AI Dictionary › Prompting

Tree of Thoughts

Tree of Thoughts (ToT) evolves Chain of Thought: instead of a single line of reasoning, the model explores multiple paths in parallel, evaluates them and picks the best, like a chess player considering several moves before playing.

Definition

In practice it's structured like this: "Generate 3 different approaches to the problem. For each, assess strengths, risks and feasibility. Then pick the best and develop it, explaining why you discarded the others." The model compares itself against itself, and the final decision's quality benefits.

It is the right technique for problems where the first idea is rarely the best: strategic decisions, design work, problems with constraints pulling against each other. It costs more tokens than plain CoT, use it when the stakes justify it.

Related terms

• Chain of Thought
• Self-consistency
• Prompting
• Prompt Chaining
• Inference

More in Prompting

• Prompt
• Prompting
• Role Assignment
• Zero-shot
• Few-shot
• Chain of Thought
• Prompt Engineering
• Output Format

Put it into practice

• Real scenario: apply this concept with an instant AI verdict.
• Daily gym: short drills to train dictionary concepts.
• Playoff game: challenge other players, elimination-style.

📱 Download the Android app (beta) iOS coming soon

Say what you mean. Get what you need.

Grace Certified, the AI coach that trains and certifies your prompt engineering, by Agora Intelligence.