Human in the Loop

The Citizen Developer's Missing AI Manual

• By Howard M. Cohen
• October 30, 2025

When this column dropped in August 2023 with a post entitled "Artificial Intelligence and the Citizen Developer," the message was unambiguous: The era of cumbersome tile-based low-code/no-code (LC/NC) platforms was over. AI-driven assistants would democratize application development, transforming natural language into executable code. AI assistants would build whatever you dreamed up. All you had to do was tell them what you wanted in plain English.

Earlier that year, former Tesla AI Director Andrej Karpathy posted on X, "The hottest new programming language is English." Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has been frequently quoted promoting the same concept.

So, the basic idea was in the zeitgeist, but few of us said much about how to talk to your favorite AI assistant. We sold you the destination without the map!

Since then, thousands of individuals, groups, and companies have popped up to teach you "prompt engineering" and "context engineering," addressing the new skills you need to speak with AI most effectively. The challenge now is figuring out who you can trust to do the best job of enabling you to become what I'm calling an AI-Enabled Citizen Developer (AECD).

Some Signal in All That Noise
Look, we're not here to waste your time with AI hype cycles and vaporware promises. We're here to cut through the noise. Which is why I'm advising you to pay attention to Prompting Made Simple: How to Use ChatGPT and Unlock the Power of AI (Making AI Simple for Everyone) by Rajeev Kapur—a book that actually delivers on a promise to help you wrangle these large language models into doing useful work.

Full disclosure: Kapur serves as CEO and Chief AI Officer of 1105 Media, publisher of Application Development Trends. Corporate ties notwithstanding, his book delivers the kind of strategic insight that belongs on every executive's desk as companies race to harness AI's transformative potential.

I should say books. His second one, the bestselling AI Made Simple: A Beginner's Guide to Generative Intelligence, is now in its third edition. His first book, Chase Greatness: Enlightened Leadership for the Next Generation of Disruption, offers a framework tailor-made for executives navigating today's turbulent business landscape. His first book, Chase Greatness: Enlightened Leadership for the Next Generation of Disruption, will appeal to developers who want to become better leaders.

He's also the founder of the Kapur-Parada Center of AI in Tucson, AZ, which is dedicated to bringing AI tools and education to rural areas. And he was the number one pick on Forbes magazine's Top 5 AI Leaders Bringing Artificial Intelligence To Everyone list.

If anyone can teach us how to talk to AI effectively, it's Kapur.

The Fine Art of Prompting
Describing the fundamental concept of "prompt engineering," which Kapur prefers to call "structure prompting," he explained, "One of the most popular prompts is 'role-task-context-ask.' You give AI a role and a task, then provide context, and that's where the magic happens. That's when you make an ask."

"Learning to communicate effectively with AI is going to require you to develop what probably will be, for many, a different set of skills," Kapur told me. "Keep in mind, the greater command you have of the English language—the better you can use it to tap into that inner Disney and tell a story—the more successful you're going to be with AI."

This advice is essential if you're new to citizen development. It sounds easy, and to some extent, it is easy. But Kapur recommends techniques and best practices that even a beginner can quickly master.

"What I emphasize in this book is that it isn't just about syntax," he said. "It's about orchestrating context, data, goals, and constraints. You have to start in the context we all grew up in. The who, what, where, when, why, and how of it all. If you put that into your prompts, you'll notice that they average 400-500 words. And that's fine!"

Kapur encourages developers to move past fear and uncertainty, engage in dialogues with AI, build robust workflows, deliver value, and use off-the-shelf tools to develop custom, vertical solutions that drive real business impact, and focus on the following priorities:

• Top-down buy-in: AI adoption must be led by the CTO/founder; organizational alignment is essential.
• Curiosity, not judgment: Embrace new AI tools and concepts openly.
• Data is the new oil: Developers should recognize and monetize the value of their data and help clients do the same.
• AI is about augmentation: The real gain comes from amplifying human intelligence, not substituting it.
• Time is the currency: AI enables developers and their clients to "buy back" time by automating processes.
• Storytelling skills: Success with AI depends on the ability to clearly communicate, translate the value of technical solutions, and relate to build robust workflows that drive real business impact.

It Is That Easy

The remarkable feeling you'll come away with after reading Prompting Made Easy is that it really is easy after all. "This book isn't about theory," Kapur said. "It's about results. If you can send a text message, you can start prompting. And once you do, you'll realize AI isn't just for coders; it's for creatives, entrepreneurs, students, and leaders who want to do more with less effort."