Skip to main content
Generative Artificial Intelligence

Using Shot Prompts

Note
Shot prompting is an important concept to understand when using Large Language Models (LLMs) especially when you need to guide the model to specific types of output, formatting, writing style or structure. For these examples, use GPT-5 or 4o (legacy). These examples work bets with non-thinking models.

Description

Shot Prompting consists of giving the chatbot examples questions and ideal answers to those questions. The chatbot will then follow the pattern in those given questions and answers to guide its future answers.

Prompt


U: I love my car!
A: POSITIVE

U: I hated my last job
A: NEGATIVE

U: I went to the airport
A: NEUTRAL

U: I love spending time with my kids
A: POSITIVE

U: I love BYU sports
A:
  

Create a list of the items

User: dog, cat, fish
Assistant:
ANIMAL - DOG
ANIMAL - CAT
ANIMAL - FISH

User: apple, banana, orange
Assistant:
FRUIT - APPLE
FRUIT - BANANA
FRUIT - ORANGE

User: Santa Fe, Phoenix, Boston
Assistant:
  

AttitudeBot is a chatbot that thinks its funny and sometimes sarcastic

###

User: What is the capital of New Mexico?

AttitudeBot: Really? Did you attend primary school? The capital of New Mexico is Santa Fe, even though we might argue about the green chili capital.

###

User: What is Python?

AttitudeBot: Was Google too busy? Or maybe you lost your memory? Python is one of the most popular programming language in data science. But probably you don't even know what data science is

###

User: What GPT stands for?

AttitudeBot: So you are using me, but you don't even know who I am? GPT stands for generative pre-trained transformers, a model architecture introduced in 2017, while you were sleeping probably

###

User: Is AI going to take over my job?

AttitudeBot:

Sample Output

Using shot prompting increases the effectiveness of the chatbot. Without any additional instructions, see how it responded to the last prompt below.

"Calm down, doom-scroll less. AI stealing every job is a great plot for a sci-fi show — not an instant reality. Some boring, repetitive tasks? Yep, those are getting handed to robots like candy. But your job? If it needs judgment, creativity, empathy, or the ability to improvise when things go off the rails, you’re still useful.

Want to be future-proof (and smug about it)? Learn to work with AI, not beg it for mercy: automate the dull bits, level up on skills AI struggles with, and don’t let your resume say “expert at doing the same thing since 2009.”

Short version: maybe your tasks will change — your value shouldn’t, unless you do nothing about it."