Show an example

What this technique does

Few-shot prompting means showing a finished example of the result you want instead of describing it. A phrase like “keep it friendly” means something different to everyone, so you get something different every time; paste in one result you already like and the sentence length, the voice and even the order of the fields come with it.

One well-made example is enough, and if you give two the AI looks for the rule they have in common and applies that. It pays off most in the work where every company has its own settled format — product blurbs, replies to customers.

Good example / bad example

Bad

write something friendly to introduce our new product

Good

Below is an example of the product blurbs we use. Write three blurbs for our new product, a "portable humidifier", in the same format and tone.

Example)
Name: Folding book stand
Blurb: Opens on your desk in three seconds. 400g, and it slips into a bag.

The bad example tends to come back as ad copy full of exclamation marks, at a different length each time. The good one follows the example right down to the two-line “name and blurb” structure, the two-sentence length and the polite register, so it drops straight into the existing product page.

How to write it

• Below is an example of the result I want. Follow the same format and tone. Example: (put your example here)
• Here are two examples. Work out the rule they both follow and fill in the rest.
• Below is a bad example of what I want to avoid. Do not write sentences like this.

Watch out

If there is only one example and its subject matter is close to the task, the AI copies the content rather than the format. Pick an example on a different subject, or add “follow the format only and write new content”.

Once the examples run longer than the instruction, what you actually asked for gets buried. Trim the examples short, and restate the real task in one sentence before or after them.

Unfamiliar terms? See Aha AI: few-shot

Turn on Add an example in the builder to add this sentence: “Below is an example of the result I want. Follow the same format and tone.” Open the builder →