Prompt Engineering for Generative AI: Future-Proof Inputs for Reliable AI Outputs

1st Edition
ISBN-13: 978-1098153434, ISBN-10: 109815343X
3.6 on Goodreads
(75)
Double-tap to zoom
Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows.
Buy New
-37% $50.00
FREE delivery Monday, June 30
Ships from: Amazon.com
Sold by: Amazon.com
$50.00 with 37 percent savings
List Price: $79.99
FREE Returns
FREE delivery Monday, June 30
Or Prime members get FREE delivery Tomorrow, June 26. Order within 8 hrs 1 min.
In Stock
$$50.00 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$50.00
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Shipped & Sold by
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Shipped & Sold by
Amazon.com
Support
Product support included
What's Product Support?
In the event your product doesn't work as expected or you need help using it, Amazon offers free product support options such as live phone/chat with an Amazon associate, manufacturer contact information, step-by-step troubleshooting guides, and help videos. By solving product issues, we help the planet by extending the life of products. Availability of support options differ by product and country. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$36.35
Item in very good condition! Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc...
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$50.00 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$50.00
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Ships from and sold by glenthebookseller.
Item couldn't be saved. Please try again later. This item could not be removed from your list. Please try again later
{"mobile_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$50.00","priceAmount":50.00,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"50","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"00","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"qlwywA6lwH1hzVwbO8s2yzi059OBvE6P50Ti4cIAgvkiWCyO%2FB0s2zcOSjNTlWCoOIvQtLfexivzP017LVLTYHFlKV7WJu2A8nAvk3cYY2F7VOoMt%2BbZYyXhumGhNB975CZQa8jihWu7Pm5GICQCMw%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$36.35","priceAmount":36.35,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"36","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"35","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"qlwywA6lwH1hzVwbO8s2yzi059OBvE6PpbF69Z7nxPCgr425CbngpynmohDsuWKouX2fBV%2BY%2F78TVER98NdHQbkr5Pj4UFGaPNISlRLapRXnPmIUqQukJyNIwPPTPVlFluuFIwmf6Ad%2FmyW785i%2Buz8Mpkgbm2OjvL8yf1Fj21Ao5Il4AmyrI0wrCHCYiCHM","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Book details

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Large language models (LLMs) and diffusion models such as ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion have unprecedented potential. Because they have been trained on all the public text and images on the internet, they can make useful contributions to a wide variety of tasks. And with the barrier to entry greatly reduced today, practically any developer can harness LLMs and diffusion models to tackle problems previously unsuitable for automation.

With this book, you'll gain a solid foundation in generative AI, including how to apply these models in practice. When first integrating LLMs and diffusion models into their workflows, most developers struggle to coax reliable enough results from them to use in automated systems. Authors James Phoenix and Mike Taylor show you how a set of principles called prompt engineering can enable you to work effectively with AI.

Learn how to empower AI to work for you. This book explains:

  • The structure of the interaction chain of your program's AI model and the fine-grained steps in between
  • How AI model requests arise from transforming the application problem into a document completion problem in the model training domain
  • The influence of LLM and diffusion model architecture—and how to best interact with it
  • How these principles apply in practice in the domains of natural language processing, text and image generation, and code

Review

"The absolute best book-length resource I've read on prompt engineering. Mike and James are masters of their craft."
—Dan Shipper, cofounder & CEO, Every

"This book is a solid introduction to the fundamentals of prompt engineering and generative AI. The authors cover a wide range of useful techniques for all skill levels from beginner to advanced in a simple, practical, and easy-to-understand way. If you're looking to improve the accuracy and reliability of your AI systems, this book should be on your shelf."
-Mayo Oshin, founder and CEO, Siennai Analytics, early LangChain contributor

"Phoenix and Taylor's guide is a lighthouse amidst the vast ocean of generative AI. Their book became a cornerstone for my team at Phiture AI Labs, as we learned to harness LLMs and diffusion models for creating marketing assets that resonate with the essence of our clients' apps and games. Through prompt engineering, we've been able to generate bespoke, on-brand content at scale. This isn't just theory; it's a practical masterclass in transforming AI's raw potential into tailored solutions, making it an essential read for developers looking to elevate their AI integration to new heights of creativity and efficiency."
—Moritz Daan, Founder/Partner, Phiture Mobile Growth Consultancy

"Prompt Engineering for Generative AI is probably the most future-proof way of future-proofing your tech career. This is without a doubt the best resource for anyone working in practical applications of AI. The rich, refined principles in here will help both new and seasoned AI engineers stay on top of this very competitive game for the foreseeable future."
- Ellis Crosby, CTO and cofounder, Incremento

"This is an essential guide for agency and service professionals. Integrating AI with service and client delivery, using automation management, and speeding up solutions will set new industry standards. You'll find useful, practical information and tactics in the book, allowing you to understand and utilize AI to its full potential."
- Byron Tassoni-Resch, CEO and cofounder, WeDiscover

From the Author

We've been doing prompt engineering since the GPT-3 beta in 2020, and when GPT-4 arrived we found a lot of the tricks and hacks we used were no longer necessary. This motivated us to define a set of future-proof principles that are transferrable across models and modalities, that will still be useful with GPT-5, or whatever model we use in the future. 

The Five Principles of Prompting are:
  1. Give Direction: Describe the desired style in detail, or reference a relevant persona.
  2. Specify Format: Define what rules to follow, and the required structure of the response.
  3. Provide Examples: Insert a diverse set of test cases where the task was done correctly.
  4. Evaluate Quality: Identify errors and rate responses, testing what drives performance.
  5. Divide Labor: Split tasks into multiple steps, chained together for complex goals.
 
We first published these principles as a blog post in July 2022, and they have stood the test of time, including mapping quite closely to OpenAI's own Prompt Engineering Guide, which came a year later. Anyone who works closely with generative AI is likely to converge on a similar set of strategies for solving common issues, but this book is designed to get you there quicker.

Throughout this book you'll see hundreds of demonstrative examples of prompting techniques, including both text and image prompting, as well as using Python to build AI automation scripts and products. This isn't a list of prompting hacks to find the right combination of magic words, it's a practical guide for building systems that provide the right context to AI applications, as well as how to test and scale AI systems for production.

The book will be useful for you if:
  • Your time is worth more than 40 dollars an hour, and saving a few hours reading this book instead of piecing everything together from multiple sources is worth it to you.
  • You're not just using AI casually but you're actually building an AI application or internal template many people will use hundreds or thousands of times a day.
  • You want tips for reducing hallucination and improving the reliability of AI, while learning from 100s of real-world examples of how to solve common issues working with AI.
  • You'd like to compare the strengths and weaknesses of OpenAI vs other models, as well as common frameworks like LangChain, different vector database options, and AUTOMATIC1111
  • You want to see what it looks like to build an end-to-end AI application, from a naive prompt to a full AI agent, including building a basic user interface with Gradio

About the Author

James Phoenix has a background in building reliable data pipelines for marketing teams, including automation of thousands of recurring marketing tasks. He has taught 40+ Data Science bootcamps for General Assembly.

Mike Taylor built and ran a 50-person marketing agency, including working on innovation projects with Unilever, Nestle, and Facebook. Over 300,000 people have taken his marketing courses on LinkedIn Learning.

About the authors

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

I graduated with a master’s degree in Economics, then worked across a number of growth roles at startups, before co-founding a marketing agency and growing it to 50 people. After exiting I created courses on LinkedIn and Udemy taken by over 350,000 people, wrote a self-published book called Marketing Memetics, and a book for O'Reilly on Prompt Engineering for Generative AI. Today, I'm focused on building AI products through Brightpool.

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

James Phoenix has a background in building reliable data pipelines and software for marketing teams, including automation of thousands of recurring marketing tasks. He has taught 60+ Data Science bootcamps for General Assembly.

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Frequently bought together

Prompt Engineering for Generative AI: Future-Proof Inputs for Reliable AI Outputs
+
AI Engineering: Building Applications with Foundation Models
+
Hands-On Large Language Models: Language Understanding and Generation

Frequently bought together

Prompt Engineering for Generative AI: Future-Proof Inputs for Reliable AI Outputs
This item: Prompt Engineering for Generative AI: Future-Proof Inputs for Reliable AI Outputs
$50.00
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
Total price: $00
Details
Added to Cart

From the brand

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

From the Publisher

Prompt Engineering for Generative AI: Future-Proof Inputs for Reliable AI Outputs

From the Preface

The rapid pace of innovation in generative AI promises to change how we live and work, but it’s getting increasingly difficult to keep up. The number of AI papers published on arXiv is growing exponentially, Stable Diffusion has been among the fastest growing open source projects in history, and AI art tool Midjourney’s Discord server has tens of millions of members, surpassing even the largest gaming communities. What most captured the public’s imagination was OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT, which reached 100 million users in two months, making it the fastest-growing consumer app in history. Learning to work with AI has quickly become one of the most in-demand skills.

Everyone using AI professionally quickly learns that the quality of the output depends heavily on what you provide as input. The discipline of prompt engineering has arisen as a set of best practices for improving the reliability, efficiency, and accuracy of AI models. “In ten years, half of the world’s jobs will be in prompt engineering,” claims Robin Li, the cofounder and CEO of Chinese tech giant Baidu. However, we expect prompting to be a skill required of many jobs, akin to proficiency in Microsoft Excel, rather than a popular job title in itself. This new wave of disruption is changing everything we thought we knew about computers. We’re used to writing algorithms that return the same result every time—not so for AI, where the responses are non-deterministic. Cost and latency are real factors again, after decades of Moore’s law making us complacent in expecting real-time computation at negligible cost. The biggest hurdle is the tendency of these models to confidently make things up, dubbed hallucination, causing us to rethink the way we evaluate the accuracy of our work.

We’ve been working with generative AI since the GPT-3 beta in 2020, and as we saw the models progress, many early prompting tricks and hacks became no longer necessary. Over time a consistent set of principles emerged that were still useful with the newer models, and worked across both text and image generation. We have written this book based on these timeless principles, helping you learn transferable skills that will continue to be useful no matter what happens with AI over the next five years. The key to working with AI isn’t “figuring out how to hack the prompt by adding one magic word to the end that changes everything else,” as OpenAI cofounder Sam Altman asserts, but what will always matter is the “quality of ideas and the understanding of what you want.” While we don’t know if we’ll call it “prompt engineering” in five years, working effectively with generative AI will only become more important.

Product information

Publisher O'Reilly Media
Publication date June 25, 2024
Edition 1st
Language ‎English
Print length 422 pages
ISBN-10 109815343X
ISBN-13 978-1098153434
Item Weight ‎7.4 ounces
Dimensions 7.25 x 0.75 x 9.5 inches
Best Sellers Rank
Customer Reviews 4.4 out of 5 stars 60Reviews
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Submit a report

A few common reasons customers report reviews:
  • Harassment, profanity
  • Spam, advertisement, promotions
  • Given in exchange for cash, discounts
When we get your report, we'll check if the review meets our Community guidelines. If it doesn't, we'll remove it.
Sorry we couldn't load the review
Thank you for your feedback

Sorry, there was an error

Please try again later.

Top reviews from the United States

  • 5.0 out of 5 starsVerified Purchase
    A wonderful primer for those discovering the amazing world of generative AI
    Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2024
    Format: Paperback
    Somewhere in the past year, ChatGPT has gone from "cool, interesting, amusing" to a massively valuable work assistant capable of writing Python scripts, analysing data, and doing lots, lots, more. The key to this? The rapid evolution of OpenAI's GPT models and...
    Somewhere in the past year, ChatGPT has gone from "cool, interesting, amusing" to a massively valuable work assistant capable of writing Python scripts, analysing data, and doing lots, lots, more. The key to this? The rapid evolution of OpenAI's GPT models and making my first forays into prompt engineering.

    If I thought I was getting good, though, this book took me reminded me that I'm just scratching the surface. Halfway through the first chapter I was already furiously scribbling notes in the margins for what I could do better with my prompt writing and by the end of the text I felt like I had gotten a very good grounding - not just in GPTs specifically but in the bigger picture of how these hugely powerful tools were trained and came to maturity.

    I imagine that few will argue with my assertion that there is lots of hyperbole and "noise" in the AI space right now which, as ever, makes it hard to pick out the signal from the noise. Which is precisely why I sought out an O'Reilly title and I'm very glad that I did.

    Thorough, excellent, and I hope that this edition will be the first of many. As this rapidly maturing field scales and matures I think that prompt engineering will be an essential discipline to master. Pick up this text to get a good foothold on things.
    4 people found this helpful
  • 4.0 out of 5 starsVerified Purchase
    Helpful for GPT/LangChain framework
    Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2024
    Format: Paperback
    I applaud the authors for putting forth a comprehensive introduction in a rapidly evolving space. I absorbed a lot, helpful as I was developing a prototype — using open source methods. And that’s where I was disappointed. The LLM and examples are highly adapted...
    I applaud the authors for putting forth a comprehensive introduction in a rapidly evolving space. I absorbed a lot, helpful as I was developing a prototype — using open source methods.

    And that’s where I was disappointed. The LLM and examples are highly adapted to OpenAI’s GPT-x and the bulky LangChain framework, something not obvious until you dig in to the book. Sure, this may be where newbie demand was when the authors began writing. But as the open source models and OpenAI alternatives gain speed (e.g. Llama 3.1, Groq, etc.) this book may quickly need an updated and expanded version to stay relevant.
    7 people found this helpful
  • 5.0 out of 5 starsVerified Purchase
    Comprehensive Guide with Practical Insights
    Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2024
    Format: Paperback
    This is a solid book for understanding the art and science of working with LLMs and other generative AI models. I always struggled with getting the output I was looking for, and wasn't sure how best to "ask" the models for what I wanted. This book did a great...
    This is a solid book for understanding the art and science of working with LLMs and other generative AI models. I always struggled with getting the output I was looking for, and wasn't sure how best to "ask" the models for what I wanted. This book did a great job of laying out the strategies and practical guidance to craft the prompts. There were a lot of tips and tricks, but the overall understanding and framework around prompt engineering has been super useful.
    3 people found this helpful
  • 5.0 out of 5 starsVerified Purchase
    COLOR!!!
    Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2024
    Format: Paperback
    I know this may seem superficial, but the fact that ORA has now included color printing to their zoo collection takes this to another level.
    5 people found this helpful
  • 3.0 out of 5 starsVerified Purchase
    Not the book i thought it was going to be
    Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2024
    Format: Paperback
    I was under the impression it would really help me with ChatGPT 3.5 or 4.0. It doesn't.
  • 5.0 out of 5 starsVerified Purchase
    A must read!
    Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2024
    Format: Paperback
    Hands down, the best book on prompt engineering and implementing LLMs. Really enjoyed Michael and James deep dive. Whether you're technical or not, this book is foundational to a deeper understanding in how to properly explore and implement LLMs.
    One person found this helpful
  • 5.0 out of 5 starsVerified Purchase
    Necessary book to actually get value from AI tools
    Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2024
    Format: Kindle
    If you don't know how to prompt AI models correctly, you're missing out on substantially better results. This book has literally everything I could have asked for, it's an awesome resource.
  • 5.0 out of 5 stars
    Just finished Chapter 1- already a goldmine of information.
    Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2024
    Format: Paperback
    I live in the world of AI, yet already learned so much from the beginning of the book. The things I do daily, by rote, now have frameworks, logic, and explanations for why they are so. Looking forward to the rest of the book!

Top reviews from other countries

  • Sokol8
    3.0 out of 5 starsVerified Purchase
    book is ok but
    Reviewed in Canada on December 2, 2024
    The book is ok yet I think you would get more for less if you just google for docs and articles on the web
  • Mindy Molly
    5.0 out of 5 starsVerified Purchase
    I have an in-depth reference tool.?
    Reviewed in Australia on June 10, 2025
    Great book! I am using it in conjunction with the authors training course.
  • Robert Desmond
    5.0 out of 5 starsVerified Purchase
    Transformational Content (excuse the pun)
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 21, 2024
    These guys are two of the most experienced prompters in the world right now and have made this book incredibly accessible to allow us all to prompt like a pro, but also to understand the underlying technology and take advantage of the opportunities that there are with ai...
    These guys are two of the most experienced prompters in the world right now and have made this book incredibly accessible to allow us all to prompt like a pro, but also to understand the underlying technology and take advantage of the opportunities that there are with ai right now.
  • Fabian G.
    5.0 out of 5 starsVerified Purchase
    Great book, detailed and practical advice
    Reviewed in Germany on July 9, 2024
    This book on prompt engineering is an absolute gem! As someone delving into the intricacies of AI and language models, I found this resource incredibly valuable. The author does a fantastic job of breaking down complex concepts into manageable, easy-to-understand sections....
    This book on prompt engineering is an absolute gem! As someone delving into the intricacies of AI and language models, I found this resource incredibly valuable. The author does a fantastic job of breaking down complex concepts into manageable, easy-to-understand sections. The practical advice is where this book truly shines. Each chapter is filled with real-world examples and step-by-step guides that make applying the techniques straightforward. Whether you're a novice just starting out or a seasoned professional looking to refine your skills, there's something here for everyone.
  • Pat
    5.0 out of 5 starsVerified Purchase
    Very comprehensive book
    Reviewed in Belgium on August 10, 2024
    Gives a thorough introduction to prompt engineering . Some Python coding skills required

How customer reviews and ratings work

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.