Futures Platform has recently launched AI Futurist, a generative AI model answering your questions about future developments in any topic. This guide will help you to improve the quality of questions (prompts) to generate high-quality answers.
When using a generative AI tool like AI Futurist, the quality of the output will be highly dependent on the information you provide the tool with. Therefore, it is important to feed the tool with complete and descriptive sentences to ensure that you will receive precise answers.
Below you can find an overview of best practices of how to construct prompts for the AI Futurist for different use cases. When trialling the tool, we would advise you to also experiment with different types of prompts to generate the best results. Generally, the following rules of thumb should be kept in mind when entering your prompt:
- Be specific: include the topic, context, and a specified time range
- Provide a perspective (e.g., industry) or theme (e.g., sustainability)
- Instruct what elements need to be included or excluded in answer
- Mention the answer format (e.g., "create a scenario", "build a development path")
- Dive deeper by building on previous prompts
What can the AI Futurist support you with?
Writing New Trend Cards
When you are looking to produce new trend cards you can ask AI Futurist to create a detailed description and impact analysis for your industry:
"Please provide an in-depth analysis of Plant-Based Beverages in the form of three paragraphs and add a paragraph highlighting the impact of such a trend to the dairy industry."
Identifying New Trends
When you would like to explore what future developments will characterise a certain industry in the context of a specific topic, you could start with the following prompt (using the construction industry and the topic of sustainability as example):
"How will the future of construction evolve in the context of sustainability by the year 2050?"
As part of its answer, the AI Futurist will provide you with several suggestions that could shape the future. Copy and paste one of the suggestions and enter this as a follow-up prompt to the tool:
"Please expand on this and provide a further analysis **Biomimicry and Bio-Inspired Design**..."
If you would like to learn more on this particular suggestion, insert follow-up prompts such as:
"What is the probability of Biomimicry and Bio-Inspired Design being an opportunity for a sustainability-focused construction company?"
Do you want to start a free trial of the AI Futurist? Please sign up below.
Scenario Building
When you are interested in a scenario analysis on a certain topic, you could enter the following prompt based on the type of scenario that you are curious about:
“Create a dystopian scenario based on the key disruptors shaping the future of construction by the year 2040”
As a follow-up prompt, you could then ask for a development path for this scenario like the example above (see “identifying sector summaries”).
If you want to build scenarios yourself using our 2x2 Scenario Builder Tool, you can use the AI Futurist first to identify the key drivers that serve as Axes of Uncertainty in your own scenario exercise. The following video illustrates how to do that:
Create Development Paths and Write Sector Summaries
When the focus of your analysis is on a specific sector in the context of a certain topic, you could ask the AI Futurist the following question:
"Please write a development path of every five years from 2024 to 2040 of the political sector in the context of sustainability in the construction industry"
Additionally, you could also ask the AI Futurist to expand on different sectors given a certain industry and context:
"Please write descriptions for sectors based on the PESTLE framework for the construction industry with a focus on sustainability".
The responses of the AI Futurist can directly be added to the sector description in your foresight radar to help build context as to how this sector is likely to develop.
Building Sectors/Horizon Scanning
If you are defining the sectors to include in your foresight radar and/or you are interested to discover relevant trends for your horizon scanning work, you could insert the following prompt:
"What are the key political trends that are likely to cause an impact to the construction industry in the context of sustainability by the year 2040?"
You could then use the AI Futurist's response to generate new trends (also see "identifying new trends") or add the phenomena provided by the tool to your foresight radar.
Do you want to start your free trial of the AI Futurist? Please sign up below.
DISCLAIMER
You may choose to use the service at your sole discretion. By using AI Futurist, you understand that your queries (prompts) will be sent to a third-party LLM engine (Google PaLM 2) in accordance with its terms. Futures Platform will not be liable for any possible harm or damage arising out of or in connection with the service. We advise to exercise caution when sharing information with the AI Futurist, such as sensitive or classified business information, or personal data.