đ Prompt Series Part 3 of 5: When LLM Selection Starts to Matter
After learning how to prompt clearly and iterate effectively, a natural question emerges: Does it matter which LLM I use if Iâm iterating well? In the short run, the honest answer is no. If youâre clear in your intent and willing to refine direction, most modern LLMs will get you where you need to go. Prompting and iteration do a lot of the heavy lifting early on. Thatâs why many people experience an initial breakthrough and think, âOkay, Iâve got this.â And they do. At first. đ Why Iteration Levels the Field Early When youâre iterating well, youâre doing a few important things: - Clarifying what you actually want - Responding to output instead of restarting - Adjusting direction in small, intentional steps Those behaviors transfer. They work across LLMs because the interaction pattern is the same: input â response â refinement. In that phase, differences between LLMs fade into the background. Youâre building skill, not dependency. đ When Fit Begins to Show Up As AI becomes something you use regularlyânot occasionallyâanother shift starts to happen. Youâre no longer experimenting. Youâre working. And thatâs when fit begins to show up. Not in dramatic ways In small ones that compound over time. You notice how an LLM responds to follow-ups. How much structure it assumes. How easily you can steer it without over-explaining. Tone and writing style are often where this becomes most obvious. Some people gravitate toward Claude because it feels more measured, structured, and editorial. Others prefer ChatGPT because it feels more conversational, adaptive, and easy to steer through quick iteration. Neither is better. They simply feel different to work with. And once AI becomes part of your daily rhythm, those differences start to matter. To be clear, this isnât about specialty capabilities like coding, image creation, or domain-specific features. Itâs about how naturally an LLM mirrors: - Your tone - Your writing style - The way you think through ideas