Skip to content
The Madison Avenue Field GuideA field guide to marketing & advertising, by Brandon Mina

GlossaryAI in MarketingZero-Shot Prompting

AI in Marketing

Zero-Shot Prompting

Asking an AI model to do a task with instructions only and no examples, relying on what it already knows.

By Brandon MinaCEO, BrandPilot AIUpdated November 2026

Short answer

Zero-shot prompting is asking an AI model to perform a task using instructions only, with no worked examples. The model relies on what it already learned during training. It works well for common tasks, while few-shot prompting, which includes examples, often gives more consistent results for specialized formats or brand-specific styles.