Often times in articles, blogs, and even in automatically generated prompts from AI-editors, you see a prompt starting with “You are an expert in technique XYZ and are facing the following problem…”, followed by context of the problem and a description. Does this really lead to better quality of AI-answers?
I asked this question (in anonymous mode, so they didn’t have context of who I was) to different AI-tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini. and got mostly the same answers.
Which in short boils down to: “Not really”.
By stating that the AI is “an expert in field XYZ”, it feels like you’re setting the stage for a higher-quality response. But in practice, that line adds surprisingly little. It’s more of a stylistic nudge than a capability boost.
What does it do?
Then what does it actually do, according to the AI models?
Well, it can – slightly – influence the tone of the response. You might get a more structured answer, fewer beginner-level explanations, and a bit more confidence in the response (as if AI was lacking confidence!). However, it doesn’t make the model smarter, more accurate, or better at solving your problem.
Context matters more
So what does make a difference?
The quality of input.
If you want strong, useful answers, focus your prompt on clarity and context. For instance, when I ask for solving a programming question:
- I add which environment I am working in (framework, versions, OS).
- I exactly describe the problem (e.g. expected vs actual behavior).
- I give an example of what I have you already tried.
- I provide context on what constraints matter (performance, maintainability, compatibility, user demographics).
- I explicitly state what success does look like.
When possible, I include a minimal code example. That alone often improves the answer more than any “expert” framing ever will, I have experienced.
There might even be downsides. One subtle of them that all tools warned me for: telling the model it’s an expert can sometimes lead to over-engineered answers. More abstraction than is actually needed.
Takeaway
So the takeaway is actually simple:
Don’t spend effort on “You are an expert in…”.
Spend it on describing your problem clearly and giving great context.
Better prompts don’t come from assigning roles. They come from thinking through the problem itself. And that, ironically, is where most of the value already is.
-- Peter Kassenaar
22 April 2026