# Getting started and getting unstuck
The practical bits: which tool and plan to pick, how to get your own files in, and the five-second fixes for when it plays up. Dip in when you hit one of these, you don't need to read it front to back.
## Your first five minutes
**The whole thing is just a website with a text box. You type, it answers. That's it.**
You've never opened one of these. Good. Here's your actual first five minutes, click by click. No jargon, nothing to break.
### Open it (free, in your browser)
Open your normal web browser (Chrome, Safari, Edge, whatever you've got) and go to one of these:
- **chatgpt.com**
- **claude.ai**
- **gemini.google.com**
Pick one. They all do the same job. They're all free to start, and you don't need a credit card.
### Sign up
Click **Sign up**. You'll get two ways in:
- Type your email and make a password, or
- Click **Continue with Google** (or Apple) and you're in with the account you already have.
The Google or Apple button is the quickest. No card needed for the free version.
### Look at the screen. That's the whole thing.
Once you're in, take a breath. There's one big text box near the bottom. That's where you type. That's the entire interface. Honestly.
Two things to know:
- The **paperclip** (or a **+** sign) next to the box adds a file, like a photo or a document off your computer.
- The **send arrow** (or just hit Enter) sends your message.
That's all you need today. Ignore everything else on the screen.
### Type your first thing
Click in the box and type this, word for word:
> Explain what you can help me with, like I've never used this before.
Hit the send arrow. Wait a couple of seconds. Watch it type an answer back.
That's it. You just did the hard part.
### Now just talk to it
Read what came back. If it's not quite what you wanted, you don't start over. You just reply, like you're texting a helpful mate:
> Make it shorter.
> Can you give me an example?
> I didn't understand that bit, say it simpler.
It remembers what you just said, so you build on it. That back and forth IS how you use it.
**That's your first session.** No course, no setup. Type, read, talk back. You're already doing it.
## Make sure it's the real thing
**A genuine AI tool is free to try, easy to find, and never asks for your bank login. If something pushes you to pay to "unlock" it or hand over passwords, it's a scam. Walk away.**
The good news: the real ones are dead easy to reach, and they cost you nothing to start. Here's how to land on the right one.
**Go straight to the source.** Type the address into your browser yourself, or get the app from the official Apple App Store or Google Play. Don't click a link in an email, a text, or an ad shouting "FREE AI" or "claim your AI now". Those links are the whole trick. If a mate or an ad gets you curious, that's grand. Just look the tool up yourself rather than tapping their link.
The big honest ones to know by name: **ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini.** You can start using all three for free, in your browser, no card needed.
**A real AI never asks for these.** If a chatbot or its sign-up ever wants:
- your internet banking login, or a card payment to "verify" or "activate" your AI
- the password to your email, your bank, or any other account
- remote access to your computer to "set it up for you"
...it's a scam, every time. Close the tab. The real tools just ask you to make an account with an email and start typing. That's it.
**Watch the spelling.** Scammers make copycats with names a letter or two off the real thing, and fake apps dressed up to look official. Before you sign up or install, do two quick checks:
- **Who made it?** The real maker's name should be right there (OpenAI for ChatGPT, Anthropic for Claude, Google for Gemini). A no-name maker on an app that claims to be the famous one is a red flag.
- **What do the reviews say?** Loads of reviews over a long time is a good sign. A brand new app with five glowing five-star reviews and a million downloads overnight is not.
**And once you're in, remember the big one:** the AI can be confidently, completely wrong and still sound dead sure of itself. It's a brilliant helper for drafting, explaining, and thinking out loud. It is **not** the place to make a medical, legal, or money decision on its own. Use it to get your head around something, then check anything that actually matters with a real doctor, lawyer, accountant, or your bank.
Get those few things right and you can relax. You're using the real thing.
## Which tool, which plan, which model
**Pick one of the big ones, start on free, and leave the model dropdown alone for now. That's the whole decision.**
Three small choices freeze people at the front door: which app, free or paid, and that scary dropdown of model names. Here's the truth: it barely matters where you start. Pick one and go. You can switch later in an afternoon.
### Which tool
The big general assistants (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini are the usual three) all do the everyday jobs well: drafting, summarising, sorting, rewriting. There's no wrong pick for learning.
- **Just choose one and start.** Open it in your browser, no app needed.
- **A free account is plenty** to learn the moves in this guide.
- **Already pay for one through work?** Use that. Done.
### Which plan
Most people live happily on the middle tier
| Tier | Rough cost | What it's for |
| - | - | - |
| **Free** | Nothing | Learning the moves in this guide. Honestly a long way. |
| **Paid** | About US$20 a month | The upgrade that earns its keep: upload your files, connect your inbox, calendar and tools, and use the better models. This is the one to get when you're ready to wire it into real work. |
| **Top pro tier** | A lot more | Heavy, all-day professional use. You almost certainly don't need it, and you'd know if you did. |
Start free. Move to the paid tier the day you want to connect a real tool or hand it your files, not before. That tool subscription is separate from this guide, optional, and paid to the tool maker.
### Which model (the dropdown)
That list of names looks like a test. It isn't. Three options cover everything:
- **The default.** Use this for almost everything. It's the sensible middle, and it's what you want nine times out of ten.
- **The "thinking" or "reasoning" one.** Switch to it for the hard or important stuff: a tricky plan, a careful analysis, anything you can't afford to get wrong. It's slower because it's actually working it through.
- **The "mini" or "fast" one.** Fine for quick, simple jobs: a snappy rewrite, a fast answer. Don't overthink it.
You can't break anything by picking wrong. Switch mid-chat whenever you like.
> **Just start.** Open any one of them, on the free plan, with the default model, and brief it on one real task. That single move teaches you more than another hour comparing tiers ever will.
## Getting your own stuff in
**The AI can only help with what it can see. Two ways in: upload the file, or just paste the text.**
Look for the paperclip (or a plus) near where you type. Click it, pick your file, done. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini all sit it right there. No paperclip? Open the document, select all, copy, and paste it straight into the chat. Paste works everywhere and it's free.
Worth knowing: on most tools, file upload is a paid-plan feature. Pasting the text isn't. So if the paperclip's locked or greyed out, that's your wallet talking, not a bug. Paste is the free way round it.
When an upload won't go through, it's almost always one of three things:
- **File's too big.** Split it, or just paste the part that actually matters. The AI doesn't need all 80 pages to answer one question.
- **It's a scan or a photo of a document.** To the AI that's a picture, not words, so it can't read a thing. Run it through a tool that does text recognition (OCR) first, or type the key bits in yourself.
- **It's password-protected.** Strip the password off your copy first, then upload.
One habit before you paste or upload anything: take a quick look and pull out what shouldn't leave the building. Bank details, client names, anything private. If in doubt, swap it for "[client]" and carry on.
## When it misbehaves
**Most "this thing is broken" moments aren't bugs. They're five-second fixes nobody told you about. Here's the lot.**
- **The answer stopped halfway.** It didn't crash, it just ran out of room. Type `continue` and it picks up exactly where it left off.
- **It's getting confused and mixing things up.** You've run three different jobs in one chat and the desk's overloaded. One topic per chat. Start a fresh one for the next thing and it sharpens right up.
- **It won't change a picture the way you asked.** Don't re-describe the whole image. Name the one thing to change and tell it to keep everything else the same: "make the sky blue, leave the rest exactly as it is."
- **It "forgets" you between chats.** That's the Memory feature switched off. Turn it on in the tool's settings (look under personalisation) and it'll carry what matters about you from one chat to the next.
