Coming Soon: Plain-English Guides to AI, Grok and Gemini

A quick bit of blog news, written 10 October 2026. Details about Grok are based on xAI's own pages (x.ai and grok.com) on that date. These things change quickly, so I'll keep you posted.

If you've been following along over the last week or so, you'll know we've been working our way through Google's free tools one at a time: Gmail, Drive, Photos, Calendar and, most recently, Google Docs for Complete Beginners. Thank you to everyone who's read them.

I wanted to give you a heads-up about something new. Over the coming weeks, I'm going to start writing about AI tools, in the same plain English as everything else here. Don't worry, the Google beginner guides aren't going anywhere. This is an extra, not a replacement.

Why AI, and why now?

You've probably noticed that "AI" has crept into everything, and your phone may have started offering to "help you write" a text to your sister. It's easy to feel everyone else got the memo and you didn't.

The good news is that the basic idea is simpler than the fuss suggests, and you don't need to know what's under the bonnet to use it sensibly.

So what is an AI assistant?

An AI assistant is a computer program you can chat with by typing (or, often, talking) in ordinary language, rather than clicking through menus. You ask it something, and it writes back a reply, a bit like texting a very well-read friend who never gets tired of questions.

You might ask it to explain what a "cookie" on a website actually is, help you word a tricky email to the council, or turn a long, confusing letter into a few simple bullet points. It isn't a person. It has learned patterns from a huge amount of text, and some assistants can also look things up online.

The ones I'll be covering

• Grok is the AI assistant made by xAI. You can try it for free at grok.com in a web browser, or with the Grok app for iPhone and Android. You sign in with an X account or an email address. There's a paid upgrade called SuperGrok, but you don't need it to get started. Grok can chat, search the web for up-to-date answers, summarise documents and even make pictures.
• Grok Bot is a newer and more ambitious product from the same company. Rather than just chatting, it can carry out tasks for you on its own computer in the cloud and it checks back with you before anything important happens. It's aimed at people with a paid subscription, and it's a step up from the basics, so we'll come to it once we've found our feet.
• Gemini is Google's AI assistant. If you've already got a Google account (and if you've read Your Google Account Explained, you'll know you probably do), you've already got a way in. It fits in nicely alongside the Google guides.

Just to be clear: I'm not connected to xAI or Google in any way, and nobody's paying me to say any of this. I'll tell you what's good and what's annoying.

What you can expect over the coming weeks

• What is Grok, and how do you try it? A gentle, step-by-step first go, with no jargon.
• Everyday uses. Drafting emails, explaining things in plain English, summarising long letters or settling a pub quiz argument.
• Staying safe and private with AI. What to share, what not to share, and the settings worth checking.
• Grok vs Gemini. An honest side-by-side for normal people, not a spec sheet.
• Short news posts when something new launches that's actually worth knowing about. I'll skip the rest.

A sensible word of caution

Two things I'll keep repeating, because they matter:

• AI can get things wrong. It can sound completely confident while being completely wrong, rather like a certain uncle at Christmas. For anything important, such as health, money or legal matters, check with a proper source or a real person.
• Don't share sensitive information. Never type passwords, bank details, your National Insurance number or private medical details into an AI chat. Treat it like a conversation in a busy café: fine for general chat, not for secrets.

Used with common sense, though, these tools can be genuinely handy.

Over to you

What would you like to know? Have you tried an AI assistant already and been baffled, impressed or mildly alarmed? Is there a question you've been too embarrassed to ask? Pop it in the comments below and I'll do my best to answer it in a future post.

In the meantime, if you haven't already, have a look at Google Docs for Complete Beginners. It's a handy place to keep notes as we go.

Speak soon,
Paul