Anyone can write a ChatGPT prompt. But not everyone can write a good prompt. It took me months of experimentation for me to realize this.
So many professionals get hyped up about AI tools that they miss the point. Although generative AI has been shown to boost salaries by as much as 47% (AWS and Indeed research), it’s not the AI tool itself that will significantly improve your salary or revenue. It’s generative AI skills…what you do with it, how you prompt it.
If you’re prompting poorly, the results will show in the output. You may not be a computer scientist, machine learning developer, or AI researcher. But if you want to get ahead with AI in your career and lead with AI as a business leader or entrepreneur, then mastering prompt techniques (not just copy-pasting prompts from prompt packs online), is what will make you stand out in your field. It’s all the difference between using ChatGPT as a Google search engine and actually turning it into an assistant that’s one of your most profitable co-workers.
3 ChatGPT Prompt Engineering Techniques For 2026
In this article, I’m going to teach you three ChatGPT prompt techniques for writing very good prompts and getting the best out of ChatGPT (including three ChatGPT prompt examples). You might have come across some already in ChatGPT prompt packs online, but not realized how or why the prompts were structured in that way.
By the end of this short read, you’ll step away better equipped to use generative AI tools like Copilot, Claude, and ChatGPT the right way, and receive better quality output, which will translate directly towards boosting your productivity and speed of execution, and bumping up your salary.
ChatGPT Prompt Technique #1: Persona Prompting
Persona prompting is where you instruct an LLM (for the purpose of this article, ChatGPT) to adopt a specific persona. This improves the output and allows for better accuracy. It also helps you to virtually step into the mindset and perspectives of decision-makers, stakeholders, customers, etc. as a leader or entrepreneur and consider how your actions might be perceived by others. This is great for product and project managers.
It also helps you receive tailored expert advice from specific types of experts, or to act as a specific type of co-worker/assistant, like a marketing assistant.
Example ChatGPT Prompt #1: You’re an early-stage fintech investor from with a background at Y Combinator. Based on what you know about XYZ start-up, craft a pitch deck that would make you want to participate in our Series A funding round.
Example ChatGPT Prompt #2: You’re a LinkedIn ghost-writer. Help me create a content calendar of LinkedIn post ideas to establish my thought leadership brand in XYZ for the next 30 days.
ChatGPT Prompt Technique #2: Provide In-Context Learning
LLMs work just to the extent that they have been trained. And the training doesn’t end with OpenAI, the developer. It continues as the bot is being used. The more you train it, the more effective it will work for you. One way to train ChatGPT on what exactly you’re looking for is by demonstrating it in action.
In your prompt, give ChatGPT a series of examples so the LLM can see the patterns and understand how it should imitate those patterns in its output. The last example leaves a gap for the LLM to repeat the pattern.
This is called in-context learning.
Example ChatGPT Prompt #1: Rephrase these formal sentences from my email into a conversational tone.
Formal: I regret to inform you that the meeting has been postponed.
Friendly: Hey there, just a heads-up, the meeting’s been moved to a later date.
Formal: Unfortunately, we are declining your offer but thank you for reaching out.
Friendly: Thank you for thinking of us! We appreciate your offer but will have to pass on this one for now.
Formal: We are unable to accommodate your request at this time.
Friendly:
ChatGPT Prompt Technique #3: Customize ChatGPT
Last but not least, don’t forget to customize your LLM as far as possible, especially if you only use it for work or for specific types of tasks. For instance, with ChatGPT, all you need to do to personalize and customize the output is:
- Head to settings (click your name that appears on the bottom left of your laptop or mobile device screen)
- Click on “personalization”
- Include your custom instructions, personalizing it based on your role, preferences, organizational values, and brand voice for comms/marketing/sales. You can ask it to adopt a specific behavior across your chats, and you can even select from ChatGPT’s range of personalities, from its default cheerful and adaptive persona, to “cynic”, to “robotic,” “listener,” or “nerd” (exploratory and enthusiastic).
These three prompt techniques, or commands, as they’re sometimes referred to, help you get the most out of your time using ChatGPT. They make you more effective in your role, and prove to employers that you’re a step closer to being able to actually apply AI to your field of work strategically, adopting it as a partner, instead of producing generic AI slop.
Check out these ChatGPT prompt examples in my recent Forbes article.