AskIt› ✍️ Talking to AI› Lesson 4
Lesson 4 of 5 · Premium Track

Advanced techniques:
personas, constraints
& chain prompting

⏱ 30 min 🤖 Live exercises 3 techniques

You've mastered the fundamentals. Now let's go deeper. These three techniques are what distinguish people who get consistently brilliant AI outputs from those who get occasionally good ones. Each one unlocks a different dimension of what AI can do.

Every technique below has a live exercise. Don't just read — try it. The difference between understanding these intellectually and feeling them work is significant.

Technique 1 of 3
Persona Prompting
When you give the AI a specific persona or role, you're not just changing the tone — you're activating a whole cluster of expertise, vocabulary, assumptions, and perspective. "Act as a sceptical investor" gets you completely different feedback than "act as an enthusiastic friend." The persona shapes everything.
Without persona
"What do you think of my business idea?"
With persona
"Act as a venture capitalist who has seen 500 pitches and funded 8 of them. You're known for asking the uncomfortable questions founders don't want to answer. Review this business idea and tell me the three hardest questions an investor would ask, and whether you think this is fundable: [idea]"
Live Exercise — Try Persona Prompting
💡 Powerful persona patterns

"Act as a hostile critic" — reveals weaknesses in your work you'd miss from a friendly read

"Act as someone who knows nothing about this topic" — forces clarity in explanations

"Act as a [specific expert] with [specific viewpoint]" — the more specific, the more useful

"Act as two people debating this" — gets you multiple perspectives in one response

Technique 2 of 3
Strategic Constraints
Counterintuitively, adding constraints to a prompt often produces better and more creative output, not worse. When you tell the AI "no clichés", "avoid X", "don't use Y structure" — you push it past its default, averaged responses toward something genuinely distinct. Constraints are creative leverage.
Without constraints
"Write me a tagline for my bakery."
With strategic constraints
"Write 6 tagline options for my artisan bakery in Edinburgh called 'Crumb & Thread'. Constraints: no words like 'handcrafted', 'artisan', 'local', 'love', or 'passion'. No exclamation marks. Each tagline must be under 6 words. At least two should be slightly unexpected or subversive. The overall feel should be dry-witted and confident, not warm-and-fuzzy."
Live Exercise — Try Strategic Constraints
🔑 Types of constraints to use

Exclusion constraints: "Don't use the word X", "No bullet points", "Avoid passive voice"

Form constraints: "Exactly 3 sentences", "One paragraph only", "Haiku format"

Audience constraints: "A 10-year-old should understand this", "Written for someone who already knows the topic"

Quality constraints: "Make it publishable in a national newspaper", "As if written by someone who has done this themselves"

Technique 3 of 3
Chain Prompting
Complex tasks produce better results when broken into a sequence of focused prompts, each building on the last. Instead of one massive prompt that tries to do everything, you run a chain — each step refining or expanding on what came before. This mirrors how experts actually think through difficult problems.
1
Explore the landscape
"What are the 5 most important considerations when choosing a business name? Be concise."
2
Generate options
"Using those 5 criteria, generate 10 name options for a productivity app targeting remote workers. Apply all the criteria."
3
Narrow and critique
"Of those 10, which 3 best meet all 5 criteria? Explain why each works and what its main risk is."
4
Go deeper on the winner
"For the top choice, suggest 5 domain name variations that are likely to be available, and write a one-sentence brand story for each."
Live Exercise — Chain Prompting Step 1

Run step 1 below to start the chain. Then take the AI's output and feed it into step 2 in a new Claude window to complete the sequence — that's the full chain prompting workflow.

✅ When to use each technique

Persona: When you need a specific expert perspective, honest critique, or a particular voice.

Constraints: When you keep getting generic results and need to push past the AI's default patterns.

Chain prompting: When the task is complex, multi-stage, or requires building on previous thinking.

Combining all
three techniques

The most powerful prompts often stack all three. A persona that brings specific expertise, constraints that prevent generic outputs, and a chain structure that builds toward a complex result.

Here's what that looks like in practice:

🔥 A prompt using all three

"Act as a brand strategist with 20 years of experience naming technology companies — you've named 3 products that became household names. [PERSONA]

I'm naming a B2B SaaS tool that helps law firms track billable hours automatically. My target buyers are managing partners aged 40–60 who are deeply sceptical of 'tech hype'. [CONTEXT]

Step 1: Give me the 4 naming principles you'd apply for this specific buyer. Don't give me names yet — just the principles. [CHAIN STEP 1]

Constraints: No made-up words, no names ending in -ly or -ify, no references to time/clock imagery (overused in this category). [CONSTRAINTS]"

Key takeaway

Personas activate expertise. Constraints eliminate mediocrity. Chain prompting handles complexity. Together, they're unstoppable.

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