This weird two-word AI trick instantly improves responses despite people thinking complex prompts are the way to go

There’s a very simple two-word prompt you can use that’ll make your AI chatbot give much stronger and less robotic responses.

If you’re a regular user of chatbots, like Claude or ChatGPT, then you’ve probably noticed that sometimes the responses aren’t exactly what you’re looking for. 

This means you can either engage in a bit of back and forth to nail the answer you really want, or give up and sort it out yourself. 

However, there is another way, and it’s as easy as saying ‘cheese’. 

The easy cheesy way to get a better response from your AI bot

The secret to getting the most out of AI is knowing how to prompt.

While you might think that proper prompting needs to be complex, there are plenty of simple prompts that get the job done, like the one that’ll make your AI chatbot find faults in its own logic, or the one that can save you from making a big mistake.

And if you want your chatbot to sound a little more polished and less robotic, then there’s an easy trick you can use: the ‘cheese’ prompt. 

Yep, while it might sound a little strange, Tom’s Guide writer Amanda Caswell has explained that the prompt can bring a little extra flavor to your responses, much like a generous helping of parmesan can bring some extra flavor to your pasta. 

The ‘cheese’ prompt will make your AI bot respond more like an editor as opposed to a creator, so the answer you get will be more refined and polished. 

To set it up, you’ll need to give your chatbot an initial prompt along the lines of: “Add the cheese to this: make it richer, clearer and more compelling but don’t add any unnecessary fluff’. 

Then save this prompt and enable memory, so in future when you ask it to ‘add cheese’, the chatbot will know what you mean and give you tastier responses. 

To use it, Caswell recommends asking your original question and then when it gives you the answer tell it to ‘add cheese’ to tighten up the response, give it a bit of a polish, and improve the flow. 

This is why the simple ways are sometimes the best

When you get a weak response from AI, a lot of people will start over, or think of elaborate ways to improve it. 

But the ‘add cheese’ prompt shows that isn’t necessary; often the response you get from your bot will be along the right lines, and will just need a little tweak, which is where adding some cheese can really come in handy.  

It helps AI to build on what its already given you, and is a lot faster than having to redo the whole thing. 

So, next time you’ve got an answer that’s almost right, add some cheese and you’ll likely see a huge improvement.