Language & NLP
System prompt
Also called: agent instructions · prompt
A system prompt is the set of instructions that define an AI agent's role, personality, rules and boundaries — the standing brief the language model follows on every turn. It's how you tell a voice agent who it is, what it can do, and what it must never do.
Combined with retrieval-augmented generation (for facts) and tool access (for actions), the system prompt determines the agent's behavior. Good prompts are specific about tone, escalation rules, and edge cases.
Related terms
Large language modelAn AI model trained on vast text that generates and understands language. LLMs are the reasoning engine inside modern conversational and voice AI.Retrieval-augmented generationA technique that grounds an LLM's answers in your own documents — retrieving relevant content at query time — so a voice agent stays accurate to your data.Dialogue managementKeeping track of context across a multi-turn conversation — what's been said, what's still needed — so the agent stays coherent.
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