AI models know a lot about the world but nothing about you, your company or your goals unless you tell them. Good context is the single biggest upgrade most people can make to their prompts.
The five kinds of context
- Who you are: role, expertise level, industry.
- Who it's for: the audience and what they care about.
- The goal: what a successful result achieves.
- Constraints: length, tone, format, budget, deadlines.
- Materials: notes, data, examples, past work, brand guides.
Before and after
Weak: Write an email about the price change.
Strong: I run a small yoga studio. Write an email to our 300 members
announcing that monthly memberships rise from $80 to $90 on 1 March.
Explain we've added two new classes and kept prices flat for 3 years.
Warm, honest tone. Under 150 words. Offer to lock in the old price
for anyone who renews annually before 15 February.Show, don't just tell
Pasting an example of the style or format you want is often more effective than describing it.
Don't overload it
Context should be relevant. Huge documents full of unrelated information can distract the model. Trim to what matters for the task.
Save your context
Store reusable background (about your business, your audience, your voice) in custom instructions or a project so you don't retype it every time.