AI Basics: An Interactive Primer
In brief
A single interactive page that explains how AI systems work and how they are put to use. Each of eleven ideas, from language models and tokens to agents and guardrails, comes with a small demonstration you can operate yourself. The primer opens in any browser and runs offline once it has been downloaded.
74 KB file, one page, no installation.
What the primer covers
The primer is a single HTML page in three parts: how AI thinks, how it takes action, and how it delivers value. Each concept has a short explanation and a hands-on demonstration, so the idea can be tried as well as read.
The eleven concepts are:
- Large language models
- Tokens and cost
- Context engineering
- APIs
- Tool calling
- MCP
- Skills
- Agents
- Embeddings and similarity search
- Multi-agent systems
- Guardrails and governance
Using it
Open it in a new tab to use it here, or download the file to keep a copy. It needs no installation and no account, and once downloaded it runs offline in any browser.
Questions and answers
What does the AI Basics primer cover?
It explains eleven ideas about how AI systems work and how they are put to use, in three parts: how AI thinks, how it takes action, and how it delivers value. The concepts run from large language models and tokens to agents, multi-agent systems, and guardrails and governance.
How is the primer different from a written explainer?
Each concept has a short explanation and a hands-on demonstration that you can operate yourself, so the idea can be tried as well as read.
What do I need to use it?
Nothing beyond a browser. The primer is a single HTML page that needs no installation and no account. You can open it in a new tab, or download the file to keep a copy, and once downloaded it runs offline.
74 KB file, one page, no installation.
If you are working out where these ideas apply in your own organisation, I would welcome the conversation.
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