The first prompt gets you an answer. The second one gets you insight.

Each edition gives you a hands-on experiment to show how AI can sharpen your thinking, streamline your workflow, and supercharge your creativity.

This week's playground: The "Second Prompt Effect"

Most people stop after the first prompt. It feels fast, efficient, and "good enough."

But that first answer? It’s rarely strategic—it’s often just generic. Unless you're consistently using something like the PROMPT framework, the default response is surface-level at best. The real value comes when you follow up—when you clarify, push back, and challenge. That’s when AI stops being a passive assistant and starts becoming a thinking partner.

Think of it like AI moving from thinking for you to thinking with you.

Here’s the difference:

• The first prompt shows what the AI knows.

• The second prompt reveals how it thinks—through your lens, with your priorities.

Use case: From update to insight

Say you're part of a startup product team preparing for a board meeting. You could ask AI to summarize your product updates.

You’ll get a simple recap. Fine.

But layer in a second prompt: ask it to reframe the content for executives, identify blockers, and flag key decisions. What began as a summary becomes a strategic narrative.

Your AI experiment: Try this prompt

👉 Time to tinker: Fire up your favorite chatbot or agentic browser (hello, OpenAI Atlas) and try this two-step experiment.

📝 Prompts:

Step 1: Start with your basic question Paste in your content (meeting notes, a messy email thread, an article) and use this prompt:

“Summarize the following text.”

The output will likely be accurate, but flat.

Step 2: Apply the Second Prompt Effect Now, follow-up with:

“That’s a good start. Now rewrite that summary for a senior VP who only cares about three things: 1) Key decisions made, 2) Action items with owners, and 3) Any identified blockers or risks. Be brief and use bullet points.”

Notice the shift? You’ve gone from reporting to prioritizing. From surface-level content to real insight.

💡 Pro tips: Want to push the thinking even further? Try these second prompts on any AI output to unlock new angles:

• "What’s the best counter-argument to this?"

• "What assumptions am I making here?"

• "What’s missing from this explanation that might confuse a beginner?"

• "Cut 30% of the words but keep the core meaning."

You're not just using AI. You're training it to think in line with your goals.

What Did You Discover?

How did the second summary compare to the first? Was it clearer? More actionable? More strategic? Reply and tell me how your second prompt changed the output.

Remember: Single prompts get surface answers. Follow-ups unlock real thinking. That’s the Second Prompt Effect.

Until next time—keep tinkering, keep prompting, keep innovating.