AI glossary · Prompts and settings
Prompt
A prompt is the instruction or question you give an AI tool, such as a message to a chatbot or a description for an image generator.
Also called AI prompt, input
In more detail
The prompt is how you steer generative AI. Clear prompts usually get better results: say what you want, give context, and describe the format, length and tone.
A prompt can also include examples (see few-shot prompting), documents or images. Getting good at writing prompts is called prompt engineering.
Example
Instead of “Write about dogs”, try “Write a 100-word, friendly intro for a blog post about adopting an older rescue dog.”
Related terms
Prompt engineeringPrompt engineering is the skill of writing and refining prompts so an AI gives more accurate, useful and consistent results.System promptA system prompt is a set of background instructions that shapes how an AI behaves in every reply, such as its role, tone and rules. Users often don’t see it.Few-shot promptingFew-shot prompting means including a few worked examples in your prompt so the AI copies the pattern, format or style you want.Prompt templateA prompt template is a reusable prompt with blanks to fill in, so you get consistent results for a task you do often.
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