ChatGPT is one of the most popular generative AI tools. To oversimplify a major technological achievement, ChatGPT is like a really fancy predictive text tool. It analyzes your prompt and predicts what words will follow. In other words, you’re prompting it to complete a pattern you created with your prompt.

Sometimes it predicts correctly and sometimes it does not. You should always check ChatGPT’s work.

ChatGPT has a free and paid versions. There are also competitors to ChatGPT such as Bard.

The key to successfully using ChatGPT is mastering the prompt.

To optimize the use of ChatGPT, consider ways to use it to help you think better, harder, more accurately, and more creatively. View ChatGPT as augmenting you, rather than just a means to automating your work.

Here are some tips:

• Plan to spend more time than expected on crafting a prompt.
• Start by defining the goal. What exactly do you want ChatGPT to deliver? Craft your prompt to push ChatGPT towards that goal.
• Think like a storyteller, not an inquisitor. Give ChatGPT a character or a knowledge level from which it should shape its answer. For example, tell ChatGPT that it’s an orthodontic office manager, a digital marketing expert, a market research expert,  or any other job role.
• Remember that any task or thinking exercise (within reason and the law) is fair game and within ChatGPT’s general scope. For example, instruct ChatGPT to analyze consumer reviews, summarize employee feedback or write a social media post. Check out videos of these examples below.
• Be specific. The more details you include in the prompt, the better. Basic prompts lead to basic responses. More specific, concise prompts lead to more detailed responses, more nuanced responses, and better performance in ChatGPT’s responses.
• You can also use multiple prompts in a sequence in which the output of one becomes the input of the next. You can even ask ChatGPT is ask you questions to create a better prompt.

A few examples: