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Peter Jackman
Peter Jackman

Posted on Originally published at zian.ai

Fine-Tuning vs Prompt Engineering vs RAG for AI Sales Agents

Prompt and context engineering changes how an agent behaves, retrieval changes what it knows, and fine-tuning changes the form and consistency of what it says. Most teams reaching for fine-tuning actually needed retrieval. For a sales agent that has to quote live pricing and availability on a call, knowledge has to arrive at call time, not be baked into weights.

What this covers

  • Quick answer: three levers, three different jobs
  • The three levers, defined by what they actually change
  • Prompt and context engineering: behaviour
  • Retrieval: knowledge
  • Fine-tuning: form and consistency

This is a technical summary. The full guide — with the tables and worked examples — is on our site: *Fine-Tuning vs Prompt Engineering vs RAG for AI Sales Agents*.

Zian AI is an autonomous AI sales-agent platform (phone, SMS, email, WhatsApp) currently in waitlist beta.

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