How to Write Winning Prompts For Generative AI
To help you craft effective prompts for generative AI apps, we've gathered insights from professionals across various industries. From keeping prompts simple and concise to including tone, length, and POV, here are 14 expert tips shared by CPOs, CEOs, and content leaders to ensure you receive the exact information you need.
Exclude Specific Words or Phrases
Reduce Bias With Inclusive Language
Specify Desired Response Length
Use Specific Perspectives
Challenge AI With Intelligent Prompts
Clarify Prompts With Examples
Guide AI With Prompt Cascading
Break Down Big Questions
Define Your Intent
Be Clear and Specific
Test Prompts With Smaller Datasets
Specify Where The Content Will Appear
Treat AI as a Personal Assistant
Include Tone, Length, and POV
Exclude Specific Words or Phrases
Adding words or phrases you don’t want to include in your text when creating an AI writing prompt will help you cut down on the number of times you need to ask it to rewrite the content it generates. This can be very useful if you’re writing marketing copy, as it uses some of the same language over and over. Prompting it to exclude certain words and phrases will help it generate more original content. This helps your content stand out and makes it more effective.
Jenna Nye, CEO, On the Strip
Reduce Bias With Inclusive Language
Bias is a major issue in any AI application, especially generative AI applications. Bias can be introduced in a variety of ways, including the language used in the prompts, the training data used to construct the AI model, and the way the AI is evaluated.
I believe it's critical to be conscious of any potential biases in your prompts that can influence the responses you get. To reduce bias in your prompts, use inclusive language that does not reinforce preconceptions or exclude specific groups of people.
When possible, avoid using language that reinforces negative stereotypes, such as gender or racial stereotypes, and instead use neutral terms.
Jeff Romero, Founder, Octiv Digital
Specify Desired Response Length
ChatGPT can pull from a vast wealth of data, so it offers relatively lengthy answers when it can. If you need something more succinct or more expansive, you need to prompt the system to give you just the right amount. You can ask ChatGPT to answer in a certain amount of characters, words, or paragraphs to suit your needs.
When you’re writing something in which length matters, like a tweet, meta description, or blog post, this little addition can ensure ChatGPT gives you a response you can actually use.
Jeffrey Zhou, Co-founder and CEO, Fig Loans
Use Specific Perspectives
One of AI’s most fascinating features is the ability to write from the perspective of a specific person or profession. You can instruct it to write like a journalist, marketing executive, teacher, or any other point of view. For targeted results and the exact information you need, tell the AI to assume any identity you desire to make the most of the tool’s capabilities.
Andrew Chen, Chief Product Officer, Videeo
Challenge AI With Intelligent Prompts
AI apps may be artificial entities, but they sure complete justice to their “intelligent” tag. This means you can make your prompts intelligent without worrying whether the software will understand your query.
You can even challenge their intelligence by including high-IQ details and demand equally brilliant results. This may be a tad tricky when all you’ve resorted to until now are basic queries on search engines.
But that’s how giant a leap AI has taken. With AI, you no longer have to begin your content extraction process with basic queries. You can interact with it as if you would interact with a roomful of experts who know everything there is to know about your request. All you have to do is make your query intelligent enough for them to provide you with a solution.
Riley Beam, Managing Attorney, Douglas R. Beam, P.A.
Clarify Prompts With Examples
Including examples in your prompt can assist the AI in understanding the type of information you seek. This can also help clarify any ambiguity in your inquiry. To explain the knowledge you want, I suggest using real-life examples or hypothetical scenarios. Give specific examples to help explain your question. Use real-life or fictitious scenarios. Give examples of the type of information you're looking for.
Ben Flynn, Marketing Manager, Manhattan Tech Support
Guide AI With Prompt Cascading
My best tip for writing prompts for generative AI apps is prompt cascading. This is a technique in which you use multiple prompts to guide the generative AI model to provide the desired output. Start with a broad prompt to provide an overall context, then follow up with more specific prompts to narrow down the desired output.
For example, I write about the importance of user reviews in B2B SaaS. So I may start with a general prompt like "Why do user reviews matter?" to understand the issue at the highest level. Then I'll prompt, "Why do user reviews matter in B2B SaaS?" to understand why it matters specifically in business software. Afterward, I'll prompt, "Provide stats and examples of why user reviews matter in B2B SaaS" to get findings and practical examples that support the generalized claims.
Prompt cascading, AKA asking the generative AI app a line of questions, can help extract the exact information you need.
Joe Kevens, Founder and Director of Demand Gen, B2B SaaS Reviews
Break Down Big Questions
Consider reducing a big question into smaller, more manageable chunks. I believe that this can assist the AI in better understanding the question and providing more accurate responses. Break your question down into smaller portions by using bullet points or subheadings. Determine the key elements of your question. Break out your question using bullet points or subheadings. Ask several questions to get the information you require.
Adam Crossling, Head of Marketing, Zenzero
Define Your Intent Clearly
To get the most out of generative AI apps, you must clearly define your intent in your writing prompts. These apps operate best when given specific, detailed instructions, as they process information literally.
Consider your aim and convey it unambiguously. For example, if you need information about safety procedures for a first aid training course, rather than saying "Tell me about safety procedures," you could say "Detail the step-by-step safety procedures for managing a choking incident during a first aid training course."
The more explicit you are in your prompt, the closer the generated content will align with your needs. This precise approach will help you extract the exact information you require from the AI.
Hafsa Unnar, Executive Assistant, On-Site First Aid Training
Be Clear and Specific
My top tip for writing prompts for generative AI apps like ChatGPT is to be clear and specific. Avoid using ambiguous language and instead, use simple and concise wording. For instance, instead of asking a broad question like "What are the latest technology trends?" ask a more targeted question like "What are the top three emerging technologies in cybersecurity and how do they affect businesses?"
This will help you get more accurate and relevant responses from the AI app while saving you time. Plus, using Lightkey's typing prediction software can assist you in choosing the right words and crafting effective prompts.
Precious Abacan, Writer, Softlist
Test Prompts With Smaller Datasets
Test your prompts with smaller datasets before using them with larger ones. This helps you to identify potential issues with your prompts and refine them to improve the quality of the AI's output. It also gives you a concrete idea of how the AI processes your prompts, so you can adjust them accordingly and provide additional guidance to generate better responses.
Testing your prompts with smaller datasets allows you to get responses that meet your expectations. Be sure to take the time to enhance your prompts as needed. Use the results of your old prompts to experiment with newer prompts to enhance the generative AI's ability to create top-grade output.
Sam Tabak, Board Member, RMBH Charities
Specify Where The Content Will Appear
The more specific the information you include, the better the results. The channel is typically indicated in AI writing prompts, but be sure to specify where the content is going to end up, if not. Whether your content will appear on LinkedIn, YouTube, or your personal blog, it Is crucial that you feed the AI app this detail. This will help optimize and structure your results accordingly.
Dakota McDaniels, Chief Product Officer, Pluto
Treat AI as a Personal Assistant
Give prompts to the AI as if you order your assistant to do the tasks for you. For example, if you want a cup of coffee, you would tell the details to your assistant about the number of shots you want in it, the amount of sugar, cream, or no cream, just as you like it.
Similarly, give an order/prompt to the AI tool as per your liking to generate the exact result you would like to have. I sometimes write my emails with the help of ChatGPT and ask it to set a particular tone, bold important words, capitalize on some words to highlight my point, the exact word count of the email I want, and also how it should start. So, it’s up to you how you would like to give a prompt to get the job done.
Harman Singh, Director, Cyphere
Include Tone, Length, and POV
When writing prompts for AI content generation, include information about tone, length, purpose, and POV. The more information you feed ChatGPT, the better it can shape its response to meet those parameters.
ChatGPT can also refine its answers with further input and improvements if you ask it to change its response to fit different or more specific parameters. There is some trial and error in using this software to fit your exact needs, but it ultimately still increases content efficiency and quickens research.
That said, ChatGPT lends itself better to specific uses and industries. Data from 2021 and years previously inform the software, limiting its inherent application for everyday use or copying. It also might not generate completely accurate content in legal or medical fields, which is problematic. Best stick to figuring out the specific use cases that most benefit your brand.
Guna Kakulapati, Co-founder and CEO, CureSkin