5 Prompting Tricks to Get AI to Do What You Actually Want

If you’ve ever asked ChatGPT, Bard, Claude—or even the AI inside GoHighLevel—to write something and ended up with… not exactly what you had in mind, you’re not alone.

The way you ask an AI matters. A lot.

That’s what “prompt engineering” is all about: learning how to talk to AI in a way it understands. And thanks to Google’s new 68-page deep dive on the topic (yep, they really went all in), we now have a clearer picture of how to write prompts that work better.

Don’t worry—you don’t need to read all 68 pages. We’ve picked out five of the best tips for writing better prompts. Whether you're writing content, automating responses, or experimenting with AI in your marketing tools, these will help you get closer to the result you actually want.

1. Ask Clearly (Zero-Shot Prompting)

Sometimes the best trick is just… asking. If your task is simple—like summarizing a paragraph or writing a product description—you can often just write a clear instruction and hit enter.

This is called “zero-shot” prompting. You don’t give the AI any examples. Just the request. Like this:

“Write a tweet about why coffee is better than tea.”

Simple, direct, and effective for straightforward stuff.

2. Show and Tell (Few-Shot Prompting)

But what if you want something more specific? Say you want the AI to match a tone, follow a format, or stick to certain wording. This is where giving examples helps.

If you show the AI how you want it to answer—maybe with 2–3 examples—it’s way more likely to “get it.”

“Example 1: …”
“Example 2: …”
“Now try this one: …”

This is called “few-shot” prompting, and it works wonders for emails, ad copy, or form responses you want in a certain style.

3. Give It a Role (Role Prompting)

AIs are surprisingly good at playing roles. If you tell it who it is, the output changes.

“Act as a travel guide.”
“You are a customer support agent.”
“Pretend you’re a marketing strategist.”

Suddenly, the tone and language shift to match. Want polite and helpful? Or bold and confident? This is one of the easiest ways to shape the vibe of your response without getting technical.

4. Ask It to Think (Chain-of-Thought Prompting)

Here’s a fun one. If you're asking something more complex, just tell the AI to “think step by step.”

Seriously. Use those words:

“Let’s think step by step…”

Instead of a rushed or wrong answer, you’ll get something closer to how a person would reason it out. Great for logic problems, tricky content structures, or anything that benefits from explanation.

And even if the answer still needs tweaking, at least now you see how the AI got there.

5. Let It Research (ReAct Prompting)

This one's a bit more advanced, but here’s the idea: what if the AI could think and go fetch info?

That's what ReAct prompting does—it blends reasoning with action. You give the AI a task, and it figures out what it needs to know, then uses tools like Google Search or code snippets to get there.

In some setups (like agent frameworks or API integrations), it can actually do this live. For most people, though, it’s just a glimpse of where things are going. AI that doesn’t just guess—but checks, clicks, or calculates its way to the answer.

What Does This Mean for GoHighLevel Users?

If you’re using GoHighLevel, especially with AI features like chat, email writing, SMS follow-ups, or automations, these tricks are pure gold.

Here’s how prompt engineering can make a difference in your day-to-day:

• Better replies in automations: Want your AI step to sound less robotic? Add a role. Give an example. Ask it to be “short and friendly.” You’ll get cleaner, more useful replies.
• Faster content: Instead of writing every email from scratch, feed the AI a few sample outputs you like. It’ll mimic your style and save you hours.
• Smarter workflows: Imagine an AI that can take customer input, organize it into bullet points, and respond based on what they said—without confusing them or veering off-topic. That’s prompt engineering at work.

It’s not magic—it’s just better instructions.

Try It Out

You don’t need to be a coder or an AI geek to write better prompts. You just need to know a few tricks. Start with clear instructions. Add examples. Assign roles. And when things get complicated, tell the AI to slow down and walk through it step by step.

Want to go deeper? Google’s whitepaper has way more examples and advanced methods. You can find it here on Reddit.

In the meantime—go tweak your prompts. See what happens. You might be surprised at what your AI is really capable of when you ask the right way.