ChatGPT is a powerful AI tool that can help anyone with tasks like writing, research and planning. It’s simple to get started learning how to use ChatGPT. Obtaining the best results, however, involves using clear, detailed prompts. Users should also be cautious of mistakes and overrelying on AI.
Almost three years since its launch, ChatGPT already has over 700 million weekly active users. It has also played a key role in bringing about a global AI boom that has led to widespread AI adoption in work and personal lives. If that’s not enough, it has become a household name throughout many parts of the world.
If you’ve decided to finally learn how to use ChatGPT and harness its power, it’s a great time to do so. From basic starting tips to suggestions on writing the most effective prompts, this article can help you leverage the power of this generative AI chatbot.
How ChatGPT Works
Think of ChatGPT as an AI chatbot that has been fed hoards of information from around the internet. This information is of three types:
- Publicly available information
- Information accessed by partnering with third parties
- Information provided by users, researchers, trainers, etc.
Thanks to such humongous amounts of data—and we’re talking about tens of terabytes (TBs) here—ChatGPT is fairly familiar with many general topics.
However, as you might already know, ChatGPT is not the only chatbot of its kind. There’s also Gemini from Google, Claude from Anthropic, Grok from xAI and several other models that have come around since ChatGPT’s November 2022 debut. All these chatbots are based on a special type of AI models called large language models, or LLMs.
LLMs have two defining features:
- They are trained on large amounts of data (hence the first L)
- They can understand and generate natural human language (hence the other L)
The two properties make LLM-based chatbots not only incredibly useful but also quite interesting and easy to use. So, no matter what kind of question you have on any topic, it’s very likely that ChatGPT will give you a plausible, well-articulated answer.
However, that’s also where the catch is. Plausible isn’t always correct. Despite all the data it has been trained on, ChatGPT doesn’t know everything.
It can sometimes make mistakes, give wrong answers and even hallucinate, i.e., tell you facts that don’t really exist. Yet, the responses often sound so natural that you may not detect anything amiss. That’s why it’s important to double-check anything you aren’t sure of.
Keeping these things in mind, let’s get started with how to use ChatGPT.
How to Use ChatGPT: A Beginner’s Guide
ChatGPT is accessible via its website (chatgpt.com), mobile app and desktop app. You don’t have to create an account to use it, but you can only do a handful of basic things without an account like chatting or searching the web.
However, an account will unlock many more features, such as:
- Saved chats and memories
- Image and Document uploads
- Image generation
- Deep research
- Connecting other apps
Here are the steps to create an account on ChatGPT on a desktop browser:
- Go to chatgpt.com.
- You will see the ChatGPT interface, with the search box in the middle of the screen. Click on the Sign up for free button in the upper-right corner.
- Sign up using any of the five available methods: email address, Google account, Microsoft account, Apple account or phone number.
- Once you are logged in, the interface looks like this.
The ChatGPT Interface
Understanding how to use ChatGPT involves the interface for starters. Once logged in, you can start a new chat right away by typing your question into the text box. Or you can click on the icon to the far right of the box to start voice mode. There is also a mic icon that lets you dictate your query instead of typing it.
To the left of the box, the “+” icon shows additional options like uploading photos and files, creating images, canvas and so on, as shown below.
The navigation bar is on the left side of the screen and lists your chat history. You can also start a new chat or search for a specific chat from here. There are also other options like Sora (OpenAI’s advanced video-and-image generation tool) and GPTs (a collection of customized GPTs for various specific purposes like writing, editing, etc.).
In the upper-right corner of the screen, you’ll see the temporary chats icon, which is just like incognito mode in a web browser. Whatever you talk about in a temporary chat is not saved in your account and doesn’t appear in the chat history (though ChatGPT does store it for 30 days).
Moreover, if you wish to change certain settings, you can click on your name at the bottom-left corner and select Settings. There are a lot of things you can do here, but some of the notable options include:
- Changing the theme and language
- Personalizing the chatbot according to your custom instructions
- Toggling whether ChatGPT can use data from your conversations for training
Upgrading to ChatGPT Pro
While you can use all the basic features of ChatGPT for free, you can upgrade to one of the paid plans for more benefits. To do that, click on the Upgrade button next to your name in the bottom-left corner of the screen.
You’ll arrive on the pricing page, which should look something like this:
Choose a paid plan if you want extended access to a smarter ChatGPT with better memory, greater limits on uploads, faster image generation and other features.
With that said, we have rounded up the core and many additional features of ChatGPT. And now it’s time to start chatting.
How to Use ChatGPT Effectively (ChatGPT Prompt Ideas)
Using ChatGPT is just like chatting with someone. All you need to do is type away whatever topic or question you have on your mind. Then the chatbot starts talking to you as if you two are on WhatsApp.
But here is a key distinguishing point about ChatGPT (and other AI chatbots, for that matter): its answers are only as good as your questions. In other words, learning how to use ChatGPT means understanding how to write solid prompts as well.
Let’s understand this with a practical example. Say I want to watch a couple of movies over the next weekend, so I go to ChatGPT and enter a simple prompt:
Prompt 1:
Suggest some good movies to watch.
Now, the exact response can vary each time you ask the same question. But here’s the response I got:
Looks fair, as I get quite a few movie recommendations across different genres. But there’s a problem: the recommendations are too broad.
- What if I am not into comedy?
- What if I am only looking for a specific genre or theme?
- What if I am interested in movies from a specific period?
So let’s write another prompt, this time with these details.
Prompt 2:
Recommend some movies that satisfy the following criteria:
Genre: Sci-Fi
Theme: Time Travel
Release date range: 2010-2025
Give a spoiler-free blurb for each movie in one or two lines.
Here is ChatGPT’s response:
Sounds much more relevant and personalized than the first response, doesn’t it? The reason is solely the prompt, which was more personalized than the first one.
The lesson is obvious. Your prompts directly shape the quality of ChatGPT’s responses. This takes us to some of the most fundamental prompting tips that you should follow to get better responses from ChatGPT and other AI chatbots.
Best Practices to Write Better Prompts (with Examples)
A prompt is the instruction or set of instructions you give to an AI chatbot like ChatGPT. The better your prompt, the better the responses. But what exactly makes a prompt good to begin with?
As you’re getting started with how to use ChatGPT effectively, you can hone your questions for better results. Here are some tips for writing good prompts:
1. Be Clear, Specific and Detailed
Instead of asking general or vague questions, think deeper and write down exactly what you want. The more details you give to ChatGPT, the better it can understand your needs and generate a relevant answer accordingly.
One good example is what we just saw with movie recommendations. The second prompt works better because it’s much more specific and detailed than the first one.
But here’s another example.
Prompt:
Give me tips for planning a trip.
The prompt is as vague as it can be, which is why the response is also quite generic. Now, let’s refine the prompt by adding more details and context.
Refined Prompt:
I am going on a week-long solo leisure trip from New York to Paris in December. Prepare a day-wise travel itinerary for my trip, right from the day of departure to the day of return. My budget is $3,000.
New Response:
So this time, ChatGPT not only prepares a detailed itinerary as instructed but also factors in the season, festivities and budget. What’s more, it gives ideas that are better suited for solo travelers. In other words, the more details, the better the answers.
2. Give Examples
AI excels at identifying and adapting to patterns. So when you include specific examples in your prompt, it serves as fodder for ensuring that the outputs you receive are in the same structure, format or tone as you need.
This method can be helpful in specific situations where you want ChatGPT’s responses to resemble something you have in mind.
3. Set the Context
In many cases, it can be very useful to tell ChatGPT to behave a particular way for the rest of the conversation. You can give a set of instructions to set the context, which the chatbot will then follow while answering all your questions for the rest of the conversation.
For example, let’s say you want ChatGPT to analyze some written pieces and suggest a specific set of improvements. You can then set the context as the first prompt.
Prompt:
I will give you pieces of text. Analyze the text and give suggestions for improving clarity, brevity and flow. Do not edit the text yourself; just give suggestions.
Once you have given this prompt, you don’t have to repeat the instructions each time you send a piece of text, as ChatGPT remembers your initial instructions. Have a look:
4. Assign Roles
This is exactly what it sounds like. You can ask ChatGPT to talk like a specific person, such as a marketer, comedian, poet (even a specific person like Shakespeare) and so on. Assigning roles makes the responses reflect the general traits of the role.
For example, here’s what happens when I ask ChatGPT to be a business development manager of a branding and packaging design company.
Prompt:
You are the business development manager of a branding and packaging design company. Write a lead-nurturing email to prospects. Mention the names of the (imaginary) brands you have worked with and driven results for. The CTA should ask them to hop on a call with you. Email length: Within 150 words. Tone: A mix of friendly and formal with a tinge of humor.
Response:
Quick Tip: If you want to tweak or change a response, simply ask follow-up questions and mention the change you want to make. Or, you can also edit your prompt by hovering the cursor over your message and clicking on the pencil icon.
ChatGPT Can Be Used for Many Work and Personal Tasks
So far, we’ve seen how ChatGPT can help with random tasks like movie recommendations and travel planning, as well as more professional ones like text improvement suggestions and writing emails. Yet, all of this is just a fraction of what ChatGPT can do.
Let’s look at some more ways you can use this chatbot for work or personal purposes.
Writing and Related Tasks
We’ve already asked ChatGPT to give suggestions and write emails. Similarly, you can also ask it to edit some documents, check for grammatical and punctuation errors, translate text and more. Or, you can also ask it to write anything (not just emails) from scratch based on your instructions.
Quick Fact: According to OpenAI, writing, seeking information and related tasks make up around 24% of all messages, and writing makes up 40% of work-related messages users send to ChatGPT.
Summarization
ChatGPT can come in handy if you want to get the key points of a document, article or even a web page without going through it line by line. There are three primary ways to go about it:
- Copy the text and paste it into ChatGPT
- Paste a publicly accessible link to a webpage
- Upload a document
For example, here’s one example of a summarization request:
Summaries and analyses are not just limited to text documents. You can also upload visuals, charts and spreadsheets to get explanations of.
Quick Tip: You can also ask ChatGPT to create a new downloadable document (PDFs, spreadsheets, etc.) based on the document or data you give to it.
Brainstorming
Whether you don’t know what to gift your friend on their birthday or are short of content ideas for work or social media, ChatGPT can help you tap into your creativity. All you need to do is provide some relevant context and any useful details (the more, the better) and start brainstorming.
Automations
ChatGPT can be integrated into other apps with the help of automations. Platforms like Zapier can be used to connect ChatGPT with thousands of other apps and set up automations. For example, a company can integrate ChatGPT into its Slack workspace so that members can interact with ChatGPT right within Slack to do work-related tasks.
Customer Service
Many organizations use customer service chatbots. ChatGPT could be helpful here to analyze past support conversations, rate responses, and offer specific tips for improvement.
More Smart Ways to Use ChatGPT in Daily Work
Besides the broad use cases mentioned above, here are some more ideas on how you can use ChatGPT at work to save time and improve efficiency.
- Calendar Management: Do you have a long list of to-dos for the month and feel overwhelmed on how to prioritize and schedule everything? Tell everything to ChatGPT and let it help you with advice, tips and frameworks.
- Project Planning: Need to work on a complex project but don’t know where to start? ChatGPT can help break down the project into steps, set deadlines and timelines, create task lists, suggest creating frameworks, etc.
- Research: With its vast training data coupled with its web search capabilities, ChatGPT can be a good and easy substitute for search engines. It can not only give you information but also dissect and explain it for you. (Again, make sure to verify ChatGPT’s facts to be safe.)
Quick Tip: You can choose from a wide range of specialized GPTs for myriad purposes like writing, productivity, research and analysis, lifestyle and so on.
Benefits of Generative AI: Why It’s More Than Just a Trend
We’ve dedicated this entire guide to ChatGPT. However, is it even important to learn to use ChatGPT and other Generative AI chatbots?
The reason the answer is yes is not that everyone’s talking about these tools or that you create some really cool images with these tools (remember the Ghibli trend?). The rise of ChatGPT and similar chatbots is, in fact, part of a bigger and immensely consequential shift towards artificial intelligence.
With almost 4 out of 5 organizations already using AI, GenAI chatbots are an easy and widely accessible AI solution for everyone.
- At the individual level: ChatGPT can help you work faster, be more creative, ideate better and produce more output in less time. In other words, it can make you more efficient at work.
- At the leadership level: Using AI in leadership can improve decision-making, help build better data-backed strategies, optimize workflows and even analyze employees’ performance.
- At the organizational level: Companies can integrate AI into their business functions in a range of ways—from automating tasks and using AI-powered work management platforms to integrating GenAI chatbots into various areas like customer service. AI can improve organizational efficiency and cross-functional collaboration.
Challenges and Drawbacks of LLMs
At the same time, though, let’s not forget the challenges and drawbacks of LLM chatbots and AI in general:
- AI is not always correct: It makes mistakes, stumbles while reasoning, often misses obvious points and, worst of all, can cite imaginary facts.
- AI can be biased: LLMs are trained on large amounts of historical data, which contains biases and prejudices. For example, an AI system integrated into hiring systems may start preferring males over females or white candidates over those of color simply because of historical patterns.
- AI lacks core human skills: AI can mimic human emotions, but that doesn’t make up for a real human. Replacing humans with AI chatbots can be detrimental to the overall human aspect of an organization.
Adopting a Balanced Approach Towards ChatGPT
Understanding how to use ChatGPT well can be a game-changer for everything from daily tasks to work-related projects. In fact, the list of what ChatGPT can do is endless and ever-growing. The least you can do right now is start learning how to use it for your benefits—whether personal, professional or both. There is just one rule to remember: Use ChatGPT as an assistant, not as a replacement for actual human work.
Relying too much on AI can lead to biases, inaccuracies and low-quality outputs. It can also have negative cognitive effects, like reduced critical thinking skills. The best way to make the most healthy use of AI chatbots is to use them intentionally and wisely.
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