When ChatGPT and other publicly accessible generative-AI platforms first emerged, late last year, many of us couldn’t wait to try out the technology. First we played with it, using prompts like “Write a Beatles song in HBR style.” Then we tried to “break” it, asking questions such as “Can you fall in love like humans?” And now we’re settling down to figure out how to actually use it—a process, I suspect, that you and your companies are engaged in too.

A version of this article appeared in the July–August 2023 issue of Harvard Business Review.