
The Field Guide · AI Unleashed Vol. IISteal My Prompts · 1 of 3
Steal My Prompts
Five that work for every business in the room. Paste into ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude (all free in a browser), fill in the teal brackets, go. Your industry's prompts are on the next two pages.
One rule before you paste anything: real customer names, health records, and financial details never go into a free AI tool — use placeholders. The full version of this rule is at the bottom of page 4.

1Make AI interview you first

I need to write [the thing — a proposal, a policy, a hard email]. Before you write anything, ask me the 5 questions that would most improve the result. Ask one at a time and wait for my answer. Then write the draft.
The single biggest upgrade you can make to any prompt. It stops the AI guessing and makes it find out what it doesn't know — about your situation, not a generic one.

2Turn anything into a reusable template

Here is one good example of a document I make over and over: [paste it]. Convert it into a master template. Replace every detail that changes with a [PLACEHOLDER] in brackets. Keep my structure and tone exactly. Then show me the template filled in with one example, and list what you changed.
Russell Martin (ISC) named this exact wish at registration: workflows that are "not always duplicate but similar." One good example becomes the machine that makes the next hundred.

3The FAQ your phone keeps answering

My business is [what you do]. Here are the 10 questions customers call and ask most: [list them]. Write a clear, friendly answer for each, under 75 words. Flag any answer where I need to insert a real number or policy before I use it.
Every answer you write down once is a call your team stops repeating. Put it on your website, your voicemail, your front desk.

4Translate the dense thing

Explain this document to me like I'm a smart business owner with zero background in this field: what it says, what it actually means for me, and the one thing I'd regret not noticing. List every deadline and dollar amount separately at the end. Document: [paste it]
Contracts, carrier bulletins, spec books, government letters. Ten minutes of dread becomes two minutes of clarity.

5Find my 3

Here are the tasks I do every week and roughly how many hours each takes: [list them]. Sort them into three buckets: (1) AI could take this off my plate today with free tools, (2) worth automating with a built system, (3) should stay human. Then give me my top 3 opportunities and where to start on each.
This is literally the agenda for the 30-Minute Game Plan on the back cover. Run it before you book and we skip straight to the build.
The Field Guide · AI Unleashed Vol. IISteal My Prompts · 2 of 3
Find Yours: Money, People & Law
Grouped by who was actually in the room. Find your row, steal your two.
Insurance & Benefits

Turn an SBC into employee answers

Here is the text of a Summary of Benefits and Coverage: [paste SBC text]. Turn it into a 15-question FAQ an employee would actually ask — deductible, copays, "is my doctor covered," "what does this cost me per paycheck" — answered at an 8th-grade reading level. Flag anything the SBC doesn't answer so I know what to confirm with the carrier.
Wil Butcher asked for exactly this — benefits-guide building. This is the first half of that machine.

Renewal review email from a coverage summary

Here is an anonymized summary of a client's current coverage — no names: [paste summary]. Write a renewal-review email: a short recap of what they have, the 2 most likely gaps worth discussing, and a friendly close proposing a quick call to walk through options.
Renewal season at scale — the recap writes itself, you supply the judgment. (Michael, this one's yours.)
CPAs, CFOs & Advisors

Monthly numbers into a client narrative

Here are this month's rounded figures for a client, no names: revenue [X], last month [X], margin [X]%, cash [X], notable items: [list]. Write page-one commentary: a 3-sentence plain-English summary, the 3 drivers behind the change, 2 items to watch next month, and 1 recommended action.
Justin Dansby's world: the numbers take an hour, the narrative is what clients actually read.

Meeting recap + next agenda in one pass

Here are my rough notes from a client meeting — no account numbers or balances: [paste]. Write two things: (1) a warm recap email confirming what we discussed and each action item, (2) a draft agenda for our next meeting built from the open items. Professional but personal.
One pass, two deliverables. Advisors and bankers: firm-approved tools only — always.
Legal

New-matter screening script

I'm a [personal injury] attorney. Write a 10-question phone intake checklist a non-lawyer staffer can follow word-for-word with a potential new client: what happened, when, injuries, treatment so far, insurance, prior attorneys. End with exact wording for two outcomes: schedule a consult, or politely decline and suggest they seek other counsel.
Consistent screening without a lawyer on every first call — the intake pain Ryan Torrens knows well.

Demand letter skeleton

Write a demand letter skeleton for a [type of claim] with a [PLACEHOLDER] for every fact: parties, dates, injuries, treatment, damages, demand amount. Do not invent any facts — if something normally appears in this kind of letter, put a placeholder, not a guess.
Structure from the AI, facts from the file. Real medical records never leave your system.
HR, Staffing & Payroll

The similar-but-not-duplicate document machine

Here is our standard [offer letter / policy / client agreement]: [paste]. Save its structure and tone as a template. Now produce a new version with these particulars: [new details]. Then list every change you made so I can review it in 30 seconds.
Russell Martin's verbatim registration wish, turned into a prompt. The change-list is the trick — review in seconds, not re-reads.

One job, every channel

Here is a job description: [paste]. Produce 4 versions with identical requirements: (1) a full Indeed posting, (2) a LinkedIn post in a human voice, (3) a 2-sentence text to a past candidate, (4) a 30-second phone script for a recruiter. Do not change the requirements — only the packaging.
One JD in, a whole sourcing push out — for the Spherion, Talent Pronto, and Thrive HR corner of the room.
The Field Guide · AI Unleashed Vol. IISteal My Prompts · 3 of 3
Find Yours: Builders, Feeders & Fixers
Nonprofits, trades, real estate, restaurants, healthcare, owner-operators.
Nonprofits & Community Services

Grant narrative first draft

Our mission: [2–3 sentences]. The funder's stated priorities: [paste from the RFP]. Draft a 600-word need-and-impact narrative that mirrors the funder's own language and uses only our real programs: [list them]. Make no claims I haven't given you. Then ask me 5 questions that would strengthen the draft.
The blank page is the worst part of the grant grind. Delete it — for Legal Services, Community Action, Arc Gateway, Habitat.

Bilingual FAQ, one pass

Here are the 8 questions our clients ask most: [list]. Write answers in English and Spanish, side by side, at a 6th-grade reading level — warm and dignified in both languages, no bureaucratic tone.
Understaffed intake plus bilingual clients: one pass covers both windows.
Construction & Trades

Bid invitation, decoded

Here is the text of a bid invitation / spec section: [paste]. Turn it into a checklist: scope of work, due date and time, bond requirements, required submittals — with every hard deadline in bold at the top. Flag anything ambiguous I should ask the GC about.
Nothing buried on page 40 should sink a bid. (Andrea — this one's for the GC table.)

Two-line brief to full proposal

I'm a [trade] contractor. Turn this rough brief into a client-ready proposal: numbered scope of work, assumptions and exclusions, timeline, and my payment terms of [your terms]. Brief: [e.g. "panel upgrade + 6 can lights, 2nd floor, older home, ~2 days"]
The two lines in your head become the document the client signs — Ruby Electric, Greater Roofing, this is the one.
Real Estate

What changed in this market report

Here is last month's market report: [paste]. Here is today's: [paste]. Tell me ONLY what changed, in 5 bullets max — each bullet a number and what it means for my clients. Skip everything that stayed the same.
Kylle Shoemaker asked for exactly this — the market updates piling up in email. Reports are fine to paste; client deal terms never are.

Listing description from bullet points

Write 3 versions of a listing description from these facts only: [beds/baths/sf, features, area]. V1: MLS-formal. V2: social post with personality. V3: a 2-sentence text to a buyer who's been waiting for this kind of property. Do not invent features I didn't list.
Three audiences, one set of facts, zero invented square footage.
Restaurants & Food

Voicemails into an order sheet

Below are transcripts of overnight voicemails from wholesale accounts (my phone transcribes them for me). Build an order table: Account | Product | Quantity | Delivery day | Flagged — mark anything unclear. Transcripts: [paste]
The Damian's crew knows the 7 a.m. voicemail grind. This turns an hour of replays into a five-minute check.

Review replies in the house voice

Here are 3 review replies we've written that sound like us: [paste]. Learn the voice. Now reply to this new review in that same voice — under 4 sentences, thank them, never defensive, sound like a person: [paste review]
The Grand Marlin's voice, kept consistent even on a slammed Saturday.
Medical & Dental

Patient instructions a patient can follow

Rewrite these post-visit instructions at a 6th-grade reading level — this is generic text, no patient info: [paste]. Add a "normal vs. call us" section and the top 3 questions patients usually ask, with answers. Keep it to one page.
Fewer confused callbacks, safer patients — and PHI-free by design: nothing about a specific patient ever goes in.

Insurance appeal letter template

Write an appeal letter template for a denied [procedure type] claim, with a [PLACEHOLDER] for every specific: patient, dates, codes, clinical justification. I will insert all real details in my own system — include no example patient data.
The structure is 80% of the letter. Your billing team fills the protected 20% inside your own walls.
Owner-Operators

Shoebox to spreadsheet

Here is a raw list of business expenses typed off receipts — date, vendor, amount, what it was: [paste]. Build a categorized table (fuel, parts, insurance, meals, other), add totals per category, and flag anything odd or possibly duplicated. Make it paste-ready for my accountant's spreadsheet.
William Fletcher wrote one word on his registration: "Accounting." This is that word, handled.
The data boundary, in full: real customer names, health records, and financial details never go into a free AI tool — use placeholders. Healthcare: that's a BAA requirement, not a suggestion. Advisors and bankers: firm-approved tools only. Templates and placeholders are always safe — that's the data boundary.
The Field Guide · AI Unleashed Vol. IIHow This Actually Works · 1 of 3
How This Actually Works
The crash course. No math, no hype — just the five ideas that make everything else make sense.

1What an AI model actually is

An AI model is a computer program that read a giant slice of the internet — books, websites, manuals, millions of conversations — and got extremely good at one game: guess the next word. That's the whole trick. No feelings, no plans, no magic. But it turns out that when you're scary-good at "guess the next word," you can draft emails, summarize contracts, and answer questions — because all of those are just words in a sensible order.

Think of it as: an employee who has read everything and remembers most of it. Brilliant, tireless, instant — and occasionally confidently wrong. That last part is why you always check the stuff that matters (page 9 covers this).

2The context window — its short-term memory

The context window is everything the AI can "see" right now: your message, the document you pasted, the conversation so far. That's it. Two big things follow from this one fact:

The fix is simple: start a fresh chat for each new task, and re-paste whatever matters. Old chats don't carry over — and that's fine, because on page 7 you'll set things up so every new chat starts smart anyway.

3Tokens — the meter it runs on

AI reads and writes in tokens — chunks of words, roughly three-quarters of a word each. Every AI tool measures, limits, and charges by tokens, which is why free tiers cap how much you can do in a day, not how smart the answers are.

One line to remember: a token is a piece of a word, and it's the meter the taxi runs on. Long documents in, long answers out — the meter ticks either way.

Why these three matter together

Once you know the AI is a next-word machine (1) that can only see what's in the chat (2) and meters everything by tokens (3), most "AI is being weird" moments stop being mysterious: it guessed because you didn't brief it, it forgot because the chat ran long, it cut you off because the meter hit the free-tier cap. The next two pages turn each of those into a habit that fixes it.

The Field Guide · AI Unleashed Vol. IIHow This Actually Works · 2 of 3

4What a .md file is — and why AI loves it

A .md file ("Markdown") is just a plain text file with a few simple symbols for structure: # makes a heading, - makes a bullet, **stars** make bold. You can create one in Notepad. Why should a business owner care? Because AI reads Markdown perfectly — no fonts, no columns, no invisible Word formatting junk. Just clean structure it can't misread.

The move: keep your key business facts — services, prices, policies, how you like to sound — in one plain text file. When you start a chat, paste it in. Now the AI knows your business, every time, in ten seconds. Here's the whole starter file:

# About My Business We are [name], a [what you do] in [city]. [N] employees. Our customers are [who they are]. ## What we sell - [service 1] — [what it includes] - [service 2] — [what it includes] ## How we sound - Friendly, direct, plain English. No corporate filler. ## Policies the AI should know - [hours, service area, guarantees, what we don't do]

Save it as mybusiness.md (or even .txt — the point is plain text, not the extension). Update it when your business changes. This one file makes every prompt in this packet better.

5Prompt engineering that actually works

"Prompt engineering" is a fancy phrase for a plain skill: briefing the AI the way you'd brief a good new hire. Four rules cover 90% of it:

  1. Be specific. Vague in, vague out. Not "write a follow-up email" — instead: "Write a follow-up to a customer who got a quote 8 days ago and went quiet. Friendly, under 4 sentences, one easy question at the end."
  2. Give it an example. "Write it like this one:" plus a paste is the strongest trick in this packet. The AI copies a pattern far better than it follows a description of one.
  3. Tell it who it is. "You are an experienced benefits advisor" or "You are a construction estimator." You're pointing it at the right shelf of everything it has read.
  4. Tell it who you are. "I run a 6-person roofing company in Pensacola. My customers are homeowners, not builders." Now every answer comes back fitted to you instead of generic.
The Field Guide · AI Unleashed Vol. IIHow This Actually Works · 3 of 3

Common adds to a prompt — bolt any of these onto anything

"Ask me 5 questions before you answer."Turns the AI from a guesser into an interviewer. Use it on anything important.
"Give me 3 versions."You're better at picking than describing. Choose one, or say "mix 1 and 3."
"Tell me what you changed."A 30-second review instead of a full re-read. Non-negotiable on documents.
"Flag anything I should verify."Makes it point at its own shaky spots — names, numbers, laws, dates.
"Keep my exact structure, change only X."Stops it "helpfully" rewriting your whole document when you wanted one fix.
"Explain it like I'm new to this."The jargon-killer. Works on legal, medical, technical — anything dense.

6Pre-set directives — set it once, every chat starts smart

Every major AI tool has a place for standing instructions — text the AI reads before every single conversation. ChatGPT calls it Custom Instructions. Claude calls it Projects. Gemini calls it Saved Info. Different names, same idea: write who you are, what your business does, and how you like output once, and you never start from zero again.

The difference it makes: without it, every chat is a brand-new temp on day one. With it, every chat is an assistant who's been with you a year.

Copy this, fill in the brackets, paste it into whichever tool you use:

I'm [name], owner of [business], a [what you do] in [city] with [N] employees. Our customers are [who]. When I ask for writing: keep it short, plain English, no corporate filler, no exclamation points. When my request is vague, ask me up to 3 questions before answering. When the topic is money, legal, or medical: flag anything I should verify before I rely on it. Never use real customer names in examples — placeholders only.

Where it goes: ChatGPT → Settings → Personalization → Custom Instructions · Claude → create a Project, paste into its instructions · Gemini → Settings → Saved Info. Two minutes, pays forever.

The full setup, stacked

Pre-set directive (written once) + your .md file (pasted when it's relevant) + a common add (bolted onto the prompt) — that's the whole system. It takes under twenty minutes to build, and it's the difference between "I tried ChatGPT once" and actually using this the way the people on that stage do.

The Field Guide · AI Unleashed Vol. IIThe Plan
This Week. This Month. This Quarter.
Every line is an action with a checkbox. If you only do the first three, you're still ahead of most of your competitors.
This week — free, nothing to sign up for beyond a free account
This month — habits and presets
This quarter — systems (where builders come in)

The one-sentence version

Learn the five ideas, steal your prompts, set your presets, count one real number — then automate only what that number justifies, on tools you can leave. That's the entire method; everything above is just the checklist.

The Field Guide · AI Unleashed Vol. IIThe Terms & The Truth
Eighteen Words That Cover It
Plain English, one line each. Enough to hold your own in any AI conversation.
AI model — the "brain": a program that learned from a huge pile of text to predict the next word — well enough to draft, summarize, and answer.
Prompt — whatever you type to the AI. Better brief, better work.
Context window — the AI's short-term memory. What's in the chat is all it can see.
Token — a chunk of a word (about ¾ of one). How usage is measured, limited, and billed.
Hallucination — when AI states something false with total confidence. Verify anything that matters.
Markdown (.md) — plain text with # headings and - bullets. The cleanest format an AI can read.
Pre-set directive — standing instructions (Custom Instructions / Projects / Saved Info) the AI reads before every chat.
Template — a document with [PLACEHOLDERS] instead of real details. The safe, reusable version of anything.
AI assistant — the general chat tools: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini. All have real free tiers.
Automation — a task that runs on rules you set once, with no person touching it.
Integration — two systems talking automatically: phone → calendar → customer list.
CRM — the software that tracks your customers and leads. Where automation plugs in.
Missed-call text-back — an automatic text to a caller you missed, before they dial your competitor.
Voice agent — AI that answers the actual phone, not just a chat box.
Training data — what a model learned from. What you type into free tools can become it — hence the one rule.
PII / PHI — details that identify a person: names, health records, financials. Keep them out of free tools.
BAA — the signed agreement healthcare businesses need before AI touches patient data. Free tools don't offer one.
Vendor lock-in — stuck with one tool because leaving means rebuilding. Build swappable (see below).
Fears, Straight Answers
The five real ones. No cheerleading.

"Will AI take my job — or my people's jobs?"

It takes over tasks, not judgment — and in small business the shortage is time, not work. Everyone in that room has more work than people; the realistic outcome is your team doing higher-value work, not an empty office.

"It makes things up."

True — it's called hallucination, and it never fully goes to zero. That's why the working rule is: AI drafts, a human signs. Nothing important goes out without your eyes on it.

"Is my data safe?"

Not by default in free tools — what you type can be kept and learned from. Placeholders in free tools; real data only in tools with a signed agreement (in healthcare, that's a BAA — required, not optional).

"This is going to get expensive."

The cost of running a comparable AI query dropped over 280x in about 18 months, and it's still falling. Price isn't the trap — the next fear is.

"What if I get locked in?"

A real risk, and a manageable one: keep your data exportable, and build on systems where the AI underneath can be swapped as better, cheaper models ship. Ask any vendor "how do I leave?" before you sign — a good one answers happily.

The next 30 minutes are on me

Book your
30-Minute Game Plan.

No pitch deck. No pressure.
Bring your "Find my 3" results from page 2, and we'll map where AI actually pays you back — and where it honestly isn't worth it yet. Sometimes the answer is "not yet." I'll tell you either way.
Scan to book your 30-Minute Game Plan
Scan it, or book directly at calendly.com/andrewaltrip/30min
30 minutes · your numbers, your call · walk away with a written next step either way
Text AWESOME to +1 720-730-8806
for the digital version of everything — this packet, the demos, the prompts, on your phone. Or grab it all anytime at ai-unleashed.pages.dev
Text WATSON to the same number
and an AI assistant — the kind of system we build — will answer you itself. Kick the tires.
Drew Waltrip
AI Systems Architect · Summit Intake Systems
summit-intake.com · drew@summit-intake.com
Thanks for spending your lunch with us. Now go put one thing to work this week.