A lot of people aren't sure whether they should just chat with an AI model, craft a structured prompt, spin up a project, or unleash a full-blown agent. In this episode, we break down the differences between these approaches and share a practical decision-making framework. We'll show how simple prompts excel for quick, isolated tasks, why structured prompts improve clarity and focus, when a project (workflow) is better for predictable, repeatable processes, and where autonomous agents shine for dynamic, open-ended problems. Along the way we'll demo real examples, share tips for avoiding unnecessary complexity, and help listeners decide which tool fits their use case.Subscribe to The Neuron newsletter: https://theneuron.ai
Full Episode
Should you just ask ChatGPT a question, write a structured prompt, build a project, or maybe go deploy an agent? We're going to help you figure out which one you need today. Welcome, humans, to this week's Neuron Podcast. I'm Corey Knowles, and as always, joined by Grant Harvey. Hey, Grant. What's up? So over the past two and a half years, using AI has gotten a little more complicated.
You have more options than ever, and they're actually quite different from one to the next. And we're not just talking about companies. We're talking about models and ways to approach models, and each have their strengths and weaknesses.
So, regardless of which company's tools you prefer, today we're going to explain how to pick between an agent, a project, a structured prompt, or just typing a bunch of words at it and hitting enter and moving on, because each one of those kind of has its place, so... To kick us off, Grant, how would you define prompt?
Well, the prompt is what you input into the AI chat window. Or if you're working with an API, it's what you send over the wire into the cloud and what is then used to give you an output. Okay.
Yeah. It's a question. Then let's talk about how we would describe, say, a simple prompt.
Okay.
I think it's good to have these definitions clear up front. So as we go forward, it all makes sense to anyone who's listening.
So the most basic possible prompt you could do in AI is basically asking it a question, like a single question with a single answer. Fix this. Well, yeah. Yeah, exactly. But even simpler than that, right? Using it like a Google search, like saying, please explain to me the fall of the Roman Empire. You know, you're not going to get a simple answer, but, you know, that's a simple question, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Now, what you just described is basically giving it context along with your prompt. So in the example that you said, let's say you have... something you wrote, like your bad essay about the fall of the Roman Empire, and you say, fix this, and you paste the whole essay that you already wrote into it. Now, you're leaving a lot up to the AI to decide what fix this means.
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