Transcription
You're using 10% of ChatGPT, maybe less. So, you're basically paying for premium, but only using the free version. And I'm not talking about prompt engineering or advanced techniques. I'm literally talking about features that are already built in. Features that are sitting in menus that you've probably never opened and doing jobs that you probably didn't even know they could do.
How do I know? Well, research showed recently that 92% of ChatGPT users have never opened the settings menu. Have you? Don't answer. Let's fix that. I am going to show you 17 features that smart users turn on the day they sign up. So, we are [music] going from foundational setup to advanced capabilities. So, even if you've been using ChatGPT for months, I guarantee that you will discover something that changes how you [music] work.
So, let's start with the features that you should configure before you do anything. And if you've already been using ChatGPT, then [music] you need to pause this video step by step and go do it right away because these are the set it and forget it kind of settings that affect everything else. So do these first.
Number one, data controls. So before you type anything sensitive into ChatGPT, go to settings, then data controls, and turn off "improve the model for everyone." When this is on, obviously OpenAI can use your conversations to train future models. But when it's off, your chats stay private. Most people assume that their conversations are private by default, but they're not. So, this is the first thing that I recommend you change, especially if you're using ChatGPT for work or for client projects or anything confidential.
Number two, your memory controls. How do you decide what ChatGPT remembers? Okay, because ChatGPT has a memory feature. It can remember details about you across conversations, whether that's your business, your job, your preferences, your writing style, and this can be incredibly useful. But it can also be creepy if you don't know that it's happening. So go to settings and then personalization and you will see memory. You can turn it off entirely or you can selectively delete specific memories. I do recommend reviewing what ChatGPT has remembered about you until this point 'cause you might be surprised.
Number three, I think we're on custom instructions. Okay, so this one was uh quite a game changer for me when I learned about it. So, custom instructions are basically what lets you tell ChatGPT who you are and how you want it to respond once and then it applies to every conversation. So, instead of typing, "I'm a marketing consultant, explain this in simple terms," [music] you can set it once in the custom instructions and then specify your role, your audience, your preferred tone, even your output format. And this is going to be uh saved and applied and will save you hundreds of repetitive prompts. So, how you do it is you go to settings, custom instructions, and then fill out two fields. What would you like ChatGPT to know about you? And how would you like ChatGPT to respond? Try and be specific. The more context that you're able to give, the better your results.
Let's move on to number four, your temporary chat mode. I mean, if you didn't know this existed, you're welcome. Sometimes you need to ask ChatGPT something that you don't want saved. Maybe it's a health question, maybe it's a legal issue or something about sensitive work, I don't know, a scenario that you want uh to discuss on. That is exactly why temporary chat mode was created. So when you start a temporary chat, nothing is saved to your history. Nothing is used for training and nothing is remembered. It is completely ephemeral. I don't know if that's a word. So basically, you can find it in the sidebar. You need to look for the icon that says temporary chat or use the keyboard shortcut Control or Command Shift [music] and semicolon. This is in my opinion one of those features that most people discover by accident months, sometimes years later and wish they'd known about from day one.
Number five, learn to prompt. I mean, clearly this is not a feature that you turn on. It is a skill that you build, but it is the bridge between all of the setup that we just talked about and that we will continue talking about and actually getting great results. Good prompting is not about being clever. It is about being specific and understanding how prompting is done. Because obviously instead of uh asking "write a blog post about productivity," you can say "write a 500-word uh blog post for busy entrepreneurs explaining the two-minute rule from Atomic Habits with three practical examples that they can use today." Obviously, there will be a big difference, right? You will be able to give ChatGPT the length, the audience, the topic, the source, the format, and that prompt is going to get you much, much better results.
And if you want to go deeper on this, I do have a full framework that's called the Seven Layers of AI Prompting, uh, which I'm going to make sure to link in the description. But if you do want to go even deeper than that, then consider a more structured learning path with the Prompt Engineering Specialization course on Coursera. This one is taught by an actual expert from Vanderbilt University called Dr. Jules White. Obviously, it's not a YouTube tutorial. It has more time to go into a lot more depth. So, it's a structured program that takes you from basic prompts to advanced techniques like chain of thought reasoning and few-shot learning and uh prompt optimization. And you also get a lot of hands-on experience uh because you work on actual projects, uh real-world examples, and you get a certificate that you can actually post on LinkedIn on your resume. The course itself consists in three pillars that are worth over 36 hours of content. Pillar number one is about prompt engineering for ChatGPT, which is 18 hours. Uh, ChatGPT Advanced Data Analysis, 10 hours, and then Trustworthy Generative AI, 8 hours of content. And the really, really great news is that Coursera Plus gives you unlimited access to over 10,000 courses and professional certificates, including this one, as well as others from Google, IBM, Microsoft, Meta. So you're not just learning how to prompt, you will be building a lot of in-demand skills across AI and data analytics and finance and and whatever else you need in order to level up your career in 2026. And right now, Coursera are running their New Year offer, which gives you 50% off an annual subscription to Coursera Plus. That is basically a full year of unlimited learning at half the price. And if you've been thinking about investing in yourself this year, I believe this is the time. The link is going to be at the very top of the description. Click it, grab the 50% off, and start with the prompt engineering course. I believe that it'll give you a massive, massive advantage and I think it's the perfect complement to everything that we're covering in today's video. And thank you so much Coursera for partnering with us on today's video.
All right, now back to my list 'cause we've got a lot to cover still. Okay, so let's talk about everyday efficiency tools because these are the features that you are going to use daily once you know that they exist.
Number six, I think we're on projects. So these are massively beneficial for anyone that's using ChatGPT for real work. You can think of them like your folders, okay? But they're smarter because you can create a project for each client or each research topic or each ongoing initiative and then inside a project you can upload files, you can set custom instructions specific to that project and you can keep all the related conversations in one place. So if you're working on a content strategy for a client, you upload their brand guidelines, you set the tone and style, and then every conversation in that project automatically has that context. This is how you can turn ChatGPT from a chatbot into an actual workspace. And this is how I personally use it for every single one of our clients and every single one of our projects.
Now number seven, you can search past conversations. I don't know if you realize that, but now that's possible because there are times when I don't know, you had a brilliant conversation with ChatGPT 3 months ago and you remember the topic, but you can't find it. Well, now you're able to do that because there is a search bar at the top of your sidebar and most people never use it, but you can just go and type a keyword and ChatGPT will surface every single conversation where that topic came up. You can filter by date, by project, just scroll through the results. This is going to turn your chat history into a searchable knowledge base. It's one of those features that seems obvious once you know about it, but most people discover it by accident.
All right, number eight, the voice mode. Oh my god, I am in love with this. So, if you are on mobile, you have access to voice mode. This is not your typical speech to text. It's a natural back and forth conversation. So, you can interrupt ChatGPT mid-sentence. You can ask follow-up questions, and it is going to respond to you in a surprisingly human way. This is perfect for brainstorming on a walk or drafting ideas while commuting or driving or just when you're tired of typing. The quality of the voice interaction is shockingly good. And if you haven't tried it, open the ChatGPT app, tap on the headphone icon on the side, and just start talking. You will be surprised. I absolutely love using this when I'm commuting and when I'm driving because then I can have conversations with ChatGPT and plan and brainstorm without having to type [music] anything.
Number nine, your shared link expiration. So basically now you can share ChatGPT conversations with a link. You could do that before, but what most people don't know is that those links stay public forever unless you set an expiration date. So when you share a conversation, there is a drop-down that says "link expires in" and you can set it to I don't know, 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, whatever. Always set an expiration. Otherwise, that link that you shared in a Slack channel 6 months ago is still live and anyone with the link can see it. I mean, this is a small thing, but it's a privacy issue that most people overlook. So, go do it.
Number 10, file upload capabilities. [music] I think this is really, really important because in the very beginning, this was quite limited, but clearly ChatGPT can read files, but not just text files anymore. PDFs, [music] images, CSVs, spreadsheets, even code files. So, you can upload a research paper and then ask for a summary. You can upload a screenshot of an error message and ask for a fix. And you can even upload a CSV of sales data and ask for trends. Most people think ChatGPT is just for text conversations, but file uploads give you an entirely new set of use cases. You can analyze data, you can extract information from documents, you can even combine multiple files in a single prompt. And in order to upload a file, you just uh click the paperclip icon uh in the chat input. And then you need to be mindful that the file size limit is 512 megabytes for most files, but PDFs and images work better under 25 megabytes. So make sure that you restrict your information or you parse it so that it fits the limitation.
Now let's talk about some hidden capabilities because these features are going to expand what ChatGPT can actually do for you.
Okay, so number 11, I think we're on. Let's talk about multimodal prompts. Okay, so this is something that I think makes ChatGPT really, really powerful. You can combine text and images and files in one single prompt. You can upload a product photo, a competitor's landing page screenshot, and your brand guidelines PDF, and then ask ChatGPT to write three Instagram captions that match your brand voice and highlight key features. This is a multimodal prompt. So, you're basically giving ChatGPT visual context, written context, and a specific task. And the results are dramatically better than when you give just text prompts because you are providing much richer input. Most people never think to combine inputs like this, but once you start, you will realize how limiting text-only prompts actually are.
Number 12, your canvas mode. I mean, this was a huge breakthrough when it became available. Canvas mode is one of the newest features and most people still don't know that it exists. It's a split-screen interface where ChatGPT can help you write or code in a collaborative document. So basically on the left you have your regular conversation and then on the right you have a live document. ChatGPT can edit specific sections, suggest changes, rewrite paragraphs, or even add comments. It's like Google Docs, but your co-editor is not an actual human, it's an AI. This is perfect for long-form writing for blog posts, reports, code projects, even your book if you're working on that. And instead of copying and pasting back and forth between ChatGPT and your text editor, your work is just in one place. In order to access Canvas, you just ask ChatGPT to open Canvas or you can look for the Canvas button in the supported conversations.
Number 13, web browsing. We missed this for a long time, but now it's available. ChatGPT's training data has a cut-off date. Obviously, a lot of people know that, but with web browsing enabled, it can search the internet and pull in real-time information. This is huge for anything that is time-sensitive, from news to stock prices to recent events or product launches, anything else. So, when you ask a question that requires current information, ChatGPT will automatically browse the web, pull in sources, and cite them at the bottom of the response. And you can click those citations to verify the information. Do it. Promise me you're you're going to do it. No more AI slop. Okay. This feature is enabled by default for Plus users, but you can toggle it on and off in the settings if you choose to have it or not have it. So, if you're researching anything recent, make sure that web browsing is on for you.
Number 14, custom GPTs from the store. Okay, so the GPT store, which was launched about a year ago, is full of pre-built custom GPTs that are designed for specific tasks. There is a writing coach, a data analyst, a coding tutor, a resume builder, hundreds of them, probably thousands at this point. And instead of using a generic ChatGPT for everything, you can use a specialist. These GPTs come with pre-configured instructions, with knowledge bases, with workflows, and they were built by other users as obviously vetted by OpenAI. In order to access the store, you just click "Explore GPTs" in the sidebar and then browse by category. You can read reviews and you can try a few. It is basically like having a team of specialists on call.
Now, let's talk about some advanced features because these let you customize ChatGPT for your specific needs. So, if you feel like you cannot find an actual GPT in the store, that is not a limitation because you can build your own. You can create a custom GPT in a pretty easy sequence of steps. I I think you'll be surprised. You give it a name. You write instructions for how it should behave. You upload any reference files for [music] the knowledge base, like your brand guidelines or templates, and then set the conversation starters. For example, you could build um LinkedIn post writer that knows your brand voice, your target audience, and your content strategy, and then every time you use it, it already has the context. I did make another video where I explained everything in detail. But just in simple terms, in order to create your GPT, you go to "Explore GPTs," you click "Create," and then the GPT builder will walk you through the process. It literally takes 5 minutes. If you don't have a lot of thought process to go through before, it is worth it. No matter how long it takes you, trust me.
Now, the next one is a very, very new one, and this is your shopping assistant. Okay, this is one that most people have never even noticed. [music] If you look closely, you will see the shopping bag icon. Okay. If you click it, then ChatGPT becomes your personal product researcher. You can ask it to compare products, to find deals, to read reviews, to give you recommendations that are based on your specific needs. It is not just going to search on Amazon. It is analyzing specs. It's going to compare prices across retailers. It'll explain the trade-offs. It is sensational. And probably this is one of the reasons why online retail has seen such huge traffic coming from AI. So basically instead of opening 15 tabs and then reading a 100 reviews, you get a curated comparison with pros and cons and everything you need, including a clear recommendation. It is like having your Consumer Reports subscription built into ChatGPT. And yes, it can link you directly to buy. This is genuinely useful if you don't enjoy shopping research.
And number 17, agent mode. Oh my god, this is such a game changer. Again, this is a very new feature, but this honestly felt like science fiction when I saw it in the announcement presentation. This is where ChatGPT stops uh only interacting with you through chat and starts controlling your actual apps. So, you can connect ChatGPT to your Google Calendar, to your Gmail, to your Slack, to your Notion, whatever tools you use every day. And then you can say things like, "Schedule a meeting with Susan next Tuesday at 2 p.m. and send her a calendar invite." And then ChatGPT is not just going to draft the email, but it'll actually create the event, send the invite, and confirm that it's done. Pretty mind-blowing, isn't it? Or you can do something like, "Find all emails from my boss with um, I don't know, from this week and summarize the action items and add them to my Notion task list." And then ChatGPT will pull the emails, extract the tasks, and then write them directly into Notion. You don't need to copy-paste between tools anymore because ChatGPT is doing the work across the entire software stack, as long as it has integration with the tools that you use, obviously. But it has quite a few. I think this is the closest thing that we have to a true AI assistant that you don't have to build yourself. You're not just asking questions to ChatGPT, but you're able to delegate actual work. So, if you're not using agent mode yet, you are still treating ChatGPT like a search engine when it's actually a personal assistant, or at least on the path to becoming one. And that is the difference between using 10% of ChatGPT and actually using the tool.
We're done. 17 features that transform ChatGPT from your basic chatbot into a productivity system. You don't need to use all of them, clearly, but I guarantee at least five of these will change how you work. And if you want to go deeper on prompting, I have the full framework, the Seven Layers of AI Prompting that I mentioned, which we are going to link down below. But you can find a lot more on this and lots of other things that will be beneficial to you on your AI journey in our free community. The link is going to be here in the QR code. You are more than welcome to join us and hopefully you will sign up for our challenges. They're completely free. You will join our calls. They're also free. And ask questions and take action because nothing will change unless you take action and you keep up the momentum.
Thank you so, so much for watching this video. I really appreciate you taking the time. I am so grateful that you have stayed with us till the end. Like this video if you did. Be sure to subscribe if you haven't done so. Share this video with anyone in your circle of friends or family or co-workers who you think could benefit from using maybe a little bit more than the 10% that most people take advantage of when it comes to their ChatGPT usage. And until next time, I suggest you go ahead and watch this video over here. I'll see [music] you soon. Bye.