Don't be embarrassed to ask AI to simplify
Your Essential Report from the Frontlines of Applied AI
AI’s answers are often very long. A long answer looks thorough, so it’s easy to assume it’s a good one.
But length is not an indicator of quality. Chatbot Arena lets people vote on which of two AI answers is better. It found that length sways those votes more than anything else about an answer’s style. When its researchers adjusted for length and formatting, the rankings changed.
So why are the answers so long?
It’s how some models are tuned to respond. Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin, Princeton University and Salesforce studied how chatbots are trained to give the answers people prefer. They found the gains came largely from one thing: longer answers.
OpenAI even gives developers a setting for it, called verbosity: low, medium or high. OpenAI says the setting changes how long and detailed an answer is “while preserving correctness and reasoning quality”.
Meanwhile, many of us read a long answer twice, feel slow, and decide the topic is beyond us.
It’s clear to us that:
- Length is not an indicator of quality.
- It’s how the model was tuned, and you can tune it back.
- Asking for simpler is a skill.
Your understanding is fine. Even experts find long AI answers tiring to read.
So next time an answer runs long, ask for the short version, and keep cutting. You’ll spend less time reading and more time using what it says.
So this week is about getting AI to say it simply. There’s a prompt below from AI+ Business Owners that asks for your numbers in plain language, for someone who isn’t an accountant. And there’s a case study on Swindon Borough Council, which used AI to rewrite its documents in Easy Read for a few pence a page.
Plus the week’s news in applied AI — HSBC plans to cut around 70% of its UK financial advisers, NTT Docomo Business staff check their reports with an ‘AI boss’, AI robots sort Zalando’s fashion returns, and a Korean hospital’s AI completed 90.8% of the bed assignments it handled.
Keep asking AI to simplify, and cut its answer down to what you need.
You can set the length before AI writes a word. Ask for plain English, a length and a format: three bullets, one paragraph, under 100 words.
If the answer still runs long, reply in the same conversation, which already has your context: “This is too long. Cut to under 200 words.”
Then keep going. Ask for the version you’d send to a busy colleague. Each cut is you deciding what matters.
The cutting is how you make the answer unique to you.
- Banking
HSBC plans to cut around 70% of its UK financial advisers in a push to integrate AI
About half of the management and specialist roles in HSBC’s UK wealth business would go too, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the plans. Staff are in consultation, and those affected are expected to leave by the end of October. HSBC has not confirmed the numbers.
Reuters, on the Financial Times’ report, 7 October 2026
- Telecoms
NTT Docomo Business staff show their reports to an ‘AI boss’ before the real one
Each AI boss has learned a department or section head’s decision-making standards, and tells staff what is missing before they report. There are now more than 200, across all 37 of the company’s organisations, and staff have built about 28,000 AI agents. The figures are the company’s own, as reported by Nikkei.
Nikkei, 7 October 2026, via Seoul Economic Daily
- Logistics
AI robots now sort Zalando’s fashion returns in Germany and Poland
Sereact’s dual-arm robots pick, identify and sort returned items at fulfilment centres in Greven and Świebodzin, run with CEVA Logistics, without being trained on each item first. The partners call it the first phase of a plan to scale it across Europe. They say it frees warehouse staff for higher-value roles.
STAT Times, 8 October 2026
- Healthcare
Korea’s Sejong Hospital uses AI to assign beds to incoming patients, and it completed 90.8% of cases itself
Over 88 days from 1 May, the system handled 4,216 cases and completed 3,827 bed assignments, weighing department, ward, room type, the admissions team’s notes and live bed availability. The hospital estimates it replaced about 191 hours of first-pass work, assuming three minutes per assignment by hand. The figures are the hospital’s own.
Whosaeng, 7 October 2026
Take out client names and account details before you paste in the figures. The prompt tells AI you’re not an accountant, and asks for three short sections in under 400 words. If the answer is still hard going, reply: “Simplify that.”
Persona: Act as a business financial analyst explaining results to a non-financial business owner. Request: Summarise this quarterly financial data in plain language. Highlight the three most important trends and flag anything that looks unusual or concerning. Intent: I want to understand my own numbers better so I can make informed decisions about the next quarter. I'm not an accountant — I need this explained simply. Structure: Three sections: "What's Going Well," "What Needs Attention," and "Key Numbers at a Glance" (a table of 5–6 headline figures with brief commentary). Keep it under 400 words. Model: Clear, direct, and honest. If something looks problematic, say so plainly.
Prompt 7.1 from AI+ Business Owners, word for word.
Simplify with AI, and test the result with the people it’s for.
Swindon Borough Council in England produces Easy Read versions of its documents for people with learning disabilities: short sentences, no jargon, bigger text and pictures.
Done by hand, one page with five lines and five images typically cost £120. A five-page document took two weeks and cost £500.
So the council built a generative AI tool, Simply Readable, and tried it first on a tenancy agreement more than 50 pages long. In its own account in December 2023, it put the cost at 7 to 10 pence a page.
It built the tool with Experts by Experience, a group of people with learning disabilities. They told the council that pictures mattered, text had to be bigger, and jargon had to go.
Copy the testing. Whatever AI simplifies for you, check it with the people it’s for.
