4.1 What is a Prompt?

A prompt is the text instruction, question, or request you give to an AI model. It is how you tell the model what you want it to do — answer a question, write something, summarise text, or translate. The quality of the prompt directly shapes the quality of the answer you get back.

For example, if you type into an AI chat: "Write a short thank-you message in Amharic for a customer who bought coffee from my shop in Addis Ababa," that whole sentence is your prompt. The model reads it and produces a message based on exactly what you asked.