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AI glossary

Prompt

A prompt is the instruction or question you give an AI to tell it what you want it to do.

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In this guide

  1. 1What Prompt means
  2. 2Why Prompt matters

What Prompt means

A prompt is simply your input to an AI tool - the text you type to ask for something. It can be a short question or a detailed set of instructions, and how you write it strongly shapes the result you get back.

For example, the prompt "write about dogs" is vague and gives an unfocused result. "Write a friendly 100-word intro about caring for a new puppy" is a clear prompt, and the AI's reply will be far more useful.

Why Prompt matters

The prompt is your main controls for any AI tool, so writing good ones is the single most useful everyday AI skill. Clear prompts are the difference between weak and excellent results.

Better prompts produce better, more usable AI output
Prompting is the most-used skill in any AI workflow
It needs no technical background - just clear thinking
Strong prompts make every AI tool more reliable

Frequently asked questions

A good prompt is specific and clear. It states the task, gives useful context, and describes the format or tone you want - so the AI has enough to produce a strong result.

More AI terms

Prompt EngineeringThe skill of writing and refining prompts to get accurate, useful results from AI tools.System PromptA behind-the-scenes instruction that sets an AI's role, tone, and rules for an entire conversation.TokenA small chunk of text - a word or part of a word - that an AI model reads and generates one at a time.Context WindowThe maximum amount of text an AI model can consider at once, including your input and its reply.AI HallucinationWhen an AI produces information that sounds confident and plausible but is actually incorrect or made up.Zero-Shot LearningWhen an AI completes a task it was not given any examples for, relying only on its general training.

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