Most people treat every AI conversation like a fresh start, and that's exactly why the answers feel generic. This guide shows you how to give AI a permanent understanding of who you are, what you do, and how you like things done.
Every time you open a new chat with an AI tool, it has absolutely no idea who you are. It doesn't know your business name, your customers, your tone of voice, or what you've been working on. So you end up spending the first few messages explaining all of that, every single time, before you can even get to the thing you actually wanted help with.
This is the equivalent of hiring someone new every morning and giving them the full company introduction before they can start working. It's slow, it's repetitive, and it means the AI never builds on previous understanding because there isn't any to build on.
Context engineering solves this entirely. It's the practice of giving AI a written document that contains everything it needs to know about your business, so that every conversation starts with that understanding already in place.
The second prompt is shorter, faster, and produces better results, because the AI already knows the business, the audience, and the tone. That's what context gives you.
A context file is a document, usually a simple text file, that describes your business to the AI. Think of it as a briefing document for a new team member on their first day. It covers who you are, what you do, who your customers are, and how you communicate.
Here's what to include, and in practice you only need to write this once and then update it as things change:
Your business name, what you do, where you're based, how long you've been running, and what makes you different from everyone else in your space. This doesn't need to be a marketing pitch, just the honest version of what someone would say if they were describing your business to a friend.
Who actually buys from you, what they care about, what problems they're trying to solve, and what kind of language they use. If you serve different types of customer, describe each one. The more specific you are here, the better the AI gets at tailoring its output to the people you're actually trying to reach.
How your business sounds when it communicates. This is one of the most powerful sections because it directly affects every piece of writing the AI produces. Include examples of phrases you actually use, things you'd never say, and the general feeling you want someone to have when they read something from you.
What you sell, how much it costs, what the process looks like for customers, and any common questions people ask. You don't need to list every product line in detail, but giving the AI enough to work with means it can reference real things rather than making assumptions.
This is genuinely one of the most useful sections. List the words, phrases, and approaches you never want the AI to use. If you hate corporate buzzwords, say so. If you never want to see "I hope this email finds you well" in a draft, write it down. AI tools are very good at following negative instructions when they're clearly stated.
What you're focused on right now, what's coming up, and what's on the back burner. This gives the AI a sense of timing and relevance so it can weight its suggestions towards whatever matters most to you this week or this month.
Here's a simplified example for a fictional bakery. In practice, yours would be more detailed, but this gives you the shape of it:
# Business Context — Riverside Bakery
## Who We Are
Riverside Bakery is an artisan bakery in Conwy, North Wales.
We've been running since 2019. Small team of four.
Everything is baked fresh on-site every morning using Welsh flour.
## Our Customers
Mostly locals who come in regularly, plus tourists during
summer months. They value quality over convenience and are
happy to pay a bit more for something made properly.
## Tone of Voice
Warm, honest, down-to-earth. We sound like a real person,
not a brand. We use first person ("we" not "the bakery").
We're confident about our products without being boastful.
### Phrases we use:
- "freshly baked this morning"
- "made with Welsh flour"
- "pop in and try"
### Things we never say:
- "artisanal" (feels pretentious for us)
- "I hope this email finds you well"
- Anything salesy or pressured
## Products
- Sourdough loaves (3 varieties)
- Pastries and cakes
- Wholesale supply to local restaurants
- Weekend specials
## Current Focus
Launching new sourdough range. Looking to supply more
local restaurants. Building email newsletter.
The method is slightly different depending on which tool you're using, but the principle is the same: you give the AI your context file at the start of a conversation so it has that understanding before you ask it anything.
Claude supports project-level context files called "project knowledge." You upload your context file once and it applies to every conversation within that project. This is the most seamless way to do it because you genuinely don't have to think about it after the initial setup. We have a full Claude setup guide that walks through this step by step.
ChatGPT has a "Custom Instructions" feature where you can paste in key details about yourself and how you want it to respond. It's more limited in length than Claude's approach, so you may need a condensed version. You can also paste the full context file at the start of any conversation. Our ChatGPT setup guide covers both approaches.
Once you have a context file set up, the quality of everything the AI produces changes noticeably. The writing sounds like your business rather than a generic template. The suggestions are relevant to your actual situation. And you spend far less time going back and forth trying to get the output to feel right, because the AI already knows what "right" means for you.
This is genuinely the single biggest improvement most businesses can make in how they use AI, and it takes about an hour to set up.
That difference isn't down to a better prompt. It's down to better context. The AI knows that "Riverside Bakery" doesn't use exclamation marks and emojis, that its customers are locals who appreciate honesty over hype, and that the tone should feel like you're talking to a neighbour rather than running an advertising campaign.
If you haven't started with prompting yet, go back to Level 1: Prompting first, because good context and good prompts work best together.
If you're ready to set up your context file, pick the tool you use most and follow the step-by-step guide:
Full walkthrough of creating a project, uploading your context, and getting Claude working with your business identity.
How to configure Custom Instructions and use your context file effectively within ChatGPT's setup.
Once your context is in place, you can start building AI into your daily operations and automating routine work.
We'll sit down with you for an hour, work through everything your AI needs to know about your business, and set it all up so it's ready to go from day one.
Find out how we can helpOne email a week with practical AI tips, new toolbox entries, and the occasional honest take on what's genuinely worth your time.