The AI critique system we use to improve our work

56 snips

Mar 1, 2026

Neo Aplin, Head of Inventium AI who builds practical AI tools, explains a repeatable AI critique system called Charles. He outlines a minimal critique prompt and stepwise quality gates. The conversation covers diagnostic outputs, how to customize checks for roles or policies, and using AI to audit AI-generated drafts before sending.

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ADVICE

Write A Precise Critique Prompt

Do create a short, specific critique prompt that tells AI exactly what to check.
Neo's two-sentence prompt: "Review the last response. Perform a rigorous critique to find anything incorrect, weakly supported, unclear, incomplete, biased, impractical, verbose, wordy, or improbable, then propose better alternatives and provide a corrected/revised version."

INSIGHT

Use Quality Gates For Diagnostic Reviews

Use quality gates to turn AI review into a diagnostic audit with clear pass/fail signals.
Neo's gates include factual accuracy, logical soundness, completeness, relevance, clarity, structure, safety, and practicality, each ticked or crossed.

ADVICE

Get Severity And Confidence Scores

Ask the AI to diagnose problems with severity and confidence so you know what to prioritize.
Charles labels issues by importance and confidence (e.g., high severity but low confidence means re-check interpretation before big edits).

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Download Inventium.ai’s custom GPT instructions to create your own Personal AI Reviewer Buddy here: https://amantha-imber.kit.com/51dd2a9719

Producing high volumes of work isn’t the hard part anymore. Producing high quality is.

In this How I AI episode, Neo and I walk through how to use AI as a rigorous reviewer of your work – not to replace your judgment, but to sharpen it. We go beyond a basic “please review this” prompt and share a structured way to pressure test emails, documents, slide decks and analysis before they leave your desk.

Neo shares the exact system he uses, which he’s nicknamed Charles – a GPT designed to critique work properly, diagnose weaknesses and suggest stronger alternatives. And yes, we’re giving you Charles (via the link above!).

Neo and I cover:

How to write a simple but powerful critique prompt that goes beyond surface-level polishing

What to ask AI to check for, including inaccuracies, weak support, bias, gaps, impracticality and verbosity

How to customise your review criteria for specific roles, policies or stakeholders

The quality gates Neo uses, including factual accuracy, logical soundness, completeness, relevance, clarity, structure, safety and practicality

How AI can improve its own output if you’ve used it to draft something in the first place

Why you should never treat a first AI response as gospel

Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn and via inventium.ai, where he leads Inventium’s AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.

And if you’re ready to move beyond basic prompts and start using AI as a genuine thinking partner, check out inventium.ai. We help individuals, teams and organisations turn GenAI into a real work superpower – saving 10+ hours a week and staying future ready.

My latest book The Health Habit is out now. You can order a copy here: https://www.amantha.com/the-health-habit/

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Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

Credits:
Host: Amantha Imber
Sound Engineer: Martin Imber

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