For tech professionals such as software engineers, building and maintaining a great app or service is just part of the equation: you also need to explain what you’ve done to a larger audience of non-technical people. But jargon and technical terms, while often necessary, can present a significant barrier—especially when you’re trying to craft emails, reports, and presentations for stakeholders who need a clear understanding of what’s going on.
While generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini have their downsides, they can also help when you’re trying to simplify technical concepts for a broader audience. Here are some quick tips for using AI to translate your expertise into something understandable by everyone:
Emails
Whether you’re a network engineer who just upgraded the system or a mobile developer who’s wrestling with how to build out a company’s iOS app, you’ll likely need to send several emails detailing your work. Here’s how to use generative AI in this context.
- Before hitting send, ask the AI tool to rewrite your email in simpler terms. Focus on replacing jargon with plain language and ensuring each sentence has a clear purpose; reread to make sure that everything is technically correct (since AI can’t fact-check technical concepts).
- Prompt the AI to rephrase any technical terms you used with a brief, non-technical explanation. For example, if you mention "cloud migration," the AI could suggest "moving our data storage to a secure online system."
Reports
With reports, you have a little bit more room (and hopefully a bit more time) to explain technical aspects of projects in greater detail, and AI can help. For example:
- Use AI to generate summaries that are clear and concise. Emphasize the "what" and "why" of your technical project, focusing on the business value rather than the technical details.
- After drafting your report, provide the AI with key findings and conclusions. Prompt it to create a high-level summary that can be easily understood by non-technical readers. This summary can then be included at the beginning of your report.
PowerPoints
Ah, PowerPoints: the bane of many tech professionals’ existences. However, generative AI can help you put together easy-to-understand slides faster than ever, allowing you to get back to your real work:
- Collaborate with AI to craft clear and concise slides. Focus on visuals and eliminate text-heavy slides. If you need serious help, type as long a paragraph as you want, explaining what you need, and ask the AI to boil it down to as few words as possible.
- Provide the AI with your presentation outline and key points. Prompt it to suggest engaging visuals like infographics or short videos to illustrate complex concepts. You can then use the AI-generated suggestions to create a visually compelling and easy-to-follow presentation.
Getting the Hang of Technical Documentation
If you’re just getting the hang of technical documentation, here are some generalized tips that can help you out, whether or not you actually wish to use generative AI:
- Know your audience: Tailor your language and level of detail to the specific needs of your reader or listener.
- Focus on benefits: Explain how your technical work impacts the organization and its overall goals.
- Use storytelling: Frame your communication as a narrative, highlighting the problem you're solving and the positive outcome of your work.
- Embrace active voice: Use strong verbs and clear sentence structure to make your message impactful.
- Proofread and simplify: Double-check your communication for any remaining jargon or overly technical language.
And here’s one big caveat: many organizations have growing concerns about their employee inputting proprietary information and company secrets into an AI. They fear that these inputs could end up in the AI’s larger dataset and potentially emerge again in response to a random prompt. If you’re concerned about this, obfuscate some details while inputting your text into the AI—for example, if you’re writing an email about your interactions with the tech professionals at a partner company, you may want to use fake names for any companies and projects mentioned, and leave out some critical details or numbers that you can fill in on your own.
