Working with AI is a little like working with Tom Cruise

I saw this clip of Tom Cruise talking about how he never reads scripts himself. He has the writers read them to him out loud.

“What I do with directors and writers is I don't read the scripts, I have them read it to me. Because I don't want my ideas to invade it yet. I want to understand what is their communication, they've been working on it, they have things that are just there. So they come to me and I just sit there and I'm like, I want you to read it to me.”

Then he said once he understands it, he knows how to contribute. Ideas show up. He doesn’t always talk them through — he just does them.

That stuck with me because it’s the opposite of how most people use AI.

“Just give it to Claude” is fine at the end. It’s a bad place to start.

People want to say “just give it to Claude.” Or ChatGPT. Whatever’s open. Paste the problem in, hope something useful comes back. When the answer invents a process you don’t have, or fills a gap with something that sounds right and isn’t, they assume they needed a better prompt. Write clearer. Be more specific. Add another paragraph of instructions.

I’ve done that loop. Clearer wording helps a little. It usually isn’t the main problem.

The main problem is you handed the agent a job before the materials were ready.

I don’t mean “write better for the model.” I mean the stuff that has to exist first. Pull the real emails, the real quotes, the real SOPs, the messy notes from whoever actually does the work — not the version of the story you tell from memory. Line up which source is current. Decide what happens in what order. Put gates in so a person looks before the next step runs. Decide where “close enough” is fine and where it absolutely isn’t.

That’s slower than dumping it in a chat window. It’s also the part that keeps Claude from inventing a company you don’t run.

Cruise sits there and listens first. He wants their communication intact before his ideas climb on top of it. Then he contributes.

Useful agent work feels more like that. Put the materials in order. Make the path clear. Then hand it over.

“Just give it to Claude” is fine at the end. It’s a bad place to start.

If that sounds familiar in your shop, I'm always glad to talk it through over coffee.

---