What Is a Custom GPT, and Why Would You Need One?

Ask the Expert, with Diane Hammons, Director of Digital Engagement at WG Content

People create custom GPTs to do everything from plan their weekly meals to teach them a new language. How can custom GPTs help healthcare marketers?

// By Jane Weber Brubaker //

Diane Hammons doesn’t like to use the term Prompt Engineering. “I think it makes it seem so hard. ‘I can’t think like an engineer, so I can’t do this.’ Let’s stop calling it that.”

Prompts are instructions for ChatGPT that help it understand how to answer your question or complete a task.

Those who are actively experimenting with ChatGPT and similar tools begin by writing simple prompts. “Give me 10 story ideas about [fill in the blank].” ChatGPT comes back with helpful but generic responses based on everything it has ever ingested.

Diane Hammons, director of digital engagement at WG Content

To get better results, Hammons suggests, “You have to tell it more, just as you would if it were an intern or a new employee in the company.”

One way to do that is to create a custom GPT, a version of ChatGPT that you train with your own knowledge base — documents you upload that describe your brand voice, style, and audience profile, for example — and sample content. Then, give it detailed, step-by-step instructions for the task you want it to complete, and tell it to refer to the information you’ve uploaded.

If you find yourself writing the same prompts, uploading the same reference documents, and asking for the same type of output over and over again, that might be your cue to create a custom GPT.

Read on for our Q&A with Hammons, where we get into the details of why you might choose to build a custom GPT, how to create one, and some healthcare-specific use cases. [Condensed for clarity and brevity.]

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