Business Owners Can Now Customize ChatGPT for Their Specific Needs

Customizable AI is one of the crucial technologies that will benefit business owners in the coming years. 

The customizable aspect lies in the ability to tailor an AI tool to a specific company’s unique operations. 

Historically, this has involved fairly straightforward prediction programs. For instance, AI will analyze a company’s inventory to recommend product orders that find a golden mean for stocking in inventory management.

It has even involved chatbots that can answer back-and-forth conversations with customers about products. 

But this is going to evolve, as evidenced by OpenAI’s recent announcement that even small businesses can tailor ChatGPT to serving their ends.

The Next Step in Customizable AI for Business Owners

What makes OpenAI’s recent announcement so stirring is that ChatGPT represents the latest generation of chatbots. That is, wide-ranging generative AI programs that can write everything from limericks to debating society speeches. 

Of course, major tech companies have been hard at work on such technology for some time now. 

So, is it really all that “new”?

For business owners, it is. What makes this significant is its widespread availability to users. And, of course, their use of it will foster the impact that the technology has on society. 

To consider how ChatGPT’s new feature will change the game for business owners, read on. 

First of All, Who Can Access This? 

Like most of ChatGPT’s most attractive features—see the recent DALL-E 3 integration that allows for image generation—, this is only available behind the ChatGPT Plus subscription paywall. 

That runs $20 a month. For business owners who are not already subscribed to the service, the price of admission may seem fair once they take a look at GPTs. 

This is significant because previously, only people with software and programming knowledge could hope to customize ChatGPT. Now, even people who have never written a “Hello, world” program can shape ChatGPT to do their bidding. 

Inside GPTs, the Custom-Chatbot Service

Yes, that is the name: GPTs.

The pluralization of ChatGPT is of course meant to signify that business owners that customize ChatGPT are getting something like an entirely new ChatGPT. Hence, multiple ChatGPTs out in the world. 

We mentioned above that business owners can custom-fit the generative AI platform to their business, no matter the size. 

This represents a pretty important offering, since the $20 per month price tag is well below what A.I. integration can cost. 

What this may involve is designing GPTs that can answer questions specific to a business. 

An Example Illustrating GPTs in Action

Consider the customizable AI example of a business called “Sam Salmon’s Salmon Sandwich Shoppe”, which sells hundreds of variations of a salmon sandwich. 

The GPTs feature can be used by Sam Salmon, founder of Sam Salmon’s Salmon Sandwich Shoppe, to create a chatbot that can field customer questions about the different sandwich variations. 

A typical customer-chatbot interaction may resemble something like the following back-and-forth conversation: 

Customer: Hello, can you tell me about the Sam Salmon’s Super Starchy Salmon Sandwich? It looks really delicious and yummy based on the Instagram Reels story that you all posted last night.

Sam’s GPT: Sure thing! This is sandwich number 749 on the menu, and is just loaded with starch-heavy foods! If you order it with untoasted white bread, this yields the highest starch content. It also comes with a FREE side of saltine crackers! Yummy, indeed! 

Customer: Wow, that does sound yummy! I’m especially interested in the mayonnaise and where/how it was sourced.

Sam’s GPT: As for the mayonnaise, that is actually Sam Salmon’s Secret Salmon Sauce! Its source is a secret, only Sam Salmon knows about it! But I can tell you a bit about the flavor profile: It basically just tastes like Mayochup. Heinz Mayochup in particular. What else did you want to know about Sam Salmon’s Secret Salmon Sauce? 

Customer: Yeah, does it cost any extra? 

Sam’s GPT: $3 extra, but it’s worth it! Trust me 🙂

Customer: Great thanks! Ordering on DoorDash now.

Sam’s GPT: That’s totally awesome, thanks for ordering from Sam Salmon’s Salmon Sandwich Shoppe! Any other questions? 

Customer: No. 

As you can see, this functions like any other chatbot, which basically functions like an automated customer service representative. 

How Customizable AI Works, and What to Look Out for.

In the example above, Sam Salmon would have uploaded documents detailing the different sandwiches to ChatGPT, which would have the information on hand to use in customer interactions. 

The sheer number of sandwiches illustrates something important about GPTs, which is the amount of information that the chatbot can imbibe and recite. 

We should end on a note about the caveats: Generative AI chatbots, especially ChatGPT, have been shown to hallucinate from time to time.

This means that they can be inaccurate. To bring things back to the above example, such a hallucination may have involved telling the customer that Sam Salmon’s Secret Salmon Sauce is sourced from Mars. 

It is also important to exercise caution about what information to give ChatGPT. For instance, had Sam Salmon uploaded the secret recipe to the sauce, ChatGPT may have shared it.