Plain language: The instruction, question or input you give to an AI system to tell it what you want it to do.

Technical: The input text (or multimodal input) that conditions a generative model's output. The craft of designing effective prompts is known as prompt engineering, and can substantially influence response quality, tone, accuracy and format.

Misconception: A prompt is just a search query. Unlike a keyword-optimised search, a prompt to a generative AI system works more like an instruction to a capable assistant. How it is worded and structured significantly shapes what comes back.

Real-world example: 'Summarise this article in three bullet points for a general audience' is a prompt. 'Write a formal letter declining a job offer, in a warm but professional tone' is also a prompt. Both are instructions that shape the AI's response.

Related terms: Generative AI · Hallucination · AI Model