What if you could turn a generative AI ****tool into your own team of experts, ready to help you take on any challenge? What if they were speedy, creative, and able to roleplay through all kinds of scenarios to help you with work? Well, there’s no “what if” required—that’s what an AI agent is designed to do. You can create an AI agent to help you with whatever you need, from writing a speech to learning about coding. Here, you’ll learn how to craft your own and start working smarter.
To create an agent, you’ll prompt the gen AI tool as you usually would, following the prompting framework, but you’ll focus on persona and context more than ever. The more detail you include about what you want the AI agent to do, and how you want it to respond, the more effective it will be.
Here’s how to create an AI agent:
Have you ever wanted to improve your public speaking skills? Or practice a difficult conversation you’re planning to have? AI agents can help by acting as a digital coach that can give you feedback on a wide range of scenarios, and build your skills in the process.
Consider this one: you’re a freelance web developer looking to improve your negotiation skills to close more deals, build stronger relationships, and lock in better rates and terms. You can create an AI agent that takes on the persona of a seasoned negotiator and business consultant to help you do just that. To practice a skill with an AI agent, add in a lot of context about the expertise you're honing, and be specific about what it can do to help you achieve your goals.
Here’s an example:
I’m a freelance web developer. I want to brush up on my negotiation skills so I can demand higher rates, establish clear project boundaries, and create mutually beneficial relationships with my clients. Take on the persona of a seasoned business consultant with serious expertise in negotiation strategies for freelance web developers. I’d like you to assess and improve my negotiation skills by roleplaying with me through example negotiation scenarios that I might encounter at work and practical exercises, providing industry-specific advice and feedback as I respond. When I want to end the roleplay, I’ll write “I’m finished.” When our conversation is over, provide me with a list of personalized, actionable ways I can improve my negotiation skills.
An AI agent can give you suggestions and recommendations for a particular task. For example, you can create an AI agent that takes on the persona of an editor and helps you change or improve a piece of your writing and provides feedback on your style, format, tone, and more.
Suppose you want to submit a piece of writing to a magazine. Before you submit it, an AI agent can provide critiques and suggestions. To receive feedback on a writing piece, paste your work into your prompt and get specific about your desired outcome, the context, and the persona you want the tool to take on. Note that depending on how much text you want to include in your input (how long of a document you need critiqued), you might need a gen AI tool with a long context window, which allows for the processing of a large amount of information in different formats at once. With that in mind, you could craft a prompt like this:
I’m submitting a creative writing piece to a literary magazine for a prize. The magazine is known for its fantasy and sci-fi content. The judges are accomplished fantasy writers and will be choosing a winner based on world-building, originality, and technical skill.