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Better Prompts, Less Time Wasted

Gemini now remembers your preferences from Docs all the way into Gmail, Slides and Chat, while Microsoft is quietly stripping the small business admin shortcut out of Teams and Outlook. This issue covers what both changes mean for you, a ten minute prompting refresher that gets sharper results out of any AI tool and an honest review of whether Salesforce Free Suite CRM earns a place in your business.

Prompt Engineer

Most people get mediocre results from AI because they treat it like a search bar. This prompt fixes that in one go: it walks you through giving AI the same context, direction and examples you’d give a new employee, so the writing task you feed it comes back sharper and easier to trust.

Act as a [Insert role, e.g. copywriter / social media manager / marketing advisor] with experience working with UK small businesses in [Insert your industry].

Here’s some context on my business so you understand the goal:

  • What I do: [Insert a one-line description of your business]
  • Who I’m writing for: [Insert your target customer, e.g. local homeowners, other small business owners]
  • What I need: [Insert your task, e.g. write a social media post announcing a summer sale]

Here’s an example of the tone or format I like, so you can match it:
[Paste a short example of writing you like the style of]

Give me three different versions of this, each taking a slightly different angle.

Finally, if any version includes a statistic, date, name or specific claim, flag it clearly so I know to check it before I use it.

AI Updates Roundup

This week’s updates are a reminder that the everyday tools running your business keep shifting in the background.

Overview

  • Google’s Gemini AI assistant now remembers your preferences across more Workspace apps.
  • Microsoft is retiring its small business Admin app from Teams and Outlook.

Google has extended saved custom instructions for its Gemini AI assistant from Docs to Gmail, Sheets, Slides, Drive and Chat, letting settings carry across apps.

  • So what? Your tone and formatting preferences now carry across every Google app automatically. No more repeating yourself in each one.

Microsoft is retiring the simplified Admin app small businesses use in Teams and Outlook, moving basic account management to the full admin centre from October.

  • So what? Quick admin tasks move out of Teams into the main admin centre from October, removing that familiar shortcut.

AI Fluency in 10 Minutes 🧠

AI fluency isn’t about understanding the technology. It’s about knowing how to ask for what you want.

Overview

  • Give AI a role. ‘Act as a copywriter’ sharpens the output instantly.
  • Ask for three options, not one. It’s easier to spot a weak answer when you have something to compare it to.
  • Fact-check anything with numbers or names. AI sounds sure even when it’s wrong.

This will genuinely take 10 minutes. Five shortcuts, one coffee’s worth of time and you’ll prompt AI better than everyone else using it as a search engine.

1. Treat it like a new employee, not a search engine.

A new hire doesn’t know your business on day one. Neither does AI. The more context you give it about your goal, your customer or your industry, the better the result. Vague instructions get vague answers.

2. Give it a job title.

Start prompts with a role: ‘act as a [industry] advisor’ or ‘act as a copywriter’. This single trick narrows the tone and knowledge the tool draws on and instantly sharpens the output.

3. Ask for options, not answers.

AI is confident even when it’s wrong. Instead of asking for one solution, ask for three. Comparing options helps you spot the weak one and trust your own judgement more.

4. Feed it examples.

Show, don’t just tell. If you want a certain writing style or format, paste in an example first. AI is far better at copying a pattern than guessing what you mean by ‘professional tone’.

5. Fact-check anything with numbers or names.

Sometimes AI just makes things up. It’s called a ‘hallucination’ and it happens more often than you’d think. Anything involving statistics, dates or legal detail needs a human check before it goes anywhere near a client.

Quick Review: Salesforce Free Suite ☁️

Salesforce Free Suite is a no-cost CRM built for up to two users, with Agentforce AI features included as standard. It replaces scattered spreadsheets with one organised system, giving turnkey sales, marketing and service tools that set up in minutes, plus built-in AI to draft emails and summarise records.

Key Takeaways

What’s Good ✅:

  • Instant summaries of customer details and recent activity, so you’re not hunting before a call
  • Built-in AI drafts and refines sales, marketing and service emails from your workspace
  • Works as is and stays free indefinitely as long as you log in every 60 days

What’s Less Good ❌:

  • Capped at two users
  • The conversational Employee Agent assistant is reserved for Starter and Pro Suite
  • Worth checking Salesforce’s data handling terms before feeding in sensitive customer records

Impact on Your Business 📈: For a sole trader or very small team, this replaces the spreadsheet or notebook approach to managing customers with a proper system, without the usual CRM price tag. The record summaries and email drafting save the small, repetitive admin tasks that eat into a working day, while giving you a cleaner audit trail of customer interactions.

Financial ROI 💰: The main return here is time rather than cash saved, since there’s no fee to offset. Cutting down the minutes spent piecing together customer history or drafting routine emails adds up quickly across a working week and it delays the point at which you’d need to pay for a CRM at all.

Price Point 💳: Free Suite is completely free with no expiration date, covering up to two users.

Upcoming Events & Conferences 📅

The UK’s largest data, analytics and AI event, packed with practical sessions on AI adoption and governance for technical leads and operators moving from experimentation to execution.

A two-day summit for C-suite executives and AI strategists covering generative AI, automation and governance, better suited to enterprise leaders than tight SME budgets.

Networking 🤝

  • AI SW Live! 🚀
    • Date: 24 September 2026
    • Location: Bristol
    • Cost: See website

An evening of lightning talks, demos and hands-on sessions from the South West’s AI community, best suited to founders and builders who want peer-to-peer learning over formal presentations.

A free investor-connections event pairing UK tech SMEs with funders and scale-up finance experts, best suited to Belfast-based founders exploring growth capital.

A free monthly meetup mixing a technical build talk with practical AI productivity tips, best suited to Bristol-based builders and professionals curious about applying AI day to day.

Training & Skills Development 🎓

A free, jargon-free workshop on six practical AI uses and GDPR-safe habits, best suited to small business owners and sole traders based in South Gloucestershire or Bath & North East Somerset.