Do you create custom GPTs?

The advent of GPT and LLMs have sent many industries for a loop. If you've been automating tasks with ChatGPT, how can you share the efficiency with others?

What is a custom GPT?

OpenAI's standard ChatGPT is pretty good at a lot of things, but there are some limitations. Creating a custom GPT means tailoring it for a specific purpose, with custom training data and system prompting. It turns ChatGPT into a ready-made assistant.

If you frequently use the same prompt or series of prompts, it is valuable to make a GPT that knows those instructions permanently.

There are 3 areas where a custom GPT can overcome the limitations of standard ChatGPT:

Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)

RAG is the term used to describe additional data your model can access that other models have not (or cannot). Perhaps this is the IP of your company, or simply more up-to-date information on a given topic. If your model has a richer or more refined data set than the competition, it can perform better.

Instructions (System Prompt)

In a GPT you have the ability to define a set of initial instructions. That means you can provide a great initial prompt so users have a high quality prompt even when their prompting skills are low. That means if you're a prompt wizard, you will get better responses than others.

Custom actions

A huge area for innovation is being able to connect your GPT model to your own API, allowing you to take both the user input and perform additional logic before returning a response to the user. Some examples are executing code to test its validity, or looking up a weather forecast for the user's location before suggesting activities that day.

GPT Stores

Stores such as the OpenAI GPT Store and Bind AI let you quickly launch a custom GPT model and make it available (and monetizable) to the world. You can monetize your GPT if it gains enough traction:

✅ Pros

Fast way to get your custom GPT model live
Easily test your model's popularity and iterate on market feedback
Minimal/no infrastructure or maintenance concerns

❌ Cons

May be difficult to differentiate your model from everybody else's
Revenue-sharing model may be disadvantageous

Video: the ChatGPT store is about to launch… let's get rich (4 min)

Alternative Solution - Bespoke product/service

Building a custom product or service (not on the GPT store) is great if you have the time, energy, and know-how. It can help springboard your startup into the next market unicorn, but requires a much larger time (and dollar) commitment.