What Are "Prompts" in Gumshoe?
Prompts in Gumshoe are the specific questions that Personas ask about your brand, product, or service. They are generated by combining Personas (the types of people you want to target) with Topics (the themes most relevant to your business).
These prompts represent the kinds of queries AI models expect real people to ask; not past searches (because that information is not shared by any AI Model), but predictive questions that reveal how AI anticipates user intent. By reviewing prompts, you gain insight into both how your audience might think and how AI models interpret those needs.
On the Prompts Page, each persona is assigned up to 10 prompts, covering the report’s topics. Clicking a Topic highlights all prompts connected to it, so you can quickly confirm that your Topics are fully represented.
Why Reviewing Prompts Matters
- Understand how AI models frame your brand based on user intent.
- See what models believe people are asking about your offerings.
- Identify gaps in your messaging or content.
- Improve how AI models surface relevant information about your brand.
After reviewing the prompts, click "Continue" to move on to the next step in your report.
How Are Prompts Generated in Gumshoe?
Prompts in a Gumshoe report are generated through the same proprietary diagnostic process as in the rest of the report-building wizard, ensuring they reflect the real questions AI models associate with your personas and topics. We don’t invent these questions; the models themselves generate them through Gumshoe’s diagnostic process.
This means Prompts reflect how AI currently thinks real users might engage with your brand. They aren’t based on historical search logs (which models don’t share), but on the models’ own knowledge, training, and reasoning patterns.
Think of Prompts as the “voice of the customer” as envisioned by AI. Gumshoe asks the models to simulate the types of inquiries your audience would realistically make. The result isn’t random guessing; it’s a repeatable diagnostic that shows you exactly how models think people talk about your category.
You can review and edit Prompts, but even the automatically surfaced ones are a rare window into how AI currently anticipates customer behavior. As long as you took a little time editing Personas and Topics, however, don't feel you need to get bogged down reading every prompt.
When you run a report, Gumshoe uses these prompts in real time to see which brands the models recommend and why.
How to Edit Prompts When Creating a Report
- Click the trash icon to remove any prompts that feel off-topic or irrelevant.
- Click the pencil icon to make edits.
- Click "+Add New Prompt" below each Persona's section to add a new prompt.
- If no Topics sync to that prompt, you may want to add a new related topic.
- Click "Continue" at the bottom of the page when you're ready to move on to the next page of your report.
How to Edit Prompts in an Existing Report
- Click on "Manage Prompts" in the left-side menu or in the top right "..." menu.
- Click the trash icon to remove any prompts that feel off-topic or irrelevant.
- Click the pencil icon to make edits.
- Click "+Add New Prompt" below each Persona's section to add a new prompt.
- If no Topics sync to that prompt, you may want to add a new related topic.
- Click "Continue" at the bottom of the page when you're ready to move on to the next page of your report.
- The changes will be applied to the report after the report is run again.
Why Prompts Matter for AI Visibility
The Prompts Page gives you deeper visibility into what AI thinks people want to know about your brand. It helps improve how models interpret your brand positioning, ensures better alignment with user search behavior, and strengthens the quality of your AI report results.
Click here to learn more about the next step in the report-building process.