Prompting guide 101

Gemini is the AI-powered assistant from Google, built right into Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and more, with enterprise-grade security and privacy. Gemini can help you write, organize information, create images, accelerate workflows, and much more.

To get the most out of Gemini, you must write effective prompts, and you don’t have to be a prompt engineer to do this. Prompting is a skill we can all learn. You will likely need to try a few different approaches for your prompt if you don’t get your desired outcome.

You can think of a prompt as a conversation starter with your AI-powered assistant. You might write several prompts as the conversation progresses.

The four main areas to consider when writing an effective prompt are:

• Persona
• Task
• Context
• Format

Here is an example of a prompt using all four areas that could work well in Gmail and Google Docs:

You don’t need to use all four in every prompt, but using a few will help!

Here are quick tips to get you started with Gemini for Google Workspace:

1. Use natural language. Write as if you’re speaking to another person. Express complete thoughts in full sentences.

2. Be specific and iterate. Tell Gemini what you need it to do (summarize, write, change the tone, create). Provide as much context as possible.

3. Be concise and avoid complexity. State your request in brief — but specific — language. Avoid jargon.

4. Make it a conversation. Fine-tune your prompts if the results don’t meet your expectations or if you believe there’s room for improvement. Use follow-up prompts and an iterative process of review and refinement to yield better results.

5. Use your documents. Personalize Gemini’s output with information from your own files in Google Drive.

6. Make Gemini your prompt editor. When using the Gemini app, start your prompts with: “Make this a power prompt: [original prompt text here].” Gemini will make suggestions on how to improve your prompt. Ensure it says what you need, and then paste it back into the Gemini app to get an output.

You can collaborate with AI using Gemini for Workspace to help boost your productivity and creativity without sacrificing privacy or security.

Generative AI and all of its possibilities are exciting, but it’s still new. Even though our models are getting better every day, prompts can sometimes have unpredictable responses. Before putting an output from Gemini for Workspace into action, review it to ensure clarity, relevance, and accuracy. And of course, keep the most important thing in mind: Generative AI is meant to help humans but the final output is yours. Example prompts are meant for illustrative purposes.

How to use this prompt guide

This guide introduces you to prompting with Gemini for Workspace. It includes strong prompt design examples to help you get started. Additionally, it covers scenarios for different personas, use cases, and potential prompts.

You will notice a variety of prompt styles. Some prompts have brackets, which indicate where you would fill in specific details or tag your own personal files by typing @file name. Other prompts are presented without variables highlighted to show you what a full prompt could look like. All of the prompts in this guide are meant to inspire you, but ultimately they will need to be customized to help you with your specific work.

To get started, use the role-specific suggested prompts as inspiration to help you unlock a new and powerful way of working.

Next, learn how you can get started with different features by visiting g.co/gemini/features.