Sign up App tips 6 min read Home App picks Automation with Zapier How to Business use ChatGPT Productivity growth Product & platform By Jessica Lau · May 4, 2023 Company updates Remote work When AI-powered chatbots and image generators first came on the scene, I was admittedly a little skeptical. It was mostly because the news headlines—at least, the ones my algorithm was feeding me—were fear-inducing (see: People fear being replaced by AI and ChatGPT). But it was also because I didn't know how any of it worked. Add the power of ChatGPT to your workflows Automate ChatGPT However, as my brilliant teammate Elena put it, the best way to stop being afraid of AI is to use AI. So I decided to dive in with one of the more interesting tools, especially for writers: ChatGPT. In a pleasant turn of events, I discovered no fewer than 28,349 ways ChatGPT alone can help me be better at my job. For example, it can help me create rough outlines for blog posts. It can even act as my own personal writing coach. If you're also eager to take ChatGPT for a spin, but you're not sure where to start, you're in the right place. Here's how to use ChatGPT. Note: This article focuses on the specific steps of how to use ChatGPT. If you're curious to learn more about what's going on under the hood, check out our article, How does ChatGPT work? How to use ChatGPT Here's the short version of how to use ChatGPT: 1. Go to chat.openai.com, and log in or sign up (it's free). 2. Type your prompt in the message box on the ChatGPT home page. 3. Once ChatGPT spits out a response, you have a handful of options: Enter a new prompt. Regenerate the response. Copy the response. Like or dislike the response. Now let's take a closer look at the finer details of using ChatGPT. Note: There's no mobile app for ChatGPT (yet), but you can still follow the same steps above to use ChatGPT in your smartphone's web browser. Create your OpenAI account To get started with ChatGPT, you first need to create an OpenAI account (it's free). To do this, go to chat.openai.com, and click Sign up. You can use an email address, or you can sign in with your Google or Microsoft account. If you use an email address, you'll be required to do a phone verification to confirm that you're really a human and not, ironically, a bot. Already have an OpenAI account? Click Log in to start chatting. If you're having trouble signing up or logging in, your best bet is to reload your page. For specific login issues, check out OpenAI's troubleshooting tips. Note: By default, anyone can access GPT-3.5—the less powerful GPT model—for free. To use the more advanced GPT-4, you'll need to upgrade to OpenAI's paid subscription, ChatGPT Plus. Ask ChatGPT a question Type your prompt (i.e., text query) in the message bar of the home page, and hit Enter (or click the send icon, which looks like a paper plane). In a matter of seconds, ChatGPT will spit out a reply. Here's the text ChatGPT generated in response to the prompt, "Explain how ChatGPT works to a 10-year-old kid." Tip: To get the best results from ChatGPT, write a clear prompt with sufficient context. Need help refining your text query? Here are six tips to help you write an effective GPT-3 or GPT-4 prompt. Once ChatGPT spits out a response, you have a number of options. 1. Enter a new prompt. One of ChatGPT's key features—and the one that makes it feel like having a real back-and-forth dialogue—is that it can "remember" the conversation you're having with it (to a degree). This means you can ask ChatGPT to modify its response without repeating yourself or starting from scratch. ChatGPT will simply refer back to whatever you were discussing before, and then use that to inform its response. Let's build on our initial prompt. To get a shorter explanation, I entered, "Try again, but explain it in two to three sentences max." Notice how I didn't have to specify what "it" was in the second prompt? Or remind ChatGPT that the explanation should be suitable for a 10-year-old child? Note: The default model, GPT-3.5, can hold 4,096 tokens in its "memory," which is equal to roughly three pages of text. This means that after a few thousand words or so, GPT-3.5 will forget earlier parts of your conversation. The newest variant of GPT-4, however, can remember nearly 50 pages of content. 2. Get a new response. If the response isn't quite what you're looking for, and you want to use the same prompt, click Regenerate response to get ChatGPT to try again. 3. Copy the response. If you like ChatGPT's answer, and want to share it somewhere else, click the clipboard icon beside the response to copy it. Once you do this, the icon will turn into a checkmark to indicate that it's been successfully copied. This button saves you from having to highlight the text and then using a keyboard shortcut to copy it. Tip: As ChatGPT's been known to produce "plausible-sounding but incorrect" answers, be sure to review or fact-check every response before broadcasting it more widely. 4. Like the response. Since ChatGPT doesn't have the ability to think like humans do, it can't determine whether a response is good or bad on its own. Instead, it relies on humans to provide that data to help it learn. So, if the response was helpful, click the thumbs-up icon beside it. You also have the option to share what you liked about the response to help ChatGPT improve. 5. Dislike the response. Alternatively, you can click the thumbs-down icon beside ChatGPT's response to dislike it. Again, you'll have the option to provide additional feedback by manually entering your response, or you can click any of the quick-select feedback options: This is harmful or unsafe; This isn't true; and This isn't helpful. (You can select more than one option.) Can ChatGPT refuse to answer my prompts? For its part, OpenAI has expressed its commitment to keeping AI "safe and broadly beneficial." To do this, they've introduced various safeguards, including the ability for ChatGPT to reject inappropriate, offensive, or illegal content. To get specific, here's what ChatGPT told me when I asked, "What prompts won't you respond to?" ChatGPT: As an AI language model, I don't respond to prompts that involve any form of inappropriate, offensive, or illegal content, including but not limited to: 1. Requests for explicit or offensive material. 2. Prompts that promote or encourage hate speech, discrimination, or violence against any individual or group. 3. Prompts that violate the privacy of individuals or organizations. 4. Prompts that involve illegal activities or encourage such activities. 5. Requests for personal information such as passwords, credit card details, or social security numbers. Furthermore, I might not be able to respond to prompts that are too ambiguous or lack context. Please ensure that your prompts are clear and specific to receive the best possible response from me. To be clear, this isn't a complete list of rejection-worthy prompts. But if you're ever wondering about ChatGPT's limits, like "Can ChatGPT remember my passwords?" (it can't), or "Can ChatGPT give me medical advice?" (also a hard no), just ask it yourself. How to manage your data in ChatGPT By default, your conversations in ChatGPT can be viewed by OpenAI and used as training data to improve its system. (This is a key reason why you shouldn't enter any personal or private data into ChatGPT.) You can also access your account's entire chat history in the side panel of the home page. How to turn off your chat history in ChatGPT If you don't want ChatGPT to store your chat history, it's easy to turn this feature off. Here's how. 1. Click on your profile in the sidebar, and then click Settings. 2. In the Settings pop-up window, click the toggle beside Chat History & Training. (If this isn't visible to you, click Show beside Data Controls.) Once you do this, the sidebar of the home page will display a message that reads, Chat History is off. It's worth mentioning that if your chat history is turned off, you also won't be able to click through your chat history. If you want to access your history, you'll have to turn it back on again. To quickly do this, click Enable chat history in the sidebar. Note: When chat history is disabled, OpenAI will retain new conversations for 30 days and review them only when needed to monitor for abuse, before they're permanently deleted. How to delete your ChatGPT history To delete all of your past conversations, here's how to do it in one fell swoop. 1. Click on your profile in the sidebar, and then click Clear conversations. 2. Click Confirm clear conversations. (There's no undo button.) You can also delete specific conversations in your chat history. Here's how. 1. Click the conversation name, and then click the garbage can icon. 2. Click the checkmark to confirm you want to delete the chat. What is ChatGPT Plus? In response to ChatGPT's growing popularity (read: occasional outages due to high traffic), OpenAI introduced a subscription plan, ChatGPT Plus. For $20/month, paying members get the following perks: General access to ChatGPT, even during peak times Choice of ChatGPT models Faster response times Priority access to new features and improvements It's worth mentioning that only ChatGPT Plus subscribers can access the latest model, GPT-4 (with a cap of 25 messages every three hours). Curious about the difference between GPT-3.5 and GPT-4? Here's a breakdown from OpenAI. If the difference in speed between GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 stands out to you, you're not alone. While OpenAI hasn't outright explained why there's such a stark difference, it's suggested that GPT-4 is slower because it's processing significantly more information to give you a more accurate response. Sounds like a worthwhile tradeoff to me. Tip: As it turns out, not all acronyms are created equal. You can't, for example, refer to ChatGPT as GPT-4 (and vice versa) because they're not the same thing —at all. Here's the difference between ChatGPT, GPT-3, and GPT-4. Automate ChatGPT While ChatGPT is fun to use in the web browser, that's not the only place you can put ChatGPT to work. With Zapier, you can connect ChatGPT with thousands of other apps, so you can incorporate AI into all of your business-critical workflows. For example, you can have ChatGPT automatically draft a reply to an email. You can even use ChatGPT to draft a response to a Slack message and post it. Try it for yourself. Click on any of the templates to create your first Zap—what we call our automated workflows. Start a conversation with ChatGPT when a prompt is posted in a particular Slack channel Try it Create email copy with OpenAI from new Gmail emails and save as drafts in Gmail Try it Create article summaries with OpenAI from the Zapier Chrome extension Try it Slack + ChatGPT Gmail + OpenAI (GPT-3, DALL-E, Whisper) +2 Zapier Chrome extension + OpenAI (GPT-3, DALL-E, Whisper) + Web Parser by Zapier If you want to really streamline your workflows, you can even use the Zapier ChatGPT plugin to connect your go-to apps (like Gmail and Slack) and interact with them directly from ChatGPT. Related reading: How to use ChatGPT to summarize an article ChatGPT vs. Bard: What's the difference? ChatGPT vs. Bing Chat: Which should you use? 6 ways to use the Zapier ChatGPT plugin Get productivity tips delivered straight to your inbox Email address Subscribe We’ll email you 1-3 times per week—and never share your information. Jessica Lau Jessica Lau is a senior content specialist at Zapier. Outside of writing, she likes to snuggle her dogs, and provide unsolicited podcast and book recommendations. Tags Artificial intelligence (AI) Mentioned Apps ChatGPT Related articles App tips How to use Google Tasks App tips How to use Coda AI App tips Use PowerToys Run to mimic Mac's Spotlight... App tips 15 Jasper AI prompts for creating marketing... Improve your productivity automatically. Use Zapier to get your apps working together. Sign up See how Zapier works Pricing Help Developer Platform Press Jobs Zapier for Companies Transfer Follow us © 2023 Zapier Inc. Manage cookies Legal Privacy
