From the course: Artificial Intelligence for Students

Structure better prompts for smarter AI output

From the course: Artificial Intelligence for Students

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Structure better prompts for smarter AI output

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- Getting vague answers from AI, the problem isn't the AI, it's your prompt. Here's how to transform generic responses into exactly what you need. Most people ask AI questions like they're talking to a search engine. They type, "Write about marketing," and wonder why they get something useless. Instead, think of prompting like giving instructions to a really smart assistant who knows nothing about your situation. There are four elements that make prompts work. First, give AI a role. Instead of just asking for help, say, "Act as a marketing expert," or, "You're a college writing tutor." This tells AI what knowledge to draw from and what tone to use. Second, provide context. Don't just say, "Write an email." Say, "Write an email to a potential client who visited our website, but didn't purchase, addressing common concerns about our pricing." AI needs to understand the situation to give relevant advice. Third, be specific about format. Want bullet points? Ask for them. Need 200 words? Say so. Want a formal tone? Specify that. AI can't read your mind about how you want information presented. Fourth, define success. Tell AI what good output looks like. "Write a summary that highlights the three main arguments and include one counterpoint," is infinitely better than, "Summarize this." My favorite technique is to get the AI to write my prompts for me. I'll show the AI an example of the output I'm looking for and say, "What prompt would've gotten you to give me this output?" I can use any of my past work to create new prompts quickly and easily. Try this experiment. Take a prompt that gave you disappointing results and rewrite it using all four elements: role, context, format, and success criteria. You'll be amazed how much better AI responds when you give it clear, detailed instructions instead of vague requests.

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