How do I get better answers from ChatGPT and Claude?
To get better answers from ChatGPT, Claude, or any assistant, brief it the way you would brief a capable stranger: what is happening, what outcome you want, which constraints are real, and what a good answer looks like. Then hand over the frame and ask the most useful question there is, what did I miss, so the model can surface the blind spot you cannot see from inside your own head. For anything that matters, do not stop at one model's reply. Check it against a second model and make each claim name its source.
Better input: the brief, not the trick
Most "prompt hacks" are noise. The reliable lift comes from clear communication. Before you ask, tell the model the real situation, the outcome that matters, the constraints that are actually real (and drop the fake ones you invented out of habit), and what done looks like. That is not a magic phrase. It is you dragging your own silent assumptions into the open where the model can use them.
The one question that outperforms clever prompts
After you have described your goal, hand the frame over: "What did I miss?" Detail tells the model to obey. An open question lets it think, and lets it point at the gap you could not see. There is a whole ladder of these questions, free, in the What Did I Miss tool.
Better trust: a second model
A better prompt still gets you one model's answer, and one model sounds equally confident right or wrong. For anything with a cost attached, ask a second model the same brief and compare. Where they agree on evidence, you are solid. Where they diverge, you found the part that needs you. That is the Council Method, and it is how you get the right answer the first time.
The full working loop is in Let the AI Be Smart.
Go deeper: this site's hub page on the Council Method is the full definition. Related questions: How do I get the right answer from AI the first time?, Do I need paid AI subscriptions to use multiple models?, What is the Council Method?.