Definition
An AI prompt is a question, command, statement, code sample or other form of text submitted as an input to a large language model (LLM) through a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) platform such as Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI's ChatGPT. In addition, nontext prompts like image and audio files can also be submitted as inputs in some LLMs. The sole aim of a prompt is to feed the AI model with the right information it needs to deliver accurate, pertinent output. Usually, the prompt can be as simple as a few words or as complex as several paragraphs [1].
The following is
a simple example of a prompt:
"Write a
35-word Instagram caption for a restaurant in Abuja promoting their special
jollof rice and grilled chicken combo for ₦3,500. Use warm, inviting tone."
Possibilities with an AI prompt [2]
Origin
AI prompts originated from the early attempts at natural language processing. But early AI systems found it difficult to produce contextually relevant prompts. However, key breakthroughs such as the development of models like GPT-1, GPT-2, and the groundbreaking GPT-3 revolutionized AI prompts. These iterations brought enhanced contextual understanding, expanded creative possibilities, and increased the utility of AI prompts for content creators [3].
Context and Usage
Usually, prompts
can be in form of simple questions or instructions to complex scenarios or data
structures. The result quality of a prompt is mostly based on its clarity,
specificity, and alignment with the AI model's capabilities. They play a
crucial role in various AI applications, including:
- Text generation
- Image creation
- Code completion
- Task automation
Once you input a prompt, the AI model analyzes your prompt and generates a response based on the patterns it has learned through its training. The information, sentences, or questions that you enter into a Generative AI tool (“prompts”) influences the quality of outputs it produces. The more descriptive the prompts, the better the quality of the outputs [4].
In Practice
A real-life case study of a company that offers prompt services can be seen in the case of PromptBase. Promptbase operates based on the principle that finding high-quality prompts online can be a tough challenge, and therefore serves as a prompt marketplace where users can find or sell optimized prompts for DALL-E, GPT-3, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion. Also, it has a review process, which means that actual humans review all the prompts in the marketplace [5].
See Also
Related Model
Training and Evaluation concepts:
- Pre-training: Initial training phase where models learn general patterns from large datasets
- Prompt Engineering: Craft of designing effective prompts to get desired AI responses
- Regularization: Techniques to prevent overfitting and improve model generalization
- Stop Sequence: Predefined tokens that signal when text generation should end
- Tagging (Data Labelling): Annotating data for supervised learning
- Sheldon, R., Yasar, K. (2024). What is an AI prompt?
- Geeksforgeeks. (2025). What is an AI Prompt?
- Watts, J., L. (2024). The Evolution of AI Prompts: A Comprehensive Overview
- HUIT. (2023). Getting started with prompts for text-based Generative AI tools
- Mileva, G. (2025). 5 AI Prompt Optimization Services Worth Looking At.