Treat Your Prompts Like The IP They Are

Good prompts = good results.?

While prompts might not be the most exciting topic when it comes to the cutting-edge landscape of AI, here’s a hard truth: The way you approach your prompts—the way you frame, manage, curate, optimize, and review them—determines the return you get on your AI investment.?

A few months ago, I wrote about how to craft the perfect prompt . At a high level, a quality prompt should:

1. Define the role. Tell AI what it is: an analyst, a copywriter, a creator, etc. This enables it to pinpoint its expertise.
2. Clarify context. What are you trying to do? Are you giving a presentation? Who is the audience? What are their interests and needs??
3. Provide instructions and rules. Give AI its task and provide guidelines for how to do it.?

Your prompts are unique to your organization and have everything to do with your company's operations—with your specific tasks, teams, departments, industry, and customer set. Because of this, it’s all the more important to think of prompts as intellectual property—they give you a competitive advantage!—and manage them accordingly.?

Prompt Management: Parts and Platforms?

To keep that valuable IP safe, you’ll want to determine a method for:?

• Capturing prompts
• Storing them somewhere?
• Sharing them with people across your teams
• Improving upon them
• Reviewing them periodically to ensure they comply with security and regulations

The best people to run prompt management are those already engaged with knowledge management and operations in your organization. Check in with them and ensure that prompt management becomes a priority.?

When it comes to organizing prompts, you have a few options. You can group by task, department, role, industry, or customer. I typically focus on tasks because AI is so good at that.?

The more precise your structure and organization, the better.?

Prompts Management “Platforms”

There are many ways to capture your prompts, and your selection depends on your preferences. Of course, Google Docs, Sheets, or Wikis are good places to begin. These options are straightforward and work well! So, too, do project management tools like Notion, Asana, or Coda.?

However, you have more options than you might think—and some already live within your generative AI tools. Consider the following platforms to support you in your prompt work.

1. ChatGPT’s built-in features?

ChatGPT’s prompt management offerings might be basic, but they work well. Built-in features include:?

Copying and Archiving

All AI tools—it doesn't matter if it's ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini—have a feature on the bottom of the chat result that says “Copy.”?

Once you’ve generated high-quality results, you can copy the entire prompt and the results into a document and put that either into your project management program or a Google Doc. Capture essential information quickly and easily.?

You can also use “Archive Chats” inside ChatGPT.? To do this, you’ll want to:

• Look in the left navigation sidebar. You’ll see a list of your recent conversations. To the right of a chat title, there’s a file drawer icon, and if you hover over it,? “Archive” appears. Click on that to save the chat.?

• To see your archived chats, go into your ChatGPT Settings and select? “Archived Chats” on the right.
• From there, manage your prompts: Reference, copy, download, delete, etc.

Custom Instructions and MyGPTs

Look for Custom Instructions under “Settings.” You can add pre-set prompts such as role and context. Once these instructions are on, they’re helpful if you consistently do one specific task—they help you program and prompt-engineer from the get-go. Custom instructions ensure that every single chat has the same instructions.?

Want a shortcut? Consider MyGPTs—they’re an excellent tool for particular tasks. For example, if you want AI to write copy for your marketing department, you can upload background information—the necessary context and instructions—and you’ll know it's always there. It’s an easy way to capture some of your best prompts. As always, you can iterate as needed.?

For step-by-step instructions on custom instructions and MyGPTs, be sure to check out my newsletter on how ChatGPT can meet your needs.?

2. Prompt Management Tools?

I often keep prompts in documents or archive chats. But there are some tools I’ve started playing with like Prompt Plus, PromptFolder, and Prompt Knit. (For more advanced users and better integration options, consider PromptLeo, Prompt Manager Pro, or Promptteams).

One of my favorite tools is Blaze, and it’s a simple keyboard snippet manager. You hit your forward slash key as you type in a few words, and Blaze fills in the text inside any browser.?

I store commonly used prompts on Blaze gives me quick access to the prompts I regularly use—faster! Another bonus? You can share your snippets across teams!?

As you learn more about prompt management tools, be sure to consider:

• Team collaboration. How easy is it for people to use the tool??
• Integration. How well does it fit in with your knowledge management system? What about version control, and workflow automation??
• Structured repository. Does it allow you to customize to your needs??
• A/B testing. Does it work better on one engine than on another?
• Performance monitoring. What are the results? Is it working?
• Security and compliance reviews. Are the prompts you’re using compliant with rules and regulations??

Prompt management tools are very much in their early days, and you may be far more comfortable organizing your prompts through Google Docs and Spreadsheets. But it’s also important to think about the future—as you scale your organization, these tools will become all the more important, as will the need for their effective management.?

For now, though, remember this: Your prompts are IP. Their value to your organization requires some kind of knowledge management. Save them, optimize them, test them—and watch your results improve.?

If this information was helpful, you may be interested in attending one or both of my upcoming (free!) webinars. Each hour-long session promises to be packed with hands-on exercises and best practices to propel your AI prowess to the next level:

• April 24: Unlocking the Power of Generative AI: A Leader’s Guide to Getting Started . A hands-on introduction to using generative AI as a leader. We’ll move from knowing about generative AI to using it.?
• May 8: Developing a Winning Generative AI Strategy for Competitive Advantage . Wondering how to get started with generative AI? We’ll walk step-by-step through how to create a coherent generative AI strategy that supports your business objectives.??

Your Turn

How are you capturing your generative AI prompts—either personally or in your organization? What’s working, and what’s not working??