The #1 AI Unlock: Create Specialized, Personalized Assistants in Minutes
Transcript
The #1 way to benefit from AI is to create custom GPTs.
And it takes no time at all.
They're customized versions of the top AI chatbots, like ChatGPT, that you prime in advance to perform specific tasks, referencing your information, with your preferred style and formatting and other unique preferences.
You can create a whole team of tutors and advisors, writers and copyeditors, tech support, and even software engineers.
And that's exactly how you should think about AI: specialized assistants that serve narrow roles in your daily workflow.
That's how you can get the most out of it for a huge boost to your productivity and performance.
So I'm going to show you how easy it is to create your team of custom GPTs.
And on Productivity Nexus, you can access a collection I've preconfigured.
That's linked in the YouTube description.
And while you're there, be sure to subscribe for more insights around AI, automation and systemization.
Customizable Chatbots
So all of the top AI chatbots in some form offer custom GPTs, where you preconfigure instructions and supply information for reference.
Gemini has Gems.
Claude has Projects.
And ChatGPT has Custom GPTs.
And they all have their own strengths and shortcomings, but I find ChatGPT to offer the best blend of features and performance, so that's what I'll walk you through here.
Roles
And in another recent tutorial I talked about the 10 roles AI should play in your daily workflow.
And for each of those roles I have at least one custom GPT, sometimes multiple with even more granular specialties.
They're accessible in a click within my sidebar or I can at-mention them in any chat.
So from those 10 common roles let's create one that's especially useful for everyone.
And that's the copywriter.
And specifically we're going to create a copywriter to assist an AI-focused content creator, with a writing style inspired by The Verge, which is a popular tech publication.
But it'll be obvious how to adapt it for your own use and preferred style.
Create a Custom GPT
So within ChatGPT, in your sidebar, you'll see the option to Explore GPTs.
And that takes you to an expansive directory of specialized GPTs created by brands and other users.
And as long as you have at least a ChatGPT Plus subscription, at the top you'll have the options to manage your own GPTs and create new ones.
So for our copywriter, we want to create a new one.
And that'll present you with a handful of configuration options.
And for users that want it they have this Create option where they can chat with ChatGPT to create a first pass of the configurations,
but you'll get a more tailored result that's more in line with what you want it to accomplish if you bypass that and instead take a more methodical and structured approach.
Name
So back in the Configure tab with a clean slate, we'll start by giving it a name.
And we'll call this one simply Copywriter.
Description
And the description is really only useful for GPTs you plan to share, either privately or publicly.
I'll include this one in the collection you can access on Productivity Nexus, so we'll say "Write like The Verge: Smart and informative yet accessible and relatable."
Instructions
And then the meat of it is the instructions.
This is where you really thoroughly and narrowly define the chatbot's roles and responsibilities.
And here it's really important to follow best practices for architecting effective prompts.
That's true for the instructions here when you're priming the chatbot, and then for the individual chats you'll conduct with it.
And the best way to do that is to follow the Who-Why-What-How framework, which is built on best practices and ensures you provide all the information the chatbot needs, and in the format it will best understand.
WWWH
And if you haven't seen my tutorial on the Who-Why-What-How framework, definitely watch that next because it's important for every prompt that you write.
But the gist is that you want to provide the who, why, what and how with each prompt.
For the who, you assign roles to the chatbot, yourself, and possibly a target audience.
For the why, you define the ultimate objective.
For the what, you specify what the look and feel of the output, including format, tone, and length.
And then for the how, you provide a step-by-step sequence for the chatbot to follow.
And not all of these will apply to every prompt, but the more boxes you can check the more helpful the results will be from the AI.
And you structure your prompt using XML syntax, where you begin a section with a label in angle brackets, and then end it the same way but with a forward slash before the label.
Style Prep
Now before we apply this framework to our instructions, I want to talk about two ways of preparing the style you want the chatbot to use—in this case, the style of The Verge.
The first way is to ask ChatGPT to describe the style in a way that can be used in a prompt as the requested style.
That'll give you the language to describe it most effectively in the instructions for your custom GPT.
And then it's also important to provide examples, and with online publications like The Verge, you can find the RSS feed, visit it directly in your browser, and save it as an XML file.
Then you can upload that file to your custom GPT's knowledge and mention it in your instructions, as we'll do here shortly.
WWWH in Your GPT Instructions
So now we're equipped to write our instructions using the Who-Why-What-How framework.
And like I said, this one will be tailored for a content creator focused on AI, but it'll be obvious how to adapt it for yourself.
So for the who, we'll define everyone's roles beginning with the bot's:
You are a highly skilled copywriter who specializes in AI-focused content that mirrors the distinctive style of The Verge. You combine deep technical knowledge with accessible, actionable explanations to make complex concepts easy to understand and captivating for everyday professionals. For any knowledge that's unprovided and beyond your existing knowledge, you excel at finding accurate, up-to-date information online.
And then your role:
I am a content creator focused on AI and other emerging technologies related to productivity. For each piece of content, I will provide you with a topic, outline, or reference materials, along with formatting specifications, which you will transform into a polished piece that effectively serves the audience and your objectives.
And then we define the audience:
The audience is ambitious professionals seeking to increase their productivity through emerging technologies, especially AI. They are proficient with common business apps and have experimented with AI chatbots, but they're not developers or technologists. They seek relevant and actionable content that respects their intelligence and limited time while making complex concepts accessible.
Next is the why, which is the objective. And you'll start to notice some repetition, but that's intentional to reinforce the most important points.
The higher goal is to empower everyday professionals to leverage AI to boost their productivity and performance. For each piece of content, your objectives are to employ The Verge's style toward:
Comprehension: Make complex ideas easy to understand
Engagement: Capture attention and maintain reader interest
Action: Empower the reader to take quick, easy steps with immediate benefits to efficiency and productivity
Then for the what, we'll specify the style, tone and formatting. And this is where we use the language from ChatGPT when we asked it to describe The Verge's style. And we also point the GPT to the examples uploaded to its knowledge.
Then I paste the language from ChatGPT, with a separate section for formatting.
And lastly we have the steps for the GPT to follow for each piece it writes:
Each time I provide a topic, outline, or material for a piece, please follow these steps:
Understand the intent: Ensure you have a clear grasp of the piece's core purpose. Ask clarifying questions if needed.
To complement the information provided, conduct research online. Ensure all information is categorically true and up-to-date.
Define the utility and actionable takeaways for the reader.
Outline the content logically, ensuring it serves your objectives.
Compose the piece with the prescribed style, tone, and formatting, still ensuring it serves your objectives.
Craft a compelling headline that maximizes engagement but avoids clickbait tactics.
Review the piece for accuracy and to ensure it serves your objectives.
Respond with the drafted piece.
So that completes our thorough and really exceedingly well optimized instructions for our copywriter GPT.
Knowledge
Next, we want to give it that XML file containing The Verge's RSS feed for the bot to reference as examples.
And in this knowledge section you can provide any sort of content you might want your GPT to reference.
Rather than style examples, you could include information for it to draw from that wouldn't be in its training data or online.
Capabilities
And then you'll choose which ChatGPT features your GPT can access.
Web search is straightforward and almost always useful.
Canvas is a special type of interface for the text or code that ChatGPT outputs that lets you iterate on in collaboration with the bot.
That'll be especially useful for our copywriter.
And for some GPT roles, you'll have no need for image generation, but we'll keep it here for the visuals the copywriter will create to visualize certain content.
And along with Web Search, Code Interpreter is pretty much a no-brainer to include. It allows the GPT to comprehend and analyze all sorts of files and data.
Actions
And Actions is an advanced feature that allows developers to connect GPTs to other apps.
So we've covered the essential configurations, which leaves us with two options that are really more cosmetic than functional.
Conversation Starters
The first is conversation starters, which are buttons containing phrases you can use to start a new chat.
I typically avoid them, but for demonstration's sake we'll add one that says "Let's create some content"
Photo
And then finally we can add a photo to appear with the GPT's name.
And I saved this for last because now that we have the details in place, we can choose to have the photo AI-generated.
Go Live
And that's it. We have an exceptionally well optimized Copywriter GPT.
When I click Create to take it live, I have three sharing options:
I can keep it only usable by me.
I can keep it unpublished but sharable with a link.
Or I can publish it to the GPT marketplace.
This one will be part of the collection on Productivity Nexus, so I'll keep the default link option.
See It in Action
So that puts our Copywriter in the sidebar for quick access.
When I click it to start a conversation you can see our conversation starter button.
But from the standard ChatGPT or any other chat I can now at-mention the copywriter to engage it.
So let's give it a go. I'll simply say: "The topic is ChatGPTs Tasks feature: What it is, why it's useful (with examples), and how to configure it"
And just as we want, we get a succinct, accessible and actionable guide to the Tasks feature in the smart but relatable style of The Verge.
Conclusion
So you can see how easy it is to create a specialized version of ChatGPT that's tailored to your needs and preferences.
And you can imagine how empowering it is to have a full team of these specialists assisting you throughout each day.
It's my #1 recommendation for leveraging AI, and now you know just how to do it.
Be sure to follow the Who-Why-What-How framework, and grab the preconfigured collection on Productivity Nexus with their instructions ready to customize.
And while you're there, be sure to subscribe for more insights around AI, automation and systemization!
