Prompt Engineering
The skill of writing instructions that get an AI to reliably produce the result you actually want.
Prompt engineering is the practice of phrasing your instructions so an AI consistently gives you good, on-target results. It covers things like giving examples, setting the tone, stating the format you want, and spelling out what to avoid — the same details you'd give a freelancer to get the work right the first time.
You don't need to be technical to do it well. Most of it is being specific: who the audience is, what a good answer looks like, and what "done" means. A well-built AI product also does a lot of this for you behind the scenes, so you get quality output without becoming an expert yourself.
Why it matters
Better instructions mean less back-and-forth and more work you can use as-is — saving the time you'd otherwise spend fixing rough drafts.