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Today’s Talk: Content Strategist Sjoerd on CustomGPT
Summary
CustomGPTs are essentially your own version of ChatGPT, tailored to your tone of voice, style guide and content. This is handy, as it saves you a lot of time and delivers more consistent and relevant results. The secret lies in a clear objective, good input and regular testing. This is how you build an AI that truly adds value and gives you more scope for creativity.
Written by Carmen Hemel
Digital Marketer
In our ‘Today’s Talk’ series, we speak to one of our specialists about a trending topic. This time, our colleague Sjoerd joins us. We talk to him about CustomGPTs: personalised GPTs that you can tailor to tone of voice, instructions and context. So, it’s not an entirely new model, but a handy way to fine-tune ChatGPT and tailor it entirely to your needs. What makes CustomGPTs so valuable for organisations? How do you set one up that truly meets your requirements? And what steps are needed to achieve a good result?
1. What is a CustomGPT and how does it differ from the standard version of GPT?
“Many people see ChatGPT as a chatbot that generates text. But at its core, it is a large language model that can produce not only text but also images, and can even analyse data. The model has been trained on a mix of public, licensed and human-generated data. From this, it predicts the most logical output.”
A CustomGPT is a unique variant of this: a GPT that you can fully customise yourself. You provide it with instructions on processes you carry out regularly and can even go into great detail with specific information such as the tone of voice. You can simply set it to use ‘you’ or ‘you (formal)’, but you can also configure a complete writing style that resembles a specific person: in other words, your company’s tone of voice. You don’t train a new model using raw data; instead, you guide the model with instructions and examples. This makes the output much more consistent and relevant to your business.”
“With a CustomGPT, we often see time savings of up to 50 per cent.”
But the real benefit lies in the fact that the output is much better aligned with the organisation.”
2. Why would a CustomGPT really offer more value to an organisation or client?
“We often see time savings of up to 50 per cent compared with standard use of ChatGPT. But the real benefit lies in the fact that the output is much better aligned with the organisation.”
For example, a CustomGPT can be trained on the organisation’s tone of voice and language conventions, USPs and style guides, existing texts such as blogs, FAQs or adverts, and psychological principles of persuasion. Because all this input is provided in advance, you can get started straight away without having to provide extensive context every time. You no longer really need to have the debate about quantity versus quality: you get more output, but it is of a high standard. And by clearly defining topics, you prevent the model from straying too far off course. Completely error-free AI output doesn’t exist, but with a CustomGPT you minimise deviations and save a huge amount of time.”
3. What exactly do you need to create a good CustomGPT, and how do you ensure it truly meets the client’s requirements?
“It varies from situation to situation. Sometimes a client already has a lot of input available, such as a communications manual or clear language guidelines. In that case, it’s mainly a matter of processing that information properly. In other cases, you’re starting almost from scratch, so you first need things like tone of voice, target audience information, existing texts and other background information.”
The most important thing is to have a clear objective. A CustomGPT doesn’t need to be able to do everything. Focus it on a specific area, such as web copy or advertising copy. The more specific and clearly defined the scope, the better the results. It’s worth noting, however, that the broader the objective, the more time it takes to set up the CustomGPT properly and keep it up to date. Of course, we can help you set up your own personalised GPT for your business!”
4. What is the process for creating a CustomGPT, and which steps are really important for achieving a good result?
“The process involves several steps:
- We start with a kick-off meeting to clarify all expectations and objectives.
- Gathering information by consolidating existing input or collecting new input (such as conducting interviews).
- Process, structure and enter all information into CustomGPT.
- Test, test, test, gather feedback and fine-tune.
- In principle, the CustomGPT is then ready for use!
“The model doesn’t need to know exactly what it should and shouldn’t do. You guide it with instructions and examples, but it remains probabilistic: so mistakes are always possible. That’s why I cannot emphasise enough that a human check is, and always will be, important.”
5. Do you have an example of a CustomGPT project you’re particularly proud of? What made that project so successful?
“Absolutely! For one client, we built a CustomGPT that had to produce nearly 500 advertising texts annually. Normally, this would have taken two copywriters about a week and a half. With the CustomGPT, we’ve reduced that to just one working day. The quality also rose from around 60 per cent to 90 per cent, and the amount of feedback from the client decreased significantly. This not only saves time, but also gives us, as a team, more scope to focus on the creative and strategic aspects of campaigns. Ultimately, it is the client who benefits most from this.”
Finally, I’d like to emphasise that a CustomGPT isn’t a new miracle cure, but it is a powerful way to deploy AI that’s truly tailored to your organisation. It delivers consistency, quality and speed – provided you lay a solid foundation and always double-check the results with a human eye.”
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