January 18, 2026•14 min read
Chain-of-Thought vs Zero-Shot: Which Should You Use?
Zero-shot is fast but misses nuance. CoT nails complex reasoning but costs 2-5x more. After months of testing, here's exactly when to use each prompting approach.
Dmytro ChabanPrompt EngineeringChain-of-ThoughtZero-Shot Prompting