OpenAI’s o1 reasoning model and similar AI systems require a different prompting strategy to achieve optimal results. According to an article by Carl Franzen in VentureBeat, users should provide detailed context through “briefs” rather than traditional prompting methods.
Former Apple interface designer Ben Hylak demonstrated that letting o1 plan its own analytical steps leads to better outcomes than providing step-by-step instructions. OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman endorsed this approach, confirming that o1 needs different handling compared to standard chat models.
The model, introduced in September 2024, uses chain-of-thought processing to analyze problems more thoroughly, though at a higher cost of $15.00 per million input tokens compared to $1.25 for GPT-4o. Several competitors have launched similar reasoning models, including DeepSeek’s R1, Google Gemini 2 Flash Thinking, and LlamaV-o1. These AI systems are designed to reflect on their analysis and verify their work before providing answers.
The new prompting approach involves giving comprehensive background information about the user’s needs and desired output format, while letting the AI determine its own reasoning process. This strategy has shown promising results across various applications, from hiking recommendations to language learning.