🎶 "When I wake up in the morning and the alarm gives out a warning, I don’t think I’ll ever make it on time..." 🎶

If you just sang that in your head - welcome, fellow 90s kid. Saved by the Bell baby!!

Back then, we were worried about pop quizzes and detention slips. Oh life was sweet.

Today? We're figuring out how to work with AI that can summarize a 30-page report, generate a business plan, and help you write an email.

So in this week’s edition, we’ll break down:

• What prompt engineering really is
• Why it’s evolving
• When it still matters
• And what you, as a leader, really need to focus on now

🛠️ What Is Prompt Engineering?

When GenAI first became mainstream, we all started to hear that we had to become a prompt engineer.

Prompt engineering is the practice of crafting effective inputs (called prompts) to get desired outputs from generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or image generators like Midjourney or Ideogram.

It’s about how you ask the question - because the phrasing, tone, structure, and context used to dramatically affect the result.

Here are examples of prompts under the same topic:

🔹 Simple prompt: “Write a summary of World War II.”

🔹 Structured prompt: “You are a history professor. Summarize the causes of World War II for a 14-year-old student, in under 300 words, using clear, simple language.”

🔹 Advanced prompt with system role: “You are a senior geopolitical strategist at a global think tank, briefing a panel of policymakers who have limited historical context but need to understand strategic patterns. Prepare a 2-page briefing that distills the geopolitical causes, major turning points, and global consequences of World War II. Draw parallels with current global tensions and suggest 2 strategic lessons that modern leaders should extract from the conflict to avoid future large-scale wars."

📈 How Prompt Engineering Has Evolved

In early 2023, prompt engineering was critical. The models were powerful, but not very intuitive. You had to give them:

• Clear goals
• Explicit instructions
• Context, tone, length, format
• And even “act as” roles (e.g., “You are a financial advisor…”)

But in 2024 and 2025, things started to shift:

1. Models got better at reasoning. They now “think out loud,” explaining their steps and asking you follow-up questions.
2. Tools became smarter. You don’t need perfect prompts - you need the right goal. The tools now guide, complete, and even self-correct.
3. Interfaces changed. Voice input, chat memory, and multi-modal tools (text + images + files) reduced the need to write long, complex prompts.

🔧 So does Prompt Engineering Still Matter at All?

While casual users like me may get decent outputs from plain English, prompt engineering is very much alive - just operating at a deeper level. Here's where it still matters (a lot):

• Deep Research & Analysis. When you're digging into complex questions - say, comparing regulatory frameworks across regions or synthesizing dozens of scientific papers - precision prompts make the difference between a shallow overview and strategic insight.
• Training & Fine-Tuning LLMs. Prompt engineering is critical during the instruction tuning phase. Carefully crafted prompts help shape how the model interprets tasks and responds to nuance. It’s also used in creating synthetic datasets for training.
• Agent Design & Chain-of-Thought Reasoning. Building multi-step agents that simulate human workflows? They rely on well-engineered prompt chains. This is prompt engineering on steroids - with logic, memory, and context flow.
• Enterprise Use Cases In regulated industries (like finance or pharma), prompt engineering becomes a form of governance - ensuring outputs are compliant, explainable, and usable by non-technical stakeholders.

So yes, while the average user may not need to prompt like a pro, anyone pushing AI to the edge of performance or reliability still relies on this skill daily.

🧠 So What Skills Matter Now for Me and You?

If perfect prompting is no longer the goal, what matters instead?

1️⃣ Clarity of Thought

• Know what you want
• Define the outcome
• Spot gaps or missing pieces

2️⃣ Critical Thinking

• Evaluate answers
• Ask “Is this true? Useful? Complete?”
• Improve and iterate

3️⃣ Creativity and Framing

• Try new angles
• Reframe the question
• Experiment and explore

🚀 Bringing It All Together - Why This Matters for Leaders

1. 1️⃣ You don’t need to master prompting. You need to master questioning. The winners won’t be the best prompt crafters - they’ll be the best problem definers.
2. 2️⃣ Critical thinking isn’t optional anymore. With so much AI-generated content, the value is in curating, evaluating, and reframing - not just creating.
3. 3️⃣ Creativity is now a core leadership skill. The ability to imagine, iterate, and ask “What if?”.

We were brought up incentivized to having the right answers.

And now we need to learn to ask the right questions.

It's a change time, but an exciting one. And I'm all here for it.

I'll see you next week.

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