Google Prompting Essentials

Prompting is the process of giving instructions to a gen AI tool to receive new information or to achieve a desired outcome on a task. Each input is called a “prompt.” Some gen AI tools generate text or images, while others generate video, audio, or even code.

Prompting — or giving AI instructions — is the key to unlocking more of AI’s benefits. In this course, you’ll learn prompt design in 5 easy steps, which can help you save time and simplify complex tasks. Moreover, learning AI prompting can give you a competitive advantage as AI skills are applicable across various industries.

Google Prompting Essentials is taught by AI experts at Google who are working to make technology helpful for everyone. In under 10 hours, you’ll learn how to prompt effectively and make AI work for you. The course includes engaging videos and readings, and you’ll be able to practice prompt writing with hands-on activities. As you progress through the course, you'll build a library of reusable prompts, so the next time you need a little help from AI, you don’t need to prompt from scratch.

This self-paced course is designed to fit into busy schedules, and the skills taught are applicable across any gen AI tool or model. You don’t need any technical or prompt writing experience to start. After you complete the course, you’ll earn a certificate from Google to share with your network and potential employers.

It’s for anyone. Whether you're interested in using AI for the first time or have used AI before, this course will help you save time and simplify tasks. In under 10 hours, you’ll learn how to make AI work for you, zero experience required.

In the course, you’ll learn several prompting techniques that can be used with any gen AI tool or model. These techniques include:

• The 5 step prompting framework
• 4 key iteration methods
• Text-to-text and text-to-image prompting
• Multimodal prompting
• Few shot prompting
• Prompt chaining

You’ll engage in a series of hands-on activities, readings, quizzes, and educational videos taught by AI experts at Google that deepen your understanding of these techniques, which will help you to effectively prompt AI and make AI work for you. You’ll also gain access to bonus interview content with industry leaders from Google.

Yes, Google Prompting Essentials teaches meta-prompting. With meta-prompting, you can enlist gen AI’s help to design an effective prompt, or take one you’ve already designed to the next level. Meta-prompting comes with its own set of best practices, called power-up strategies. These strategies are covered in Module 4 of the course.

The course was designed by AI experts at Google, who are working to make the technology helpful for everyone.

In this course, we’ll demonstrate how to prompt design using Gemini and other Google AI tools, like Gemini for Google Workspace and Google AI Studio. However, all of the prompting techniques and best practices you’ll learn in this course can be applied across any gen AI tool or model of your choice.

Both courses are beginner friendly and have no prerequisite requirements, but both courses have a distinct focus.

Google AI Essentials teaches foundational AI concepts and definitions, and discusses common AI use cases for both individuals and organizations. Google Prompting Essentials focuses on teaching individuals how to effectively instruct AI by following 5 easy steps to build effective prompts that make AI work for them.

No, this course does not prepare you for a job as a prompt engineer. While Prompting Essentials will teach you the basics of prompt design as well as some advanced prompting techniques, it does not prepare you for a dedicated role as a prompt engineer. However, this course teaches AI prompting skills that are applicable to many jobs across different industries.