Utilizing AI. Why Prompting Is the CEO’s New Core Skillset

With insights from Ihor Parinov, CEO of TARK AI, a keynote speaker, and AI practitioner. 

What Is Prompting and Why It Matters 

AI tools like ChatGPT are everywhere now. They can write emails, answer questions, and even talk to customers. But here’s the thing: they’re only as good as the instructions we give them. That’s where prompt engineering comes in.

Ihor Parinov, CEO of TARK AI, is one of those people making AI actually work for business. He’s a solutions architect who studied AI at Stanford and created solutions for healthcare, real estate, and home service businesses. We reached out to him to find out what differentiates the use of AI between a professional and an amateur.

Prompting is the skill of talking to AI in a way it understands best. It’s not just about using fancy words. It’s about giving AI the right information so it can help you do real work and achieve specific business objectives.

How Prompting Became Important 

In the past, only computer experts could use AI. Ihor explains: “You needed a solid IT department to write plenty of code, and your business had to have a huge dataset to train the model. But today, anyone can type in a question and get help from an AI.” But you probably already faced the grim reality: often, its output is underwhelming or generic.

Prompt engineering helps fix that. Imagine you found a lamp with a genie in it, which can fulfill any wish. The genie is out, and you tell him: “I wish I had everything”, and the genie replies, “Indeed, you HAD everything” and moves on.

AI is the same: it is super capable in the right hands, but you need to know how to use it.

Three Prompting Tips Every CEO Should Know 

Ihor Parinov shares three essential tips to help leaders use AI more effectively:

1. Flip the Script: Let the AI Ask You Questions 
   Many people rush to ask the AI for a final output. But Ihor suggests a smarter move: start by instructing the AI to ask you clarifying questions. For example, instruct it: “Before you provide ideas, ask me three questions to get more context about the market, our company and products”. This simple trick ensures you provide the necessary context you might have initially overlooked, and it primes the AI to deliver results that are tenfold better. It transforms a one-way command into a collaborative process.
2. Use Markdown and Lists to Organize Your Prompts 
   Ihor recommends utilizing Markdown (like headings, bullet points, bold text, or code blocks) within your prompts to organize information, define sections, and highlight key instructions. For instance, clearly separate sections with headings like:

   # Role
   You are an expert sales trainer

   # Context
   We sell SaaS to healthcare firms in US and Canada

   # Output
   Five bullet points for an inbound call script

   This helps the AI parse and digest your instructions more effectively – you’ll get much more consistent results. Plus, it makes the prompts easier for you and your team to read, understand, and refine.

3. Select the Proper AI Model 
   While prompt engineering is crucial, Ihor stresses that different AI models excel at different tasks. Sometimes, optimizing a prompt isn’t enough; you need to select the right tool for the job. For example:

• GPT-4.5 might be exceptional for creative writing tasks and content generation but struggles with complex scientific or mathematical reasoning.

• Claude-4 often shines at thinking through problems and even assists non-programmer managers in quickly building an app, but it might not handle very long conversations as smoothly.

• Gemini-2.5 Pro has a remarkably impressive context window (aka memory), 9x of GPT and 5x of Claude. This makes it perfect for long conversations and analyzing huge documents.

No single model is a panacea; effective enterprise AI requires matching the use case to the most appropriate underlying technology, then mastering the prompts for that specific model.

Why All This Matters 

AI is no longer a “future trend.” It’s an everyday tool—embedded in CRM systems, project management, hiring, and customer service. CEOs who treat AI like a magic box will soon fall behind those who treat it like a partner. In a world of shrinking margins, relentless change, and talent shortages, your ability to get more out of AI may be the difference between leading and lagging.

Prompting is not a silver bullet, but it definitely emerged as one of the key skills of a successful CEO. The executives who learn to communicate with AI—clearly, strategically, and creatively—will build smarter teams, run leaner organizations, and seize opportunities before the competition even sees them coming.

Have you read?
The World’s Best Medical Schools.
The World’s Best Universities.
The World’s Best International High Schools.
The World’s Best Business Schools.
The World’s Best Fashion Schools.
The World’s Best Hospitality And Hotel Management Schools.