Chapter 1 · 8 min read Free
Who’s who: the companies, the tools and the names
What AI actually is, who makes ChatGPT, and how it fits alongside all the other names you keep hearing.
If the world of AI feels like a jumble of strange names, you’re not alone. Let’s sort it out, calmly and in plain English, before you touch a single button.
AI in one sentence
The kind of AI this guide is about is a very clever assistant you talk to by typing or speaking, in ordinary language. You ask it something. It writes back. That’s it.
You don’t need to learn any special commands. If you can write a text message or an email, you can use it.
Jargon buster: You’ll hear these tools called AI assistants, chatbots, or sometimes large language models (LLMs for short). For everyday purposes, they all mean the same thing: an assistant you chat with.
The tool this guide is about: ChatGPT
ChatGPT is an AI assistant made by a company called OpenAI.
- OpenAI is an American AI company, founded in 2015. It launched ChatGPT in November 2022, and it quickly became one of the fastest-growing apps in history.
- ChatGPT is the assistant it makes. You use it on a website (chatgpt.com) or in the free ChatGPT app on your phone, tablet or computer.
- It’s the best-known AI assistant in the world, and it has a very wide range of features, including creating pictures and having spoken conversations.
Think of it like this: OpenAI is the company, ChatGPT is the product. It’s just like how Apple is the company and the iPhone is the product.
The other names you’ll hear
You don’t need any of these to follow this guide, but it helps to know who’s who:
| Name | Made by | Where you’ll find it |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | OpenAI | chatgpt.com and its own app |
| Claude | Anthropic | claude.ai and its own app |
| Gemini | Built into many Google products and Android phones | |
| Copilot | Microsoft | Built into Windows, Word, Outlook and Edge |
| Siri | Apple | On iPhones. Newer iPhones now have a much cleverer, AI-powered Siri |
| Meta AI | Meta (Facebook’s owner) | Inside WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram |
The good news: they all work in broadly the same way. Once you’ve learned ChatGPT with this guide, you’ll find the others easy too. The skills carry over.
Why this guide focuses on ChatGPT
ChatGPT is the most widely used AI assistant, so it’s the one your friends and family are most likely to be using, which makes swapping tips easy. Its free version is genuinely useful. If you ever want to try Claude too, there’s a Claude edition of this guide.
A reassuring word
It’s completely normal to feel a bit behind with AI. Most people are. It has arrived fast, and much of what’s written about it is aimed at technical people. This guide is not. We’ll go one step at a time, explain every word, and you can’t break anything.
Next: what ChatGPT is brilliant at, and what it isn’t.