The Five Ways of Working With AI

A business owner starts the week with five things to address: a client relationship, a proposal, a competitor’s price change, a hiring decision and a launch. AI could contribute to each. The useful role would differ from one task to the next.

This is the example Steve Bolton uses in Think With Me to explain the Five Ways of Working With AI. Bolt Method™ names them Human, Tools, Agents, Partners and Networks. They describe choices about a piece of work, rather than a person’s level of advancement.

Human: keep the work with people

The client has paid late again. A conversation is needed with someone the owner has known for years. The history of the relationship, the judgement required and the act of being present all matter.

In the Human Way, that conversation stays with people. AI does not need a role simply because it is available. Choosing Human can be a deliberate and appropriate decision by somebody who understands the technology well.

Tools: define one useful task

The proposal needs a draft. The owner knows the offer, the numbers and what the document must achieve. AI receives a clear brief and produces material for the owner to review and edit.

Tools is a bounded use of AI. The person sets the task and retains direction. A useful draft, summary or comparison can be enough; the work does not have to grow into a larger system.

Agents: delegate a sequence within limits

A competitor has changed its pricing. Understanding the change requires several steps: finding the current offer, comparing it with the business’s own offer, retaining sources and identifying what cannot be established.

The owner can delegate that sequence within a clear objective, permissions and review points. The result returns for assessment before a pricing decision is made. What may happen independently, and what requires approval, should be part of the brief.

Partners: develop useful continuity

The hiring decision has been unresolved for a month. The candidate’s expectations, the business’s margins and earlier hiring experiences all bear on it.

In the Partners Way, relevant context carries forward through sustained work. The owner can revisit assumptions, examine the strongest case for hiring and the strongest case for waiting, and correct the analysis as circumstances become clearer.

The test is whether that continuity improves the work. The owner still decides whether to hire and on what terms.

Networks: coordinate the contributions

The launch involves an operations lead, a designer, an AI partner holding useful context and agents carrying out defined sequences. Their contributions need to fit together.

Networks requires clear roles, information flows and decision rights. Somebody must know who owns the timetable, who approves the creative work, which information each participant needs and where a person must intervene. Adding more tools does not itself create coordination.

One person can choose all five

The week does not move from an inferior form of work to a superior one. Each choice responds to a different need. The same person can keep one task entirely human and coordinate several people and AI systems on another.

The practical starting point is the work itself: its purpose, the information involved, the contribution required and the consequences of a mistake. Decide those first. Then choose the role of AI.