Technique Updated 2026-04

Chain of Thought

Definition

Chain of Thought is a prompting technique that asks the model to show its step-by-step reasoning before giving its final answer.

See also in the glossary

P
Prompt
A prompt is the instruction or question you give an AI to get a response. It's the interface between you and the model.
A
AI Reasoning
AI reasoning refers to a model's ability to break down a problem into logical steps to reach a conclusion, rather than answering instinctively.
L
LLM (Large Language Model)
An LLM is an AI model trained on billions of texts, capable of understanding and generating human language.
P
Prompt Engineering
Prompt engineering is the art of crafting precise instructions to get the best results from an AI model.

Tools that use chain of thought

C
Claude
The AI that understands nuance, by Anthropic
4.7/5
C
ChatGPT
The world's most used conversational AI assistant
4.6/5
D
DeepSeek
The open source Chinese model rivaling GPT-4
4.7/5
P
Perplexity
The AI answer engine that cites its sources
4.5/5

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Chain of Thought improve results?
By reasoning step by step, the model breaks complex problems into simple sub-problems, reducing errors. It's like showing your work in math.
Should you always use Chain of Thought?
No. For simple questions, it's unnecessary and slows the response. Reserve it for logic, math, code and complex analysis problems.