OpenAI's introduction of custom GPTs in late 2023 marked a significant advancement in AI-driven marketing, offering tailored solutions for specific functional use cases. Within just four months, over 80,000 unique GPTs were created, with nearly 90% of them remaining active in the OpenAI’s GPT store. This impressive adoption rate showcases the growing demand for tailored AI solutions.
For marketing and communications teams, the ability to curate and fine-tune GPTs directly within OpenAI’s platform offers substantial benefits. Custom GPTs allow teams to align Generative AI outputs with their specific brand voice, messaging, and goals, making Generative AI not only practical but also highly effective for day-to-day marketing efforts.
What Are Custom GPTs in ChatGPT?
Custom GPTs in ChatGPT are specialized versions of OpenAI’s models (like GPT-4), designed to handle specific tasks. Think of them like apps for your phone, but in this case on ChatGPT. While the base models (GPT-4) are made for general use, Custom GPTs allow users to configure the AI tool to meet specific needs.
They are easy to set up and to use. Features of GPTs include:
- Straightforward Setup and Deployment: Building Custom GPTs within ChatGPT requires no coding experience. Users can easily access OpenAI’s GPT Builder, making it accessible for both technical and non-technical users.
- Tailored to Use Cases: Custom GPTs can be configured to focus on specific marketing needs. They can follow tailored instructions to ensure the AI aligns with the language, tone of voice, and even legal compliance standards.
- Immediate Utility: With a wide variety of GPT models available — particularly for tasks like writing, productivity, and research — marketers can quickly adopt these tools with minimal friction. The familiar chat interface can simplify complex onboarding or change management processes.
- Specialized: Custom GPTs can be configured to handle industry-specific queries and tasks by integrating internet browsing and API connections. These specialized GPTs can pull real-time data, interact with external platforms, and manage tasks such as content generation, copy-editing, and data retrieval.
- Controlled Environment: Custom GPTs operate within a secure, self-contained chat interface, which can be tailored by enterprises to meet specific security and compliance requirements. This setup ensures that sensitive data remains protected by robust enterprise security policies, while still providing the flexibility of a powerful AI tool.
Limitations of Custom GPTs
Custom GPTs are a significant improvement over base models, offering tailored solutions for marketing and communications teams. However, they do come with some limitations:
- Limited Context Windows: Custom GPTs can only process a certain amount of information at a time—about 8,000 tokens for GPT-4. Since 1,000 tokens is roughly equivalent to 750 words, this means GPT-4 can handle around 6,000 words in a single interaction. This limits its effectiveness for tasks that require processing very complex or lengthy data.
- Restricted Integration with External Services: Custom GPTs can connect to some external tools and platforms through APIs, but they can’t integrate with every service. This is because the platform itself has certain limitations on how it connects to outside systems.
- Self-Contained Functionality: Custom GPTs operate within the ChatGPT interface and do not automatically update without manual input, which can be a constraint in fast-changing environments that require handling of changing information.
- Limited Complexity: Custom GPTs are not capable of handling highly complex or multi-step tasks consistently. They may struggle with following long instructions in the correct order, especially when processing involves several steps. As such, the output may reflect that the AI is skipping steps, or misunderstanding the sequence of actions.
However, these limitations should not stop you from exploring how ChatGPT GPTs can enhance your use of OpenAI’s models. In the next article, we go deeper into GPTs’ use cases for marketers, along with guidance on how to create your own Custom GPT.
Could Custom GPTs be the next step in your organizational AI journey? Schedule an free consultation with a Sequencr consultant to find out how we can empower your team for the age of Generative AI.
