Modern chatbots like ChatGPT might not be as smart as we think they are. 

Humans (thankfully) still have a corner on ingenuity and creative thinking, but chatbots like Google Gemini and ChatGPT tend to regurgitate facts (and some of them are not that convincing).

They use a large language model — e.g., existing information contained in a database — to look for patterns in order to provide “intelligent” answers. They are essentially advanced search engines that only appear to act like a human brain, but in reality are parsing existing information and turning it into something semi-useful.

As with all technology, the axiom “garbage in, garbage out” is still valid. If you ask ChatGPT a generic question you will likely receive a generic response.

That’s why prompt generators are so helpful. The idea is that these tools help you formulate a question that is more complex and leads to more useful results.

As an example, if you type in a phrase like “plan my trip to Las Vegas” as described below you will get some basic tips and advice, but no specifics. ChatGPT will come up with a generic vacation plan involving family and friends. Not helpful. A prompt generator will ask for specific dates, the purpose of the trip and a budget amount.

You can then copy and paste the fuller, more elaborate prompt for use with ChatGPT. Think of a prompt generator as taking a nugget of an idea and expanding on it dramatically so you don’t have to work as hard.

To find out which prompt generator proved to be the most helpful, I ran three separate tests with four services. I used Goatimus, Prompt Cowboy, Perfect Prompt Generator and Feedough’s free prompt generator because they are free and run on the web. After explaining the three tests and the results, I’ll reveal which free prompt generator worked the best.

Plan a trip to Las Vegas

John Brandon / John Brandon

Initial prompt: Plan my trip to Las Vegas

In January, I’m heading to CES — the annual tech trade show in Las Vegas that draws over 100,000 people — but I have not even booked my flight, arranged a car, or reserved a hotel yet. I would normally use ChatGPT to help me make travel plans, but it can take quite a bit of time to add all of the details. In fact, it’s often easier to just skip using a chatbot altogether.

That’s why I liked Prompt Cowboy so much. The interface is much better than the other prompt generators. It has drop-down menus and dialog boxes on the right-hand side for adding more information, such as my specific travel dates, budget, and purpose. Yet, you can skip those if you want and Prompt Cowboy will spit out a fuller, more detailed prompt.

The newly generated prompt was far more detailed and broke down hotel and flight prices. ChatGPT then created a detailed travel itinerary with hotel suggestions and even advised me to book my trip soon to avoid rate hikes.

I also liked how Perfect Prompt Generator kept things simple. The refined prompt was meant to force ChatGPT into travel planning mode, and it worked. It looked like this: “Act as the most knowledgeable travel planner and create a detailed itinerary for a trip to Las Vegas, including recommendations for accommodations, dining options, entertainment, and must-see attractions. Consider the preferences of a [type of traveler, e.g., family, couple, solo traveler] and suggest activities for [number of days] days, along with tips for transportation and budgeting.”

When I pasted in that new prompt into ChatGPT, it went into travel planner mode. The bot asked me about the purpose of the trip and my travel dates. Once I typed those in, the results matched what ChatGPT provided when I used the Prompt Cowboy generated prompt. Goatimus added more detail to my initial prompt and so did Feedough, but neither led to a detailed itinerary. They also didn’t guide me by asking for specific dates, the purpose of the trip, or my budget.

Write a marketing plan

John Brandon / John Brandon

Initial prompt: Write a marketing plan for a store called Brandon Books that only sells used books. Make it profitable in 5 years

Asking ChatGPT to create more complex documents like a marketing plan is actually more time-consuming than you might think. The only way to get better results is to spend more time spelling out exactly what you want. Thankfully, prompt generators do the hard work for you of breaking down what should be in a marketing plan before you ask ChatGPT for help. 

I decided to invent a fictitious company called Brandon Books to see which prompt generator gave me the best marketing plan. Here again, both Prompt Cowboy and Perfect Prompt Generator provided the best prompts that were more useful than Feedough or Goatimus, but in dramatically different ways.   

Perfect Prompt Generator provided a prompt that seemed too generic at first: “Act as the most knowledgeable marketing strategist and create a comprehensive marketing plan for a store called Brandon Books, which specializes in selling used books. The plan should include detailed strategies for target audience identification, branding, pricing, promotional tactics, online presence, community engagement, and sales forecasting. Additionally, outline specific steps to ensure profitability within five years, considering market trends and competitive analysis.”

However, when I pasted that into ChatGPT, I was impressed with the level of detail. ChatGPT provided a six page document that was extremely helpful; when I used the prompts Feedough or Goatimus provided, the doc was much shorter. I didn’t think the marketing plan ChatGPT provided as a result would actually work.

Prompt Cowboy knocked this one out of the park, though. When I used the extensive prompt provided, ChatGPT split my marketing plan into multiple phases, including social media content plans and all of the budget variables. I could see starting an actual company with what ChatGPT ended up providing, thanks to the longer prompt from Prompt Cowboy.

Combine two different resumes into one

John Brandon / John Brandon

Initial prompt: Combine these two resumes

ChatGPT is not the best at complex tasks that normally involve actual human ingenuity. (For further reading on that topic, a recent piece in The New Yorker did a great job explaining what human thought even is and how AI is currently doing a pale imitation of pattern matching.) 

Turns out mimicking how the brain works and coming up with something new and interesting is a lot harder than it might seem. Case in point: I took two different resumes from my past as a corporate drone and then as a journalist and asked ChatGPT to combine them into one. 

ChatGPT merely split them into two sections in chronological order, but that’s not what I had in mind. I wanted an innovative approach that combines two completely different careers, and that’s a lot harder.

Prompt Cowboy generated about six paragraphs of guidance, including a summary that read: “You have two separate resumes that need to be merged into a single, cohesive document. These resumes may contain overlapping or complementary information about work experience, education, skills, and achievements that need to be consolidated effectively.” 

That seeded helpful, but ChatGPT took that prompt and generated a resume that mostly matched what happened when I used the initial prompt. Still, I liked how Prompt Cowboy asked me for more specifics. Feedough  and Goatimus both generated a detailed and highly structured prompt, but the final ChatGPT resume was not that impressive.

Perfect Prompt Generator didn’t provide a long, detailed prompt and instead took a radically different approach than the other prompt generators: “Act as the most knowledgeable career coach and provide a detailed guide on how to effectively combine two resumes into a single cohesive document. Include tips on maintaining clarity, highlighting relevant skills and experiences, and ensuring that the final resume is tailored for a specific job or industry. Discuss formatting options, the importance of a strong summary statement, and how to address potential gaps or overlaps in work history.”

The result was extremely helpful — I engaged with ChatGPT to develop a combined resume. It ended up taking longer, but the final resume combined the two careers much better.

Bottom line

I eventually ruled out Feedough and Goatimus. I liked them fine, but they mainly just expanded on my initial prompt with more detail and structure. Feedough also has too many ads which I found distracting.

Perfect Prompt Generator is my second pick because it turned ChatGPT into a career coach and a travel agent, guiding me through a discussion instead of just delivering a long prompt.

However, in the end, Prompt Cowboy was the best prompt generator of the bunch. While it didn’t produce the best results for the combined resume, the interface that allows you to select more specific criteria is what made it the most useful and powerful. It proved to be the best at generating prompts for my business travel and the fake marketing plan.