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We are living in a new era. OpenAI and all the developments including Copilot have truly ushered us into an unseen world of opportunity with regards to cloud computing. However, with great power comes great responsibility. How do we aim for deep human impact?
As Thomas Dohmke (GitHub CEO) said at MPPC 2023, natural language is the new universal programming language. Therefore, we need to be the best pilots and let our prompts take off in style when we are surrounded by Copilot. In essence, we need to be the best prompt engineers.
Step 1: Get to know the origins of a high-flying tool
It all started with the infamous ChatGPT, currently freely available at version 3.5 or paid for with the Plus plan and version 4. ChatGPT is an LLM developed by OpenAI that can understand and generate human-like text.
It’s a game of give and take; you provide a prompt (text input or question) and a response is generated. The clearer and more concise your input, the more specific your answers will be.
Context matters. As your interactions are iterative, previous parts of your conversation will be remembered. Maintaining context leads to more coherent results.
Step 2: Fly through the business benefits
IT development is more accessible: You can give more power to citizen developers to build solutions they want and need. Plus, you end up expanding your resources, building fusion teams and drive more diversity.
More productivity and time back: From customer support chatbots, to content generation for meetings, to automating data entry and lead generation, the use cases are endless. As per Gartner's 7 rules for demonstrating IT value, it is down to us as consumers to prioritize best.
Integrations will finally matter: Defining the priority systems to integrate with is important to deliver functional value. Work with end users so requirements are based on their needs, not senior egos. There are already out-of-the-box integrations fueling Copilot e.g., Copilot for Sales in Dynamics 365 with Microsoft Outlook and Teams. But it doesn’t stop there.
Step 3: Be a Maverick with a game plan
Imagine this is an acting game. What would make your bot a convincing actor playing yourself? There are 6 areas to ace for your bot to graduate prompt engineering school.
Role: What role should your chatbot play? Remember, your priority business scenarios matter. For example, is your bot a support agent to ease your Help Desk’s case load? Or a Marketing Manager to help with your Digital Messaging strategy. Think of your job spec here, and tell your chatbot: “Act as (role)...”. You can even practice by using Bing Chat or ChatGPT to get your role description right before programming your own chat bot. For example, “Act as a Marketing Manager with experience in Digital Strategy, Commercial Planning and the latest features in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys).”
Tasks: Now that you have defined your job spec, be specific and concise with giving your bot a task. Start small to check for accuracy and delivery style, and build from there. For example, if this is your Marketing Manager consultant, ask to draft an email plan and then extend to other channels. This way you can customize the style and build from there the bigger picture. Your interactions will be iterative anyway, and will complement your “Act as (role) (task)…” prompt. For example, “Act as a Marketing Manager with experience in Digital Strategy, Commercial Planning and the latest features in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys. Provide me an outline with explanations of 10 customer journeys I can set up in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys for customers starting out as prospects looking for home insurance.”
Format: Guide your bot on your desired format to speed up interactions, accuracy and quality. Bullet points, numbered list, paragraph, slide deck, flow chart or even training guides. Now your prompt is expanding to “Act as (role) (task) in a (format) “. For example, “Act as a Marketing Manager with experience in Digital Strategy, Commercial Planning and the latest features in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys. Provide me an outline with explanations of 10 customer journeys I can set up in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys for customers starting out as prospects looking for home insurance. This outline must be in bullets, with a title for each bullet, an explanation of the customer journey and how that relates to home insurance.”
Tone: This is where you start customizing your bot’s tone of voice within the context and content you need. This has many benefits, for example your business brand and tone of voice can be represented in your bot's marketing emails. It can range from engaging and informative to empathetic and calm. This is how you have extended your prompt to read “Act as (role) (task) in a (format) using a (tone)…”. For example, “Act as a Marketing Manager with experience in Digital Strategy, Commercial Planning and the latest features in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys. Provide me an outline with explanations of 10 customer journeys I can set up in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys for customers starting out as prospects looking for home insurance. This outline must be in bullets, with a title for each bullet, an explanation of the customer journey and how that relates to home insurance. Please use a formal, professional tone with business terms used in the home insurance industry.”
Goal: Giving your bot a mission will increase output clarity as you iteratively interact. In the context of creating your marketing manager bot, the purpose may be to inform your team of all the new product launches around Copilot. So many announcements, you need constant, real-time help! Your prompt now reads “Act as (role) (task) in a (format) using a (tone). The main goal is to (goal)”. For example, “Act as a Marketing Manager with experience in Digital Strategy, Commercial Planning and the latest features in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys. Provide me an outline with explanations of 10 customer journeys I can set up in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys for customers starting out as prospects looking for home insurance. This outline must be in bullets, with a title for each bullet, an explanation of the customer journey and how that relates to home insurance. Please use a formal, professional tone with business terms used in the home insurance industry. The main goal is to explain to the head of Marketing my plans for marketing our new home insurance product.”
Restrictions: Think of it as your negative scenarios or conditional design. You can restrict its creativity through the “temperature” (either 0-1 range if you’re programming in the back end, or you switch between creative, balanced and precise in Bing Chat). In the Marketing Manager example, you may want to avoid jargon or emotional language. You now have reached the final level of your prompt “Act as (role) (task) in a (format) using a (tone). The main goal is to (goal)”. Do not use (restrictions).” “Act as a Marketing Manager with experience in Digital Strategy, Commercial Planning and the latest features in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys. Provide me an outline with explanations of 10 customer journeys I can set up in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys for customers starting out as prospects looking for home insurance. This outline must be in bullets, with a title for each bullet, an explanation of the customer journey and how that relates to home insurance. Please use a formal, professional tone with business terms used in the home insurance industry. The main goal is to explain to the head of Marketing my plans for marketing our new home insurance product. Do not use general terms to explain each customer journey, do not exceed 100 words per bullet and be specific about the features it can relate to with regards to Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys.”
Top tip: Did you know ChatGPT has introduced Custom Instructions? Custom instructions allow you to share anything you'd like ChatGPT to use for its response. These instructions will be added to new chats. To access it, click on the three dots at the bottom left of ChatGPT next to your profile picture. You will find custom instructions there.
Step 4: “Jet-set” through experiments with ChatGPT, Bing Chat or Google Bard
The most exciting part, let’s see what we can cook up with these 3 models with the same prompt.
ChatGPT – Score 8/10
The quickest one to generate, even if you navigate in a different tab or window.
I gave a limit of 100 words per bullet, but each bullet was no more than 50. Loving the concise look.
Whilst the result was a mix of general marketing approaches and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys, the tone was spot on as formal and clear on the home insurance journey. A start-up approach, which can be levelled up with plugins to create actual slides e.g., Smart Slides. I would have liked more focus on specific application features and being specific on names since I asked for that.
Bing Chat – Score 6/10
One of the challenges with Bing Chat is that it will not generate content unless you are in that window. Not only that, it took so long to generate that my patience took off.
Bullets were long and wordy. No clickable links compared to the searches and overall limited sources at the end.
Whilst the general understanding of insurance marketing was there, ultimately there was not enough substance. No applications features were mentioned despite the ask to be specific.
Google Bard – Score 9/10
This took almost as long as Bing Chat to generate. The wait was worth it, as the formatting was amazing. A combination of bulleting, sub-segments and a strategic way of presenting application features. My OCD brain is happy.
The length was a struggle as there was no adherence to the 100 word per bullet limitation. A shame but can live with it considering how good the formatting was. And can condense later.
The output was a fantastic combination between core marketing features, understanding of the home insurance customer journey and being a strategic Marketeer. Solid 9/10.
Step 5: Don't chase a Wild-Goose; Risks and Considerations
Check your temperature: Temperature is a parameter defining the “creativity” or randomness of the text generated by the chatbot. A higher temperature (e.g., 0.8) means more diverse and creative outputs, while a lower temperature (e.g., 0.1) means more deterministic and focused ones. Do not risk your output for a presentation on a complex mathematical equation with a higher temperature. Bing Chat for example is by default set to Creative, change it as needed. Do the same checks ahead of your chatbot interaction.
Security and compliance: As a business user, you must be careful with your data. So many data leaks have happened by users directly inputting into ChatGPT, which makes the data part of OpenAI' s LLM training for public use. However the OpenAI API, Copilot, Bing Chat Enterprise and PVA chatbots are built within your business ecosystem, and your data is secure.
Be a strong Pilot, as there is no Autopilot: In the era of Copilot, it has never been more relevant to upskill ourselves as Pilots. Be the Top Gun by learning, experimenting and sharing your journey. Having PVA experience is a trending skill to empower your citizen developers with. And as a business leader, shift your priority to customer and employee experience. Determining IT value through your use of GenAI will make or break your edge.
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