Lesson 1.3 — Types of AI You'll Encounter

Not all AI is the same

"AI" has become an umbrella term that covers a huge range of different technologies. This lesson gives you a quick map so you know what you're dealing with when you encounter different AI tools.

1. Chatbots / Conversational AI

Examples: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Microsoft Copilot

These are the AI tools you'll use most in this course. You type a message, the AI responds. Simple interface, but extraordinarily capable underneath.

You can use them to write, research, summarise, explain, code, plan, and much more. They're general-purpose — like having a very well-read assistant available 24/7.

Best for: Writing, research, explaining concepts, brainstorming, summarising documents

2. Image Generation AI

Examples: DALL-E (built into ChatGPT), Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, Stable Diffusion

Instead of generating text, these AI tools generate images from text descriptions. You type "a watercolour painting of a red fox in a snowy forest" and the AI creates it from scratch.

The quality has become remarkable in the past few years — good enough to be used in professional design, marketing, and art.

Best for: Creating illustrations, concept art, social media images, logos (with some refinement)

3. Voice AI

Examples: Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, ElevenLabs

Voice AI converts speech to text (so you can speak to it), and text to speech (so it can speak back). Some tools, like ElevenLabs, can clone voices with just a few minutes of sample audio.

Best for: Transcription, accessibility, voice interfaces, audio content creation

4. AI-Powered Search

Examples: Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Microsoft Bing AI

Traditional search gives you a list of links. AI-powered search reads those links and gives you a synthesised answer — with citations. Much faster for research.

Best for: Research, fact-checking, getting answers without clicking through ten websites

5. AI in Tools You Already Use

Examples: Microsoft 365 Copilot, Google Workspace AI, Notion AI, Grammarly

AI has been built into many apps you may already use. Microsoft Word can draft documents. Gmail can suggest replies. Notion can summarise your notes. You may already be using AI without realising it.

Best for: Speeding up tasks you already do in existing tools

6. Specialised / Domain-Specific AI

Examples: GitHub Copilot (coding), Harvey (legal), Aidoc (medical imaging)

These AI tools are trained or fine-tuned for specific industries or tasks. They often outperform general-purpose AI in their niche because they've been optimised for it.

Best for: Professional use cases where deep domain expertise matters

The one to focus on first

For this course, we're starting with conversational AI (ChatGPT and Claude) because:

They're free to get started with
They work through a simple chat interface — no learning curve
They're genuinely useful for dozens of everyday tasks right away
Understanding them well makes it easier to pick up other AI tools later

Once you're comfortable with chatbots, everything else clicks into place quickly.

Key takeaway

AI comes in many forms — chatbots, image generators, voice tools, and more. For most people, the highest-value starting point is conversational AI (ChatGPT, Claude) because it's free, easy to use, and immediately useful for real tasks.

Next up: Lesson 1.4 — What AI Is Genuinely Bad At