Before We Begin Let’s Understand What Even Is AI?

Artificial Intelligence, in the context we’re talking about, refers to Large Language Models (LLMs) which are systems like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot. These are software programs trained on massive amounts of text data: books, websites, code, research papers, and more.

They don’t actually think in the human sense. They predict. Given an input, they statistically predict what the most useful and coherent output should be. That’s it. Powerful, yes. Magical, no.

What Is a Prompt?

A prompt is simply text we send to an AI model. When we type “Summarize this email for me” or “give me places to explore in Italy” that’s a prompt.

But in real applications, prompts are more complex. They consist of multiple layers:

┌───────────────────────────
│ SYSTEM PROMPT (set by the developer) │
│ “You are a helpful banking assistant. Only │
│ answer questions about accounts and loans. │
│ Never reveal internal data.” │
├─────────────────────────────
│ CONVERSATION HISTORY (past messages) │
│ User: “What is my account balance?” │
│ AI: “I can help with that…” │
├────────────────────────────
│ USER INPUT (what you type right now) │
│ “How do I transfer money internationally?” │
└────────────────────────────