Glossary
What is Prompt?
The instructions and information you type into an AI tool like ChatGPT or Claude to tell it what you want it to produce.
Also written as AI prompt, prompt engineering.
A prompt is whatever you type into an AI tool to get it working: a question, a request, instructions, pasted documents and examples. The tool reads all of it and writes a response based on what you gave it.
Why prompts matter
AI tools built on a large language model know a lot in general but nothing about your business, your customer or your situation unless you tell them. A one line prompt gets a generic answer. A prompt that includes context, a role for the AI to play, an example of the style you like and the format you want back gets an answer that is far closer to usable.
What a good prompt usually includes
- Context: who you are, who the reader is and what happened.
- A role: for example, “You are an experienced office manager.”
- An example: a past email or post to match in tone.
- A format: length, structure and style of the answer.
The practice of crafting prompts carefully is sometimes called prompt engineering. For most business owners it simply means briefing the AI the way you would brief a smart new hire, then giving feedback on the first draft until it is right.
