Your Business Brief: Teach AI About Your Company Once

Every time you open a new AI chat, it knows nothing about you. Not your name, not what you sell, not that you never say "cheap" or that you stopped taking cash. So every time, you explain it all again, or you skip the explanation and get a draft that sounds like somebody else's business. By the third email of the day, you have typed your own hours into a chat window more times than you have said them out loud.

The fix is a Business Brief: a short, reusable block of text that describes your company the way AI needs to hear it. You write it once, keep it somewhere handy, and paste it in front of your prompts. The rest of this course builds on it, so this is the most useful half hour you will spend in this module.

The template

Use this exact structure. Later lessons will refer to each line by name.

BUSINESS BRIEF
Business: [name], [what you sell], [where you are]
Customers: [who buys from you and why they choose you]
Voice: [three words for how you sound], [phrases you use], [phrases you never use]
Details customers can know: [hours, public prices, booking, delivery, returns]
Never: [things AI must never promise, claim or say]

Five lines. Each one does a specific job.

Business tells AI what world it is writing in. Be concrete: "mobile dog grooming" is better than "pet services."

Customers tells it who is reading. Include why people choose you, because that is what your writing should keep reinforcing.

Voice is what makes the output sound like you. Three plain words for your tone, a few phrases you genuinely use, and the phrases that make you wince.

Details customers can know is the public information AI is allowed to use. This is the line that stops it from inventing your hours or your return policy.

Never is your safety line. Promises you cannot keep, claims you cannot back up, topics you do not discuss. AI tends to fill gaps with confident guesses, and this line fences off the most dangerous ones.

Worked example: a mobile dog groomer

Keisha runs a one-van mobile grooming business. Here is her brief, filled in:

BUSINESS BRIEF
Business: Suds on Wheels, mobile dog grooming (bath, haircut,
nails, ears) done in our van in your driveway, serving the east
side of the city and nearby suburbs
Customers: busy dog owners, older owners who can't easily drive
to a salon, and anxious or senior dogs who do better without a
crowded shop. They choose us because it is one-on-one, calm, and
they don't have to leave home.
Voice: warm, calm, straightforward. Phrases I use: "your pup",
"see you in the driveway", "we'll take it slow". Phrases I never
use: "fur baby", "pawsome", "luxury spa experience", anything
with lots of exclamation marks.
Details customers can know: Tuesday to Saturday, 8am to 5pm.
Booking by text or through the booking link on our website.
Full groom starts at the price listed on our website; final
price depends on size and coat condition and is confirmed before
we start. 48 hours' notice to cancel or reschedule.
Never: promise a same-day appointment; quote a final price
without seeing the dog; give medical advice about skin, ears, or
lumps (always say "please check with your vet"); claim we are
certified in anything; say we can groom aggressive dogs.

Now watch it work. Keisha pastes the brief, then adds a short task using the formula from the last lesson:

[PASTE BUSINESS BRIEF]

Using the brief above, write a reply to this text message.
Under 60 words. Friendly, plain.
If you need a detail that is not in the brief, write
[DETAIL NEEDED] instead of guessing.

Message: "Hi, can you come today? My dog has a weird red patch
on his ear too, can you look at it?"

Because the brief says no same-day promises and no medical advice, the draft politely offers the next available slot, suggests a vet visit for the red patch, and uses her real booking method. Without the brief, a typical draft might happily agree to "this afternoon" and guess at what the patch could be. Keisha still reads the reply before sending, and she fills in the actual next opening from her calendar. The brief narrows the mistakes; it does not remove the need to check.

Tips for writing a good brief

Keep it short. Five tight lines beat a company history. Details you care about get lost in a full page.

Only include what is true right now. An out-of-date brief is worse than none, because AI will repeat the old details with total confidence. Update it the day anything changes.

Point to public prices rather than listing them all, unless you only have a few. That keeps AI from quoting a number you changed last month.

Write the Never line from real mistakes. What has someone said on your behalf that you had to walk back? Those belong here.

Where to keep it

The simplest method works for everyone: save the brief as a note on your computer or phone. When you start a new chat, paste the brief first, then your request.

Many AI tools also offer a way to save standing instructions or background information so you do not have to paste it every time. Depending on the tool, this may be a custom-instructions setting, a saved profile, or a project or workspace where you can store reference material. The names and locations change as the tools update, so look through your tool's settings or help pages for something along those lines. If you use one of these features, keep your master copy in your own note too, so you can move between tools and always know exactly what the AI has been told.

Privacy: what never goes in

Your brief, and your prompts in general, should only contain information you would be comfortable putting on a flyer. Never paste in:

• Customer personal details such as full names with addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, or anything about their health or finances
• Credit card numbers, bank account numbers, or routing numbers
• Passwords, login codes, or security answers
• Employee records, pay details, reviews, or personal information about staff

When you need AI to help with a specific customer message, strip out the identifying details first. "A customer with a senior dog" works just as well as her full name and street.

Also take a few minutes to read your AI tool's data and privacy settings. Tools differ in whether they store conversations and whether your chats can be used to improve their systems, and many let you change those options. Know what yours does before you rely on it for business work.

Try this

Set aside 15 minutes.

1. Copy the template into a new note. Fill in all five lines for your business. Do not polish; just get it down.
2. For the Voice line, look at a few emails or texts you have actually sent customers and pull real phrases from them.
3. For the Never line, list at least three things you would be upset to see AI promise or claim on your behalf.
4. Open an AI tool, paste in your brief, and ask it to reply to a realistic, slightly awkward customer question. Use the [DETAIL NEEDED] rule.
5. Read the reply as your customer would. If anything is wrong or off-voice, fix the brief, not just the reply, and save the new version.

What to remember

• A Business Brief is five lines you paste in front of your prompts so AI knows your company, customers, voice, facts, and limits.
• The "Details customers can know" line stops AI from inventing your hours, prices, and policies.
• The "Never" line fences off promises and claims you cannot make, including medical, legal, or pricing guesses.
• Keep your master copy in your own saved note, and update it the day anything changes.
• Never paste customer personal details, card or bank numbers, passwords, or employee records, and check your AI tool's data settings.
• The brief reduces mistakes but does not remove them. A human still reviews anything a customer sees.