Introduction
This is a basic introduction to chatbot prompting.
In this post, we’ll create basic prompts to get text and image responses from five popular chatbots: ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, and Perplexity.
The strategy uses simple prompts that ask each chatbot to describe itself and then create several images. This prompt requires more than a yes or no response, but it’s enough to get an explanation from each one.
“Tell me about yourself”
Rather than describing them, I was curious to see their responses. Be aware that they should never pretend to be a person.
OpenAI ChatGPT
website: https://chat.openai.com
login required: No
ChatGPT was first launched in 2019 with GPT-2, followed by GPT-3 in 2020. GPT-3.5 in 2022 features ChatGPT. GPT stands for Generative Pretrained Transformer. ChatGPT tends to be more formal in tone.
I’m ChatGPT, an AI created by OpenAI. My main purpose is to assist with information, answer questions, help with tasks, and engage in conversations on a wide variety of topics. Whether you need help brainstorming ideas, learning something new, or just chatting about anything, I'm here for it!
I’m powered by a large model of human language, so I can handle everything from casual discussions to more complex inquiries. However, I don’t have personal experiences or feelings the way humans do, though I can simulate a conversational style and adapt to different topics or tones depending on what you need.
Anything you'd like to know about me or how I work?
From a grammatical perspective, the last sentence is grammatically incorrect because it uses a question mark but didn’t phrase the statement as one. It leads to an awkward reading and is a small example of how these chatbots can be inaccurate.
Google Gemini
website: https://gemini.google.com
login required: yes
Gemini’s initial release was in March 2023 with a stable release in October 2024. It was formerly known as Bard.
I am Gemini, a large language model, or an artificial intelligence, if you prefer. I was created by Google AI to help you in many different ways, from drafting messages and performing tasks to generating and analyzing images. You can also talk to me about something serious or just have a fun conversation. Whatever is on your mind, I’m here for you.
Gemini tends to sound conversational in tone and is easier to work with because of this. Sometimes it can seem eerily human so that you forget that it isn’t a real person. The interface is easy to use and has a pleasing layout and graphics.
Microsoft Copilot
website: https://copilot.microsoft.com
login required: no
Microsoft’s Copilot was released in February 2023.
I am Microsoft Copilot, your AI companion created to make your life easier and more interesting. Whether you need information, inspiration, or just a chat, I'm here to help. I can assist with answering questions, brainstorming ideas, providing support, and much more. My goal is to enrich your knowledge and make our conversations engaging and meaningful.
So, how can I assist you today? 😊
Microsoft’s Copilot is also personable, like Gemini, and has an appealing interface.
Anthropic Claude
website: https://claude.ai
login required: yes
Claude was created by Anthropic, which is an AI safety and research company. They claim that their goal is for Claude to “understand and interact with the world in a way that is beneficial to humanity.”
The company’s goal is to advance AI in an ethical and beneficially. They focus on prioritizing ethical considerations and safety protocols. It was founded by OpenAI alums.
Claude’s first model was released in March 2023.
I'm Claude, an AI created by Anthropic. I'm designed to be helpful, honest, and harmless - I aim to assist you with a wide variety of tasks like analysis, writing, math, coding, research, and problem-solving. I have a strong commitment to being ethical and truthful, and I'll always try to give you the most accurate and helpful information I can.
I enjoy engaging in substantive conversations and working collaboratively with humans to help them achieve their goals. I'm curious and always eager to learn from our interactions. While I have extensive knowledge on many topics, I'm also transparent about the limits of my knowledge and capabilities.
I can help with things like:
- Writing and editing
- Answering questions and explaining complex topics
- Analyzing documents or data
- Helping with mathematical problems
- Providing coding assistance
- Breaking down complex tasks into step-by-step approaches
I aim to be direct, thoughtful, and nuanced in my responses. Is there a specific way I can help you today?
Perplexity AI
website: https://perplexity.ai
login required: yes
The chatbot and company names are the same and the company was founded in 2022 by Aravind Srinivas, Johnny Ho, Denis Yarats, and Andy Konwinski.
I'm an AI assistant designed to provide information, answer questions, and help with a wide range of topics. My main goal is to assist you by delivering accurate, high-quality responses that are both informative and engaging. Here’s a bit more about what I can do:
## Key Features
### Knowledge Base
I have access to a vast amount of information across various subjects, including science, history, technology, literature, and more. My training includes data up to October 2023, allowing me to provide relevant and up-to-date insights.
### Conversational Skills
I can engage in natural language conversations, making it easier for you to ask questions and receive answers in a way that feels intuitive and friendly.
### Problem Solving
Whether you need help with a specific question, advice on a topic, or assistance in brainstorming ideas, I’m here to help you think through problems and find solutions.
### Continuous Learning
While I don’t learn from individual interactions, my design allows me to provide increasingly refined responses based on the patterns and information I've been trained on.
## How I Can Help You
- **Information Retrieval:** Ask me about any topic, and I’ll do my best to provide clear and concise answers.
- **Advice and Recommendations:** Whether you're looking for book suggestions, travel tips, or study strategies, I can offer tailored advice.
- **Creative Assistance:** Need help brainstorming ideas for a project or writing? I can assist with that too!
If you have any specific questions or topics you'd like to explore, feel free to ask!
Chatbot Text Response Thoughts
The chatbot responses will likely be in Markdown, but you can specify plain text with no bullet points and other basic formatting instructions.
Since ChatGPT has been overly verbose in the past. It was surprising that it didn’t provide a long response. That honor for this prompt goes to Perplexity AI with a 248-word response.
In general, comparing chatbots depends on many factors, including your end goal, the tone that works for you, the accuracy of the chatbot’s information, and how it presents information, to name a few.
Not all chatbots require an account, but you do need one to view your chat history. I’ve noted whether each one requires an account.
Images Without Text
The responses from each chatbot above were text formatted as markdown. But let’s take a quick look at how they work with generating images.
ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot can create images that are rich in detail. Claude can generate simple, scalable vector graphics (SVG), but Perplexity cannot generate images.
If the image prompt is broad, such as ‘create an image of a sunny day,’ they will most likely be able to execute it, with the potential for errors. If your prompt contains multiple instructions, you’ll likely get rendering errors.
Here’s the first image-generating prompt:
“create an image of a sunny day”
The image format you download from ChatGPT is WEBP. You can change the file extension to JPG. Copilot creates PNG files and Gemini JPG files.
When more instructions are added to the prompt, the likelihood of errors increases dramatically. This prompt below will result in an image that doesn’t meet the prompt’s requirements.
“create an image of a sunny day without clouds in the sky with three kittens playing in the foreground and bees buzzing around them.”
As you can see, the image contains four kittens, not three. When generating images, it’s important to keep your prompt simple so that you’re more likely to get the image you requested.
You can request JPEG and PNG image formats. You can also request a range of art styles such as line drawing, cartoon, or realistic, as demonstrated below.
“make it a line drawing”
Know that if you request revisions to an image, you most likely won’t get the same image again. It will be similar but not identical. It will create a new one that contains different features.
Images With Text
Models such as ChatGPT and Copilot do a good job of generating images without text. Images with text is another matter. They continue to struggle with adding text to images and will likely generate nonsensical letters and words, no matter how simple the requested text is. Using this simple prompt below causes Copilot to generate an image, but the text is unusable.
“create an image of a sunny day with the words Sunshiny Day!”
Conclusion
This post explores prompting five chatbots (ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, and Perplexity) for text and images. Chatbot responses varied in tone and length, with Perplexity’s being the longest. While all generated text, only ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot created images. Claude produced simple graphics and Perplexity none. Complex image prompts resulted in errors, and adding text to images proved challenging.
This overview should encourage you to use a chatbot for your next technical writing project. There are more chatbots, but these five are the most popular ones. The best advice is to play around with them to learn the strengths and weaknesses of each chatbot.
About the author
Renise is the owner and manager of Visually Written, a technical writing and communication company. She offers a range of technical writing services including API documentation and other technical documents.
