Introduction to AI

AI is already built into many of the apps Outwood staff use every day, from Google Search summaries to Gemini in Gmail. Understanding what it is, what it can and cannot do, and how to use it safely will help you get more from these tools in your role.

What AI is

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to computer systems that can perform tasks typically thought to require human intelligence, such as understanding language, recognising patterns, making decisions, and generating content.

The type of AI you’ll encounter most often in everyday tools is generative AI. These are systems that create new content (text, images, audio) based on patterns learned from existing material.

Large language models (LLMs) are a specific type of generative AI focused on understanding and generating text. AI assistants like Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude are all powered by LLMs.

How AI works

Tech companies prepare a new AI for use through a process called training: it analyses vast amounts of text, images, and other content to learn patterns and relationships. That accumulated knowledge is what it draws on when you ask it something.

Think of generative AI as a very sophisticated autocomplete (a huge simplification, but a useful one). It predicts the most likely next word or sentence based on everything it learned during training. This is why it can sound fluent and confident while still being factually wrong: it’s generating a plausible-sounding response rather than looking up a verified answer.

What AI can do

New uses for generative AI are emerging all the time. Here are some examples of what it can do:

• Refine written content: adjust letters, reports, or communications for tone and audience.
• Summarise and extract information: get a quick summary of a long document, or identify common themes from a set of pupil responses.
• Generate ideas and resources: create discussion questions, practice exercises, or lesson starter activities.
• Explain and adapt content: explain complex concepts in plain language, or rework material for a different year group or audience.
• Give feedback: review a piece of writing, compare approaches, or check work against a set of criteria.
• Work with images and other media: generate images for resources, or describe the content of an uploaded photo or diagram.

Built-in AI vs AI assistants

Built-in AI features are woven into the tools you already use, with AI powering new capabilities behind the scenes. These can appear as a new button, a suggestion, or a wizard. They feel like a helpful feature rather than something fundamentally new. Even so, some of these capabilities would have been impractical or impossible a few years ago.

They are the easiest to work with and tend to give consistently good results. The trade-off is less flexibility: you are limited to what the feature provides, with little control over how it works.

Standalone AI assistants like Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude give you a blank canvas. You give them instructions, called prompts, and refine your request through conversation. That makes them more powerful for complex or open-ended tasks. The trade-off is that you get out what you put in: good results need clear, specific prompts.

For practical guidance on writing effective prompts—including structure, techniques, and worked examples—see the prompting guide in the Gemini app section. The same principles apply whichever AI assistant you use.

Limitations and considerations

AI can be a useful tool, but it’s important to understand where it currently falls short. These limitations are improving over time, but they are real constraints to be aware of today.

AI can make mistakes

When AI confidently presents incorrect or misleading information as factual, it’s said to be hallucinating. That can include made-up statistics, false historical information, invented citations, incorrect calculations, or outdated information presented as current.

It can also fail to push back if you provide it with incorrect information, instead working from a false premise.

AI does not know everything

Generative AI is only as current as the data it was trained on—it may not be aware of recent events or developments. It also knows nothing that was missing from its training data, such as internal policies, local knowledge, or anything never publicly available. The only way to give it that information is to include it in your prompt.

If you ask it about a real person, a local system, or an internal process without providing context, it may make up a plausible-sounding answer.

AI can reflect biases

AI can inherit biases from its training data. For example, asking for “an image of a school IT technician” will likely produce a white man, because that demographic is over-represented in the training data. AI can also default to Western or US-centric perspectives when asked about “standard” or “typical” things, from food to classroom behaviour to greetings.

Be particularly mindful when:

• Generating images of people
• Creating resources for diverse pupil populations
• Asking for “typical” or “standard” examples
• Seeking advice on cultural or social topics

Review AI output critically and be prepared to adjust or discard anything that does not reflect our values or the communities we serve.

Take care with sensitive data

Most AI services process your data on external servers, outside Outwood’s control. Many “free” tools also retain a record of what you share, and may use it to train their AI.

When using approved tools like those in the Getting started guide, sign in with your school Google account to ensure your use falls within Outwood’s agreements.

For questions about using new AI tools or services, contact the IT helpdesk.

Other current limitations

• Limited context: AI can only hold so much in mind within a single conversation. If you give it a very long document, it may lose track of details from earlier in the text. For long tasks, it’s often better to work in sections.
• Inconsistency: the same prompt can produce different results on different occasions. That makes AI a poor fit for tasks that need repeatable outputs, such as a standard letter template that must look identical each time.
• Nuance: AI may miss sarcasm, subtle context, or cultural cues that would be obvious to a human reader.

Next steps

The Getting started guide covers the tools available to Outwood staff and how to access them.