System Prompt

Your assistant's system prompt is the full set of instructions behind everything it says and does on a call. Think of it as the training manual you'd hand a new employee on their first day: who they're representing, how they should talk, what steps to walk a caller through, and what they should never say or promise. Settings like the Personality dropdown, the greeting, and the quick Always Say / Never Say list all sit on top of this, but the system prompt is where the real depth of your assistant's behavior actually lives.

This guide covers finding your assistant's system prompt, editing it safely, and what to include so it reads well once it's actually spoken to a caller. It works the same way whether you're logged into the main Sulus portal or a reseller's white-labeled version of it.

1. Click on the assistant you want to edit. This opens its edit screen.
2. Click the three-dots (⋮) button to open its dropdown menu.
3. From that dropdown, select Advanced Editor.
4. On the Advanced Editor page, use the left-side Sections list and click AI Model.
5. In the AI Configuration area, make sure the Model tab is selected (it's the one shown by default, alongside Voice and Transcriber).
6. Scroll down to System Messages. The first entry, Message 1, has its Role set to System. In plain terms, Message 1 with Role set to System is simply the box that holds your assistant's main instructions, the one you're looking for. The Content box on that entry is your assistant's system prompt.

1. Click into the Content box under Message 1.
2. Add, remove, or rewrite whatever you need changed. If you're working with a lot of text, click Edit in popup to open it in a larger window instead of the small box.
3. Click Save Changes at the top of the page.
4. Call your assistant to hear the change in action.

Under that same three-dots menu, Update with AI opens a chat window where you can describe what you want changed in plain language, for example “make Jordan sound more formal” or “add a step where the assistant confirms the caller's phone number before booking.” An AI assistant drafts the update for you from there. This is the same Update with AI feature covered elsewhere in these docs for voice changes, and it remains a newer, Beta feature, so treat editing the Content box directly as the reliable fallback if the chat-driven version doesn't get things quite right.

A system prompt reads best when it covers four things, written in plain sentences, the same way you'd brief a person filling in for your front desk:

• Who they are and who they represent (name, business, role on the call)
• How they should sound (formal, casual, warm, brief, chatty, and so on)
• The steps of a typical call, in order (greet, find out what the caller needs, offer to book, confirm details, close)
• What to avoid (specific words or phrases, promises the assistant can't back up, anything that should go to a human instead)

Write it as full sentences rather than scattered keywords. Your assistant follows a system prompt roughly the way a new hire follows a training document, so instructions that read clearly to a person tend to produce a call that sounds clear to a caller too. If you also want shorter or longer replies, say so directly in this text, for example “keep answers to one or two sentences unless the caller asks for more detail,” rather than looking for a separate setting. Response length in Sulus isn't a toggle you flip; it comes from how you word the prompt itself.

If all you need is for your assistant to always mention one specific thing, or to never bring up a certain topic, you don't need to open the full system prompt at all. Back on the assistant's main edit screen (not Advanced Editor), the Instructions section has separate Always Say and Never Say lists, up to five entries each. That's usually the faster fix for a single rule. Save a system prompt edit for bigger changes to tone or call flow.

Every save to the system prompt is captured in Version History the same as any other assistant change. See How to Roll Back or Review Changes with Version History for the full walkthrough. If a recent edit isn't working the way you hoped, restoring the version from just before you made it is usually faster than trying to manually rewrite your way back to where you started.

If you manage assistants for your own customers, everything above works the same from within that customer's assistant record. Walking a customer through Advanced Editor yourself, or making the edit for them and pointing to Version History afterward as a safety net, resolves most “can you change how it talks” or “can you add a rule about X” requests without needing to escalate to Sulus support.

If you don't see AI Model in the Advanced Editor's Sections list, the System Messages area doesn't show a Message 1 entry, or Update with AI isn't available on your account, contact your Sulus.ai representative or reach out to [email protected] and we'll help you get it sorted.