Best Practices with Box AI

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General principles for writing good prompts

• Be specific and clear: State your request or question clearly. Avoid ambiguity or overly broad queries. The more specific your prompt, the better the response.
• Provide context: Briefly explain the context of your request. This helps Box AI understand what you’re looking for and deliver a more relevant answer.
• Ask open-ended questions: Avoid yes/no questions and instead ask questions that encourage detailed responses.
  • For example, “Can you explain the process of…” rather than “Is this possible?”
• Iterate and experiment: Revise your prompt if the initial response is not what you expected. You can rephrase or clarify your request to get a more accurate answer.
• Avoid biased language: Be mindful of the language you use to avoid any unintentional biases. Clear and neutral language is generally best.
• Limit length: Be clear and specific — avoid extremely long prompts. A concise, well-structured question is more likely to yield a focused response.
• Ask for explanations: Ask for an explanation or reasoning behind an answer to better  understand the content.
  • For example, “Why is this the case?” or “Can you elaborate on…”

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Best practices for prompts with Box AI for Documents

• Ask questions that can stand alone, because questions asked in previous Box AI conversations are not taken into account (if you ask a follow-up question, however, Box AI factors in previous questions)
• Remember answers pertain only to document text (Box AI does not access metadata such as file size, page, and word count)
• Box AI does not follow hyperlinks inside the document’s content
• Avoid asking Box AI to count the number of times a specific word or topic appears in a document
• Avoid asking for answers of a specific length, whether in words or paragraphs

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Best practices for prompts with Box AI for Notes

• Specify the format for output (a list, a step-by-step explanation, pros and cons, or examples)
• Include relevant details for context if your question or instruction refers to a specific topic or previous conversation
• Craft prompts with three sentences that specify how the response should look to receive higher-quality results
• Begin your conversation with a brief introduction to help set the context and guide the model’s response
• Generate creative ideas outside the norm by explicitly asking for creativity in your request
• Specify a length or word count to avoid overly verbose or long answers, such as “up to X words”
• Ask Box AI to provide supporting information that backs up responses with sources or evidence. However, it’s important to independently validate responses.

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Writing good prompts for different use cases

• Asking Box AI to “write an agenda for a customer call” generates a basic response.
• Asking Box AI to “write an agenda for a customer call to introduce a new AI product release around metadata extraction” generates a more accurate and specific response.

• Highlighting general text that says “I don’t know” or “Sure, no problem!” — then asking Box AI to expand on it — does not yield effective results.
• Well-defined content such as “The S&P 500 has risen today” or “Christmas Day is one of eleven federal holidays recognized nationwide by the United States government” yields much better results.

• If you work for a consulting company, use an industry-specific prompt such as “Draft an agenda for a client call about reducing costs for a soda brand.”
• If you work for a nonprofit, consider this sort of prompt: “Brainstorm 10 different ideas to encourage volunteers to take action about climate change.”