You can use generative AI to create content and analyze information, but the quality of a tool’s output depends on the directions you give it. As with humans, providing AI tools with clear, detailed instructions increases the likelihood that the application will understand your needs and deliver a helpful response.
Here’s how AI tools process user inputs and how you can improve your responses, plus AI prompt examples you can customize to meet your business needs.
What are AI prompts?
An AI prompt is the input you provide a generative AI tool to elicit (or “prompt”) a response tailored to your needs. AI prompts can include questions, like “How do I separate an egg?” or instructions, like “Write a social media post promoting the WaffleMaster Waffle Toaster.”
A good prompt tells the tool what you want it to create. It analyzes your input using its training data to determine intent and provide an appropriate response. Some tools also use contextual information like your message history or other information you’ve provided to improve responses.
There are five types of AI prompts:
- Instructional prompts. Directing the tool to perform specific tasks.
- Creative prompts. Encouraging the tool to generate new ideas.
- Informational prompts. Looking for factual data, explanations, or clarifications.
- Reasoning prompts. Asking the tool to analyze, deduce, or solve problems.
- Interactive prompts. Engaging in dialogue with the tool.
Tips for writing AI prompts
Learning how to write good prompts—also known as prompt engineering—can maximize the potential benefits of generative AI for your business. Here are a few tips for writing more effective prompts:
Be specific
Detailed prompts produce better results. For instance, instead of “Write a blog about athletic swimwear,” you might try a more detailed prompt like, “Write an informative blog post for women between 18 and 40 about how to choose the right swimsuit for surfing.” Include more specific details about how long you want the post to be and what keywords to include for even better results when using AI writing tools.
Include examples
Upload sample content and ask your AI tool to respond in a similar format, style, or writer’s tone. For example, you might paste a section of a research report and ask your tool to create content that mimics the report’s structure. For art prompts, you might provide specific artists, artworks, or art styles (like “Lichtenstein,” or “comic book”) as inspiration.
Use negatives
Include information about what the tool should not do. For example, you might request a series of social posts without hashtags or emojis. Using negatives can also help tools provide more accurate information. You could increase the accuracy and relevance of an AI-generated report on the footwear market by instructing your tool to exclude any information published before 2018.
Fact check responses
Generative AI tools can make mistakes due to their reliance on potentially flawed or outdated training data and, in some cases, their inability to access recent information. Misunderstandings of your queries or language nuances also contribute to inaccuracies.
Double-check all generated information, especially for crucial decisions. Relying on unverified AI responses can lead to especially serious consequences in areas like health care, law, or research, where accuracy is vital. Cross-verifying facts with up-to-date, reliable sources is critical.
Provide feedback
Many generative AI applications maintain a message history, using neural networks—machine learning systems that mimic the organizational structures of the human brain—to store information from previous prompts. This allows these tools to learn from user feedback, personalize responses, and continuously improve output.
Some tools have a built-in feedback function like a thumbs-up or thumbs-down button. You can also just tell a tool whether or not it’s given you useful information. If your first prompt doesn’t work, for example, you might follow up with a prompt like, “This email isn’t funny enough. Can you rewrite it using a humorous subject line and a joke?”
14 AI prompts to try
AI prompts vary by use case. Here are AI prompt examples you can adapt to reflect your specific products or services, target audiences, and brand voice:
“Create an image of a stork delivering a pitbull puppy to a family of four.”
AI image generatorscan create visual content to accompany brand and marketing materials. You can also direct the tool to use specific color palettes (like “pastel colors” or “vibrant colors”) or specify art styles, like “surrealist painting,” “black and white,” or “photorealistic.”
“Write a series of Instagram posts for my ethical fine jewelry company, GoldieFawn.”
AI tools can help with creating social media content. Consider including information about brand promise, brand voice, and key demographics to engage in your prompt. You can also provide details about a few products to feature.
“Write a 1,200-word blog post about choosing a houseplant for your space that uses the focus keyword ‘low-light houseplant.’”
AI writing tools can create keyword-optimized content for your website or blog. For satisfactory results, add target audience information, include URLs the post should link to, and upload sample content that uses your preferred style.
“Brainstorm blog contentideas for a salt-water aquarium supply business.”
AI-powered brainstorming can level up your creativity. Depending on your specific goals, you might also ask the tool to include specific keywords for each idea, rank ideas according to keyword difficulty, or focus on ideas that target online shoppers.
“Craft a marketing newsletter welcome email for my online vintage lighting store, Glow Victoria, that includes the coupon code ‘Welcome10.’”
Use your tool to write sales and AI marketing email content. Additional direction might specify the audience and tone or give details about the types of content newsletter subscribers can expect.
“Create a website hero image in the art style of Salvador Dalí that features gold jewelry items in a desert landscape.”
AI art generators can quickly generate high-resolution visual site content, providing a cost-effective way to experiment with styles and image types. If Dalí isn’t suitable for your brand, you might model the scene after another surrealist, like Magritte or Breton, or try other art styles, like cubism, romanticism, or pop art.
Note that an AI image generator can produce errors due to their limited understanding of context, art style, and nuances, sometimes leading to unrealistic or inappropriate images.
“Write a five-second rockabilly-style jingle for an auto parts supplier called Motor Runnin.”
AI tools can also compose melodies and provide accompanying lyrics. Experiment with melodies and musical genres that fit your brand identity and ask the tool to suggest instrumentation, tempo, and musical dynamics.
“Create a bulleted list of the key points from this article.”
Upload articles or reports to an AI tool and instruct it to summarize the content or extract key pieces of information, helping you speed up research projects.
Extracting highlights also makes it easy to adapt content for different forms. If an AI tool pulls six highlights from an industry white paper, for example, you might instruct it to create an accompanying six-part social series.
“Write a German-language LinkedIn post that explains the importance of regularly cleaning your laptop’s screen.”
AI tools can write content in multiple languages. You can also ask the tool to translate existing content or tailor a translation to a particular audience, for example, French-Canadian teens. It’s best to verify the accuracy of the translated content if you’re unfamiliar with the output language.
“Analyze this collection of customer reviews of my company and identify relevant trends.”
AI tools can read customer reviews, analyze sentiment, and identify critical trends. Ask your tool to provide a breakdown of reviews by customer sentiment and pull common complaints or compliments. You might also follow up by asking it to brainstorm ideas for improvement.
“Create six Facebook images for a social media marketing campaign about the importance of using home air purifiers to improve indoor air quality.”
Use AI tools to quickly create social media graphics and size them for your intended platform. Additional instructions might describe image styles like 3D or charcoal sketch or request that images include specific text, like “Clean air, healthy home” or “How IAQ affects your life.” You could also upload post text and have the tool analyze the content to create related images.
“Outline this article.”
AI tools can create content outlines that list sections in order and analyze the overall logical structure of the piece. Use content outlines to guide future AI-generated content or improve your writing skills. For example, if you’re struggling with press releases, you might have an AI tool outline a few compelling examples of existing press releases and use those outlines as a roadmap for your own content.
“Proofread this blog and correct spelling and grammar mistakes.”
AI tools can correct typos, spelling errors, and grammatical issues. Ask the tool to identify error patterns (such as typos, spelling errors, or improper punctuation), define them, and use the answers to improve your writing.
“Identify keywords to include in a product description for a sustainable yoga mat.”
Save time by having your AI tool conduct keyword research. Ask the tool to highlight specific product features, choose popular keywords for a specific audience, or target users in a particular phase of the buying journey. It can also write your description and focus on the keywords you select.
AI prompts FAQ
What are the different types of AI prompts?
Here are five different types of AI prompts:
- Instructional prompts. Directing the tool to perform specific tasks.
- Creative prompts. Encouraging the tool to generate new ideas.
- Informational prompts. Looking for factual data, explanations, or clarifications.
- Reasoning prompts. Asking the tool to analyze, deduce, or solve problems.
- Interactive prompts. Engaging in dialogue with the tool.
What makes an AI prompt good?
Detailed prompts tend to get the best results. Provide examples, contextual information, and notes about what not to do to help the AI tool deliver a response that meets your needs.