How to write good prompts for AI tools

Since the advent of AI, there's one thing marketing experts have agreed on: "AI won't replace marketing jobs. But people who know how to ask AI will!". And what do we do to ask AI to assist us on a specific task? A good prompt!

In this article, we'll give you the keys to writing good prompts for AI tools. You will see how the way you ask the AI can change the results you get.

Small disclaimer: in this article, you won't find pre-written prompts, but indeed tips on how to think and write your own prompts for most AI tools.

What is a good prompt?

The prompt is used to communicate with the artificial intelligence. Its purpose is to ask it to perform a specific task to assist you in your missions.

Knowing how to write and use prompts can make a real difference with a normal person who will get vague answers and will not take advantage of the AI. We're talking about a huge advantage.

Spoiler alert: saying "hello" or "please" to the AI is not enough to get satisfactory responses. Besides, we are talking to a machine. It will not be offended if we do not show it any form of respect. Let's save the polite formulas for real people.

The secrets to writing good prompts for AI tools

Many times, the quality of the responses provided by the AI is not dependent on the tool, but well and truly on how the prompt was written. To help you get the best responses, Abyssale goes over the most important points for writing good prompts.

The context

AI is a machine. While it is an ultra-powerful form of intelligence, it is not yet capable of reading our minds. The challenge is to give it as much context as possible so that it understands the conditions under which we want to obtain our answers.

Without context in your prompts, the AI will generate standard and very surface responses that will not necessarily meet your expectations. Some may even be irrelevant.

To help you contextualize clearly, try to answer as many of the following questions as possible:

• Why are you making this request?
• What and/or who will the generated response be for?
• How will the end user interact with the generated response?
• What will be the conditions of use of the response?

Depending on the nature of the AI tool used, adapt your contextualization work. By the way, we have also written articles for specific prompts depending on the nature of the AI. Among them, Midjourney or even ChatGPT.

The task at hand

Instinctively, a beginner will simply give the task to be accomplished to the AI tool. Nonetheless, when focusing on the context, one may tend to forget to specify what is expected of the AI. So take care that your prompt answers the following questions:

• What is the nature of the task the tool is to perform?
• What purpose should the tool you are querying serve?
• In what form should the answer be generated?

This may seem like a detail, but it's important to frame the AI. Speaking of details, we need to tell you about them.

The details

Where humans quickly present limitations, AI is a true data processing machine. The more detailed information your prompts include, the more the AI will understand what you are looking for.

This requires clear keywords and instructions. For example, if you are looking for an answer that includes the African lion, tell the machine that. Otherwise, with more vague words like "feline" or even "wild animal" you may not get the results you want.

Iterating your prompts

If you're looking to get an ultra-precise answer that responds exactly to your first query. We have bad news: it's nearly impossible.

While the AI can get very close to your expectations, you have to interact with it to refine its answers and push the sliders to the max.

One extraordinary thing about AI is its ability to take into account its past responses. So you can write your prompts with the understanding that it will build on its previous responses to reiterate new ones that are even closer to your expectations.

Target areas for improvement in your prompts

Sometimes the AI responds perfectly to your request, with a few exceptions. In that case, you need to modify or develop some isolated parts of your prompt. In this case, how do you ask the AI to target specific points in its response?

Above, we explained that the AI is able to take into account its previous answers to answer your new requests. It is this particularity that will allow us to make adjustments. All it takes is one sentence: "Take the same answer as this one and correct / explain / improve / modify / develop the X or Y part".

‍

What if the AI doesn't have the right references?

Sometimes the prompts offered to the AI are good. Yet, the generated responses are off-topic or lack meaning. In this case, the problem may be that the AI does not have the same references as you.

For example, you want to generate a document about your company and you are the manager. Unfortunately, you realize that the answers generated by the AI have no relation to your company. It is probably because the AI is not up to date or the information it has is about another structure with a similar name.

In this case, before going any further, you need to "reformat" the AI by explaining to it what your company is, your mission, your objectives, your products, etc. Then, generate a new prompt according to the conditions listed in the previous section and starting with "taking into account the information about [my company]...

In this situation, there is a good chance that the answers will be irrelevant at first. You will likely be forced to reiterate more to get a satisfactory result.

The hack to generate good prompts quickly

As you probably know, the more we query the AI, the more it strengthens its knowledge and develops its capabilities. This is known as machine learning. This feature offers a clear advantage for anyone using AI for business purposes, in other words the majority of users.

In fact, regardless of the nature of your professional activity, most of your queries concern your company, your missions or any other information related to your work.

Some AI tools, including ChatGPT, are able to keep track of your past interactions, even those that are several weeks old. This is a huge advantage when writing your prompts and contextualizing your request.

Simply ask it, "Do you remember when I talked to you about [topic]?". If the tool says yes, then simply write your request like this, "From our last exchange on this topic, do [task to be completed]."

In the end, AI is a great production assistant that can multiply our operational capabilities. Nevertheless, the way we ask it to perform a task determines the quality and relevance of the answer.

It is a question of learning a new language and a new way of communicating. Its ability to take into account old interactions allows it to ask for modifications, improvements on the content it generates.

Now that you know what posture to adopt to write a good prompt for AI tools, all that's left is to put it into practice. We hope it will help you improve your daily life, in the same way that Abyssale works to facilitate the production of visuals 😉