Why Telling AI to “Act Like an Expert” Doesn’t Work

And what to do instead if you want useful answers

When you ask ChatGPT to “act like a senior engineer,” it sounds smart — but it rarely helps.

You get long, polished responses. Maybe even a few buzzwords. But not the clarity or structure you actually need to move forward.

Why? Because large language models don’t think like people. They’re not reasoning through a problem. They’re just continuing text in a way that sounds right.

That means role-based prompts like “act like a CTO” don’t guide the model toward the right outcome. They guide it toward theatrical language.

The Real Fix: Be Clear. Be Direct.

Instead of assigning a role, tell the AI exactly what you want it to do.

Not how it should sound. Not what it should pretend to be.

Just the task.

Examples of task-based instructions:

• “Give me three risks in this project.”

• “Break this system into components and describe each one.”

• “List key weaknesses in this deck.”

These are clear, executable instructions. No acting required.

Why It Works

✅ Sharper answers. You get results you can use immediately.

✅ Faster output. Less guessing = more precision.

✅ Scales better. These instructions work in Notion, Jira, Slack — anywhere your team is working.

What We Learned at Singularity

We spent weeks giving the AI prompts like “act like a strategist” or “act like a recruiter.” And we kept getting vague, over polished output.

It wasn’t until we changed our prompting style — ditching personas and focusing on outcomes — that everything clicked.

Suddenly, the model gave us clear structure, better insight, and responses we could drop right into production.

The difference was night and day.

Takeaway

Don’t tell the model who to be. Tell it what to do.

That’s how you go from AI that talks like an expert… to AI that works like one.

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