It’s more than likely that you have heard of the amazing solutions that are conjured up during hackathons—high-energy, rapid-fire events where developers, designers, project managers, and innovationists alike come together to solve a common problem by providing imaginative solutions in the form of apps, pushing the boundaries of innovation. But as the digital landscape has evolved due to the prominence of AI, a new kind of "thon" is making waves: promptathons. Collaborative marathons are not simply just for coders; they are for everyone looking to accelerate digital adoption and leverage AI-driven tools.
Successful outcomes of AI copilots and digital assistants is contingent on how they are used. The secret? prompts. Developing department-specific and persona-specific suggestions that encourage positive behavior can help your organization unlock the full potential of digital adoption. And this is precisely what promptathons do best—offer a creative, collaborative space to discover and fine-tune prompts while simultaneously fostering digital adoption.
What is a promptathon?
Whereas hackathons are focused on writing code, assembling hardware, and developing apps and software, attendees of promptathons are engaged in creating, refining, and testing a multitude of prompts that enhance the overall functionality of AI-powered tools and software. The aim being to develop effective input commands—prompts—that optimize the use of AI copilots or digital assistants to interact with users.
Participants of promptathons are comprised of professionals from different departments within an organization, contributing their own unique insights to this developmental process. Through collaborative endeavors, prompts can be tailored to specific roles or tasks. For instance, a prompt for a marketing team might involve generating an entire campaign and its ideas based on customer data, trends, and supplementary information such as brand guidelines; while a sales team could develop prompts that summarize key performance indicators.
From a high-level perspective, guidelines for how a typical promptathon event is as follows:
- Define goals and use cases: First, the participants pinpoint key problems or opportunities where generative AI and AI copilots might help advance the cause. To guarantee that issues are addressed in a way that is current and relevant, they are frequently tailored to personas or departments (such as marketing, sales, or human resources).
- Collaborate to build prompts: Then, teams would analyze and develop prompts utilizing natural language with descriptive, active verbs together with contextual information to produce favorable results from AI copilots. This can be anything from producing reports to providing decision-making advice.
- Test, iterate, and refine: These prompts are then assessed within the AI assistant tools to evaluate how well they deliver the intended results. Afterwards, participants refine the prompts based on feedback to improve accuracy and efficiency.
- Store and share prompts: Once optimized, prompts can be stored into a repository—like Microsoft’s open-source Prompt Buddy app—allowing other teams or departments to use and customize them.
The purpose of promptathons is not solely to create reusable commands and actions. By promoting employees' active involvement in the use of AI tools, these events can help foster a culture of creativity, teamwork, and digital fluency. It also increases accessibility to technology, enabling users to learn through practical experience and guaranteeing that opportunities or problems are addressed on a regular basis.
Understanding generative AI
At the core of promptathons is generative AI—an incredibly robust subset of artificial intelligence designed to create content or ideas based on the prompts it receives. In contrast to traditional AI that is used for recognizing patterns or automating tasks, generative AI excels at producing text, images, code, and even entire workflows based on the input it is given.
Its unique capacity to react quickly to cues and provide practical results in real time is generative AI's main strength. Whether the task involves drafting emails, creating a prototype, or summarizing a complicated report, the quality of the result is determined by how well the prompt is written. Because of this, prompt-building has emerged as a crucial ability in digital workplaces.
Outputs from generative AI directly impact the prompt's clarity and accuracy. While a well-crafted prompt will produce useful findings, a confusing or vague prompt may result in irrelevant or incomplete responses. Promptathons are essential since they enable staff members to create prompts that specifically target their objectives and tasks, guaranteeing the best results from their AI technologies.
Why promptathons matter for digital adoption
Now that we have explored what promptathons are and how they tie into generative AI, it’s clear that these events are more than just workshops—they’re pivotal to digital adoption. Here is why:
Department-specific solutions
Every department within an organization has unique needs and workflows. Promptathons allow participants to create prompts that resonate with their daily operations. For example, a marketing team might focus on prompts to generate customer insights, while a finance team might develop prompts for forecasting or budget tracking. Tailoring these prompts ensures relevance, making it easier for employees to adopt and extensively use digital tools.
Persona-centric prompts to drive habits
In addition to department-specific prompts, promptathons will offer chances to tailor prompt builds for organizational personas, such as a data analyst, sales executive, or project manager. Prompts can enhance individual functions that eventually expand across departments by concentrating on the unique problems and objectives of each persona. For instance, a prompt for a sales executive can be designed to automate weekly sales reports while nudging them to review customer feedback regularly. This degree of customization encourages ongoing participation and creates a habit of using AI technologies to make jobs more efficient.
A path to continuous learning and iteration
One of the critical benefits of promptathons is their collaborative and iterative nature. Users from different departments or with varying levels of expertise come together, contributing diverse perspectives. This process not only generates a wide range of prompt ideas but also encourages a culture of continuous improvement through learnings in their iterative journey. As digital adoption grows, these promptathons can be repeated periodically, evolving prompts to meet new challenges or refine existing ones as technology and workflows change.
NYU’s Langone Health promptathon, a success story
Last year, NYU Langone Health’s MCIT Department of Health Informatics held its first ever promptathon. The event brought together clinicians, educators, and researchers to explore the countless uses of generative AI in healthcare. Participants worked on various real-world healthcare challenges using de-identified patient data and a private instance of GPT-4.
The purpose of this promptathon was to empower healthcare workers and encourage teamwork and creativity. Teams worked on challenges including enhancing patient care plans and identifying potential safety hazards. Over two hundred participants were divided into teams with varying levels of GPT-4 comprehension, each consisting of healthcare professionals and their AI mentors. Furthermore, over 100 people have formally requested projects, and approved ideas and concepts would receive AI mentorship to prepare the solutions for practical application.
Overall, the experience of the event was well-received, with participants reporting increased confidence in using AI tools and a greater likelihood of integrating generative AI tools into their daily work as well as NYU Langone’s adoption.
Using Microsoft Prompt Buddy in enhancing promptathons
Considering the advantages that a successful promptathon could offer a vital sector, it is especially important to highlight the significance of prompt discovery and distribution. Having a system in place to store, arrange, and distribute prompts throughout the company is essential to guaranteeing that the results of these cooperative efforts are maintained and available. This is where tools like Microsoft's open-source Prompt Buddy app come into play.
Prompt Buddy acts as a centralized repository for prompts, allowing employees to easily access and share them. With this tool, promptathons do not simply end when the event is over; the prompts created can be stored for future use, shared across teams, and refined over time. It enables departments to:
- Curate department-specific libraries of effective prompts.
- Collaborate on building new prompts for emerging challenges.
- Ensure consistency across the organization in how digital tools are utilized.
- Encourage a culture of sharing best practices and innovations.
Get started with promptathons to further your ambitions for the future
Digital adoption efforts may start with the tools at hand but ensuring they are used effectively and consistently is by far the most critical aspect to furthering your investments. By running promptathons, organizations can create a culture of collaboration, personalization, and continuous improvement. This approach not only drives better adoption but ensures that digital tools are primed for maximum impact.
At Alithya, we believe that events like promptathons are not just valuable but essential to the future of any organization striving for digital excellence. These events provide a collaborative space for building the kind of AI-driven prompts that truly enhance digital adoption. With the right experts and a committed team, we can streamline and support innovative efforts with in-house expertise in generative AI. With over 30 years of experience as a global provider of digital transformation solutions, Alithya is uniquely positioned to help you navigate these advancements and optimize your digital adoption strategies.
Contact us today to begin exploring the exciting world of promptathons, and ensure that your organization is taking full advantage of the latest breakthroughs in generative AI. Let us help you unlock the future of digital transformation and secure a competitive edge in this rapidly evolving landscape.