Thumbnail AI prompts you can use right away to create hero images that show the click point of a video or piece of content. Quickly create Shorts covers, social thumbnails, and content hero images.
2026.05.22








Thumbnail prompts are AI prompts for quickly shaping hero images that show the click point of a video or piece of content. In Carat, you can generate images or video with models like GPT Image 2, then keep going with follow-up work such as editing the result, changing the aspect ratio, removing the background, upscaling, or converting to video.
Thumbnail work is less about simply making something that looks good and more about its intended use. A thumbnail is a small billboard that shows the content's promise at a glance. Making the topic, emotion, payoff, and contrast read fast helps it stand out in search results or a feed. When choosing a prompt, look first for examples that show the subject, composition, style, text placement, and intended channel.
In Carat, once you run a prompt you can refine from the result you like, or continue with follow-up work like changing the aspect ratio, removing the background, upscaling, or converting to video.