The Expanse, long lauded for being the most accurately depicted sci-fi show currently available, has probably the best depiction of AGI till date. Whether you’re a skeezy detective re-plotting a murder schematic or the commander of an interplanetary spaceship, you need to know what to say.

Collins has picked AI as its term of the year, reminding us why Cambridge is the second most important arbitrator of the English language. Incidentally, it picked ‘hallucinate’, a common malady now being prescribed to newly formed AI brains that form opinions on recycled AI content (aka hallucinations); Oxford’s Word of the Year is waiting to be determined.

At exchange4media, the word of our year is ‘prompts’, because while we may not be solving inter-Solar murder mysteries or charting our way through heavenly bodies just yet, we are acutely aware of what AI can do and what it cannot. And what it cannot do is think, hence, prompts. You may have the smartest AI,a laChatGPT4 Turbo at your fingertips, and still not know what to tell it to do. It’s also why Mira Murati, fleetingly CEO and presumably still CTO of OpenAI, said that prompt engineers are going to be the unforeseen helmsmen (and women) of our shared near future, employed at jobs bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

“When the year started, we did not know which direction the creative river would flow for the rest of the year. Cut to a couple of months later, generative AI and ChatGPT had become the singular language the entire industry was expected to think in,” says Mithun Mukherjee, ECD, FCB Kinnect.

Subsequently, incredible artwork generated by AI flooded the interweb. “Everyone was suddenly writing songs in the style of Bob Dylan and The Beatles. The initial outputs were fuzzy, but as the AI learning continued, the content became sharper. But if there was one thing that was rising as strongly with the wave of this new branch of creative, it was a whole new skill set - that of writing prompts,” says Mukherjee, adding, that prompts are the lifeblood of AI. “Master prompts, and you can literally make AI dance to your tunes.

”Gopa Menon – Head of Digital, Mindshare South Asia, observes that in the ad tech context, prompts may encompass various interactive elements, calls-to-action, or methods employed to engage users and evoke specific responses. “The selection of "prompts" as the term of the year reflects evolving trends in digital advertising, user experience, and innovations in how advertisers and marketers connect with their target audiences.

Tejinder Gill, General Manager, The Trade Desk agrees that AI took the spotlight this year, thanks to the hype around generative AI. “Using prompts in ChatGPT has highlighted how accessible AI is for everyday consumers. However, the use of AI in the ad tech sector is far from new. One of the primary strengths of AI in ad tech is its analytical capabilities. While front-end generative AI has its limitations in advertising, the real magic happens on the back end. Back-end AI excels at processing and making sense of complex data sets. As an example, on The Trade Desk’s platform alone, marketers can see 13 million ad impressions per second.  No human can make sense of this massive data, but AI can do so in milliseconds.”

And echoing Murati, Mukherjee says, “Prompt engineering has become a coveted skill to have. Multiple platforms now offer courses to master the skill of prompt engineering. What’s more important is the fact that prompts are no longer just helping you create text and visual outputs. The right prompts can help you generate strong SEO content, create complete apps from scratch, make AI instructors across different fields and much more.”

A simple way to rationalize prompts would be to compare it to an MBA - how that used to be a prerequisite to a brand side job at one point in time. Combining prompt engineering with a current field might prove to be the edge that one might be looking for in terms of furthering their career.

“In an era dominated by data, AI in ad tech stands out as a game-changer. By eliminating the guesswork for marketers, an AI-powered platform like The Trade Desk empowers marketers to figure out which ad to buy, at what price, at what time, in what channel, in order to reach their target audience effectively,” says Gill.

“This recognition also signifies technological advancements, particularly in AI, that revolve around initiating user actions or responses, potentially leading to more personalized and effective advertising strategies,” says Menon

Indeed, all agree it is only a matter of time before prompt engineering becomes its own workstream.

“Till then, learning about it and engaging with it might be a good way forward for most creative and marketing related fields. Actually, scratch that. Prompts going forward could be a very important piece in almost all fields going forward. And yes, you could quote me on it,” finishes Mukherjee.