7 AI Prompting Tips and Tricks That Actually Work

But it's not always easy. How specific should you be? What information should you include? And how do you request your data in a useful format?

A whole new world of prompt engineering is springing into life, all dedicated to crafting and perfecting the art of AI prompting. But you can skip the tricky bits and improve your AI prompting game with these tips and tricks.

1 Be as Specific as Possible

One ChatGPT prompt mistake is not being specific with the information you give, and this is also a problem when using Microsoft Copilot and other AI tools. If you want AI to provide more accurate results, you need to tell it exactly what you're looking for.p

For example, let's say that you want your AI tool to generate a new gym workout plan. If you simply say something like, "Please create a gym plan for five days per week," you'll get generic results. Instead, a better prompt is:

“Please create a fitness and diet plan that involves five workouts per week. I want to combine weightlifting with high-intensity interval training and have been regularly exercising for 10 years. I’m 28 years old, 6 ft, and 90 kilograms. I don’t have any allergies, but I am sensitive to rice and don’t want to drink alcohol.”

As you can see below, we've received more of a customized workout plan with the types of exercises that we wanted.

The more context you provide your AI tool, the better of a response you'll receive.

2 Ask for More Information After Getting an Initial Answer

As you use tools like ChatGPT more frequently, you'll quickly learn that the first answer you get shouldn't always be taken as is. In the same way that you'd ask a person further questions to get more information out of them, you should do the same when prompting with AI.

This time, we've asked our AI tool to give us a three-day San Francisco itinerary for a couple's trip. Using the first tip mentioned in this guide and being more specific, we got a pretty good outline.

However, I wanted to get further information that wasn't included. So, I asked for hotel recommendations within a customized budget:

As a general rule of thumb, ask as many questions as you feel necessary to get all the information you're looking for. You may also want to determine whether premium AI prompts are worth the money.

3 Explain What Hasn't Worked When You've Prompted in the Past

As you use AI prompting more frequently, you'll get a better idea of what does and doesn't work for you. You'll also learn which prompts are useful and which ones confuse the tool that you're using. Once you've become more familiar with AI, make sure that you clearly outline what hasn't worked before.

This tip is especially important if you want to use AI tools like DALL-E 3 to generate images. I've often noticed that first drafts sometimes don't yield what I'm looking for, and there could also be problems like defects for items like flags.

Besides mentioning what hasn't worked for you when prompting in the past, you may also wish to outline anything that has not worked with what you're trying to do. For example, if you're putting together a new workout regimen, you may want to talk about which foods you've noticed you have a negative reaction to before.

4 Don't Make Your AI Multitask

Avoiding common mistakes when using AI prompting tools isn't always easy, but one of the main issues you'll encounter is trying to make the tool multitask. AI programs will often generate your results within a few minutes, but they can only do one thing at a time. If you try to ask too many things in one go, you won't get the results you want.

Sometimes, you'll begin a prompt and realize you forgot to add further information. When this happens, stop or edit the current prompt and include those details before re-generating your answer.

Once you've received one prompt's results, you can move on to the next one until you're happy with everything. Doing things this way might seem more time-consuming, but single-tasking often improves productivity, and it's the same for your AI, too.

5 Tell Your AI Tool What You Don't Want in Your Answer

Do you remember in our first point when we told you to be as specific as possible? This also means you should let your AI tool know what you don't want in your answers. While generative AI can produce some pretty cool results, it can't guess everything for you.

When designing your prompt, be very specific about what you don't want in your results. For example, if you're planning a trip, you may want to mention that you don't want to join tours or would prefer to avoid popular spots.

Sometimes, your AI tool will give you multiple options in your answers. You can then choose whichever one works best for you.

6 Upload Images or Files (if Available)

Uploading images or files will often make your AI prompts much more effective. For example, if you want to create a one-page resume with AI, it's worth uploading an existing PDF and getting feedback. You can use several plugins to get better responses, especially if you use ChatGPT. One example is Resume by jobbright.ai.

If you're using AI to create art, it's also a good idea to upload images that the AI tool can use as examples. Meanwhile, if you want to use Photo AI or similar tools for pictures of yourself, uploading selfies, headshots, and other images will help you achieve what you want.

Some AI tools can even answer questions from your PDFs if you want to get more clarity.

7 Mention Where You Want to Use Your Prompt Answers

Sometimes, the results your AI prompts generate won't be useful for the place you want to use them. For example, if you want to create a post for Instagram, you probably don't want your tool to provide huge bodies of text. On the other hand, you might want something more formal if you're going to improve your LinkedIn profile with AI.

If you use the information from your AI prompt online, it's worth specifically mentioning where you'll use it. That way, you won't need to edit your results as much.

AI prompting takes some time to become competent with, and you'll need to adjust how you type depending on the tool you use and the information you wish to extract. The good news, however, is that you normally only need small tweaks to make your prompts deliver better results. Having read this guide, you should now be in a much better place to prompt more efficiently.

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