The 3-Step System That Will Instantly Upgrade Your AI Prompts

What most people miss when writing prompts—and how to fix it in three moves

Author

Robert Evans
June 09, 2025

Most people think prompt engineering is about magic words. It’s not.

If you’re new to AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, you might feel frustrated when the outputs don’t quite hit the mark. That’s because prompting is less about phrasing the perfect sentence and more about knowing how to communicate like a great manager.

Here’s a simple 3-step process to radically improve the quality of your AI outputs—without needing to become a tech expert.

Step 1: Treat the AI Like an Employee, Not a Search Engine

Think of ChatGPT (or any LLM) like a very smart assistant you just hired. If you were asking someone to build a report or complete a task, you wouldn’t just say, “Do a good job.”

Instead, you’d:

  • Provide context about the job

  • Define what "done" looks like

  • Share examples of success or failure

Apply the same thinking to your prompts. Want better results? Give it more background, details, and structure. You’re not writing prompts. You’re writing instructions.

Step 2: Ask the AI to Make the Prompt Better

Once you’ve written a clear prompt, try this meta-move: ask the LLM to improve your prompt.

Seriously. Say something like:

"Here’s my current prompt: [insert]. Can you rewrite this to get a more accurate and persuasive response?"

It will often produce a better version that you can then reuse. This is where most people level up—they use the AI to help them think with the AI.

Step 3: Feed It Great Examples (and Steal From the Best)

Now, here’s the pro-level move. Let’s say you want to create a viral social post. Go to Grok (or any trend tracker), find the five most viral tweets on your topic, and copy them.

Then go back to your AI assistant and say:

"I want to write a better tweet than these. Please analyze them, reverse engineer the style, and generate prompts I can use to create something similar."

By feeding it strong examples, you’re training it with your taste. You’re giving it vision. And it will start to reflect that quality back to you.

These three steps might sound simple, but when used together, they compound. Suddenly, AI isn’t a novelty. It’s your creative co-pilot.

Want to master AI prompting in less time than it takes to make a cup of coffee?

Start by treating your next prompt like a job description. Then level it up, and teach the AI how to help you teach it.