The thing no one tells you about AI explanations
When most people first use ChatGPT, they type the confusing term directly into the chat and get back a Wikipedia-style paragraph that's somehow still confusing. The problem isn't the AI — it's that they didn't tell it how to explain things. ChatGPT doesn't know if you're a doctor asking about a legal concept or a teenager asking about a medical diagnosis. By default, it aims somewhere in the middle and often misses both.
This prompt fixes that. Two small additions — "assume I have no background in this" and "avoid jargon" — completely change the output. You go from a technically accurate but impenetrable paragraph to something you'd actually say out loud to someone. That's all this prompt does, and it's surprisingly powerful.
How to fill in the blanks
The prompt has two parts to fill in:
- [topic or term] — whatever you want explained. This can be as specific as "amortization schedule" or as broad as "how compound interest works." Both work.
- [the subject area] — finance, medicine, law, technology, science, whatever the field is. This tells the AI what kind of expert knowledge not to assume you have.
If you only know one of these, that's fine — fill in what you know and leave the other loose. The AI will figure out the context from what you've given it.
What this prompt is great for
This single prompt is genuinely one of the most useful things you can do with an AI. A few real situations where it earns its keep:
- Medical paperwork. You got a diagnosis or a lab result with a term you've never heard. Type it in, add "assume I have no medical background," and in ten seconds you know what it means in plain English — not what to do about it, just what it means.
- Legal documents. Leases, employment contracts, terms of service. You've been agreeing to things you didn't understand for years. Ask ChatGPT to explain the specific clause.
- Finance. APR, amortization, escrow, index funds, expense ratios — these are not complicated concepts, they're just wrapped in vocabulary designed to sound authoritative. One prompt removes the wrapper.
- Tech at work. Your company is moving to a new CRM. Your boss is talking about API integrations. Your IT team sent an email about a VPN. All of these can be explained simply in thirty seconds.
- Helping someone else understand something. You can use this prompt to get an explanation, then share the explanation with a family member or colleague who needs it more simply phrased.
The follow-up move that makes this ten times more useful
After you get the first explanation, don't stop there. The real power of AI isn't the first answer — it's the follow-up conversation. Once you have the plain-English version, ask:
- "Can you give me a real-world example of how this works?"
- "What's the part most people get wrong about this?"
- "If I had to explain this to someone else in one sentence, what would I say?"
- "What should I actually do with this information?"
These follow-ups cost you nothing and often produce the most useful thing in the whole conversation. The first explanation tells you what something is. The follow-ups tell you why it matters and what to do about it.
What this prompt won't do
It'll explain what your medical diagnosis means — it won't tell you whether to get a second opinion or what treatment to pursue. It'll explain what a contract clause says — it won't tell you whether to sign. It'll explain how something works — it won't replace the judgment of an actual professional when the stakes are high.
Use this prompt to get informed, not to get advice. The distinction matters and it's worth keeping in your head every time you use AI for anything that touches medicine, law, or finance.
A quick example
Say you got a letter from your insurance company mentioning a "subrogation clause" and you have no idea what that is. You'd type: Explain subrogation clause to me in plain English. Assume I have no background in insurance or law. Use a simple real-world analogy if it helps. Keep it under 150 words and avoid jargon.
What you'd get back is something like: "If you're in a car accident and your insurance pays for your repairs, subrogation is your insurance company's right to then go after the other driver's insurance to get that money back. Think of it like your insurance company paying your bill at a restaurant and then sending the check to the person who actually caused the mess." Useful. Clear. Took four seconds.