There are many ways that AI can enhance your life, but one of the biggest limitations with AI is you. An AI prompt can make or break your entire AI experience, which is why there are now AI prompt engineering courses—but you don't need an entire course to get started. We'll teach you how to write the best prompt for your query, give you the most successful AI prompt examples, and we'll cover all the best practices so you can learn how to make AI work for you.

Why You'll Love This Tip

In order to get good results, an AI user needs to use a clear command prompt.
Depending on what you want the result to be, there are different approaches to the best AI prompts.
Asking for sources in your prompt can help you fact-check the answer and prevent AI hallucinations.

AI Prompt Engineering: Best Practices

Before you master engineering (writing) effective prompts, it is a good idea to look at examples of the best AI prompts. Below, we'll take a look at examples, learn how to use a prompt template, what to avoid when prompting, and more tips that will turn you into a successful AI prompt engineer.

1. Find the best prompt examples that are proven to give the best results and customize them.

Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to AI prompts, because you'll need to approach an image-generating prompt differently than for doing factual research or having a conversation for a practice job interview. In any case, prompts need to be specific; the more information you give the AI assistant, the better it will respond.

Whenever you see an AI image trending where everyone online seems to be posting the same style photo but personalized with their face, that means they all used the same prompt. For example, in December 2025, many people were posting AI-generated images of themselves stepping out of their phones. To recreate this, users had to upload a photo of themselves and use the following prompt.

Prompt: "Use the uploaded photo as the identity reference. Keep my face, hair, skin tone, and outfit accurate. Create a hyper-realistic 3D scene in which I am breaking out of a Facebook mobile timeline, feet-first. Rebuild the Facebook interface from scratch. Include the Facebook logo at the top, the profile picture, username is [insert your name here], 'Leaving 2025' post frame, reactions row, and the Like Comment Share bar. Include the bottom Facebook navigation icons. Place me inside the post image area, then reposition my body so it looks like I am climbing out of the phone and stepping forward out of the timeline. Make one foot extend toward the viewer in full 3D. Add glass shards or pixel fragments around the point where I break through. Lighting should match my original photo. Keep the final image bold and cinematic. I should be wearing ripped jeans, navy blazer, red T-shirt that says Blessed, and red-bottom high heels."

Below is an example of the image I saw in a public post by Denise Holloway Hall in the AI PROMPT Sharin' with Rah n Karen Facebook group, next to a photo of myself that I uploaded, and the result of using ChatGPT with Denise's prompt.

Don't forget to read through the prompt to make sure you don't need to change anything. In this case, I accidentally kept her name instead of writing my own. You can also use prompt examples like this as a starting point and adjust the prompt however you wish to create your own.

The level of detail in the prompt above is a great example of how specific you need to get the best results. But adding in a ton of detail doesn't just work for generating images. If you are looking for reliable facts to cite, try something like, "Provide information about [blank] with sources based on peer-reviewed studies done on a varied group of 1,000 or more participants from around the globe published after 2023." Mentioning the year of publication, location, and sample size will help you find an example of what you need, as long as it exists online. Whenever you use AI assistants to get information, don't forget to fact-check it.

2. Use a dependable prompt template to make sure you're not missing any important components.

Even though different types of AI requests require varying prompt components, there are four things that every single good prompt includes. The four must-haves are:

context
goal
constraints,
and format.

I use the mnemonic "Cats Grab Crunchy Fish" to remember to include them all in each prompt. So next time you are engineering a prompt, don't forget to give your AI LLM any relevant context, outline your goal clearly, mention any constraints (like the length of text needed), and specify the format you want the resulting answer/information to have. Here's an example of a prompt with all four components: "Write a paragraph of text (format) summarizing my work experience and accomplishments (context) perfect for a website bio (goal), keep it under 300 words (constraints)."

3. When creating role-based prompts, leave nothing to interpretation.

In order to "role play" with an AI app, you'll need to learn how to write good "persona" prompts, which help the AI understand the point of view, voice, knowledge base, and tone you want it to portray. When writing these persona prompts, you will still need to keep CGCF from step 2 in mind, but there are additional considerations to take into account. People create AI personas for a variety of reasons, but my favorite example is using this AI feature for something practical like preparing for a job interview. To get the most out of this, you have to be super specific about the type of company it is, the role you are applying for, the tone of voice you're going for, and potentially a certain viewpoint you want to convey. By default, conversational AI assistants can be very praiseful and eager to please, so it is important to convey if you want your AI assistant to give you critical feedback. Since the possibilities are endless when it comes to AI conversations, you have to provide a lot of background and context to have the type of conversation you want. Once you master this, you can use AI to do things like practice a language you are learning, learn new things (ask AI to explain difficult concepts to you like you are five years old), practice difficult conversations with family and friends, work through emotions, rehearse a speech or flirting, and so much more.

Here's an example of a good persona prompt keeping CGCF in mind: "Have a role playing conversation with me (context) where you just met me and are asking me questions about my work experience (format) as if you are a CEO of Apple and make sure to ask difficult contextual questions to test my knowledge (goal), be tough and not overly friendly as this is a professional setting (constraints)." I tried to keep things short, but when you write your own prompts, it never hurts to give more details and information.

Prompting AI is a skill like any other, and now you know how to approach it. We hope this short prompt-engineering guide will help you take advantage of everything AI has to offer. Next, learn about staying safe when using AI.