How Anyone Can Use ChatGPT At Work

The world around us is rapidly changing. I get it, it can be overwhelming and even scary sometimes. By now, you’ve likely heard about ChatGPT. Many are using this tool daily—others only know it’s “crazy technology that I don’t want anything to do with”. But the truth is, it’s not hard to use at all. And it can make your life so much easier!

Let’s look at what exactly ChatGPT is (it’s not a robot taking over the world . . . yet), how to use it effectively, and practical ways you can use ChatGPT at work.

What is ChatGPT?

The following response was generated by ChatGPT (with some parts removed to make things simpler):

• ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence language model developed by OpenAI
• ChatGPT is designed to generate human-like text responses based on the input it receives
• ChatGPT has been trained on an extensive and diverse dataset, containing a vast amount of text from books, articles, websites, and other sources.
• This allows it to understand and mimic human language patterns, making it capable of generating coherent and contextually relevant responses to user inputs.
• It continues to be refined and improved to offer even more accurate and contextually appropriate responses.
• It’s essential to understand its limitations and potential biases when using it in real-world scenarios.

How does ChatGPT work? What do I do?

Go to https://chat.openai.com/ and login or create an account if you don’t already have one.

Now all you have to do is provide a prompt—that is, what you want ChatGPT to tell you. It can be a request for information, or it can be written as a question.

Here are some example ChatGPT prompts for a high school graduate looking for a job:

• What are some good jobs for someone who just graduated and doesn’t want to go to college?
• Create a basic resume for someone who doesn’t have any work history.
• Write a cover letter for me to be a customer service representative. Use the tone of Homer Simpson.

Click the thumbnails below to view the ChatGPT responses to each prompt.

After seeing the above examples, the wheels may already be turning. Something that in the past would have taken a good amount of research and thought was done in about 30 seconds of prompt writing.

How can I use ChatGPT at work?

Now we get to the fun part. With ChatGPT, you can use your valuable time for the things that you’re best at, and save the “grunt work” for AI. Sound good?

Here are some simple ways to use ChatGPT at work.

Make an Outline

Sometimes you just need a jumping off point. An outline is a perfect place to start. Here are some pieces of content that could start with an outline, and example prompts to get you started.

• Newsletter: Create an outline for a newsletter. The newsletter will be sent to past donors for our organization. Our organization helps feed underserved children. We would like it to include information about current events and also encourage them to donate monthly.
• Blog post: I have a company that sells storefront signs. I want to write a blog post about the elements of a quality sign. Provide an outline for this blog post.
• Project status report: I need to create a status report at work for a project I’ve been working on. The project is creating a new website for a flooring company. The status report is for the client. Create an outline for this status report.
• Meeting agenda: I have a meeting coming up with a vendor. My company is a commercial laundry service and the vendor sells commercial laundry detergent and products. Create an outline for an agenda for this meeting.
• Case study: My company manufactures reclaimed wood cabinetry, desks, tables, and displays for retailers and other businesses. We’d like to write a case study about our work for a national park gift shop. Write an outline for this case study.

Summarize Something

ChatGPT is great at taking long-form content and summarizing it. However, sometimes it doesn’t make it short enough. Be sure to use follow-up prompts when needed. For example, “This is perfect but make it shorter” or “I need it to be one paragraph”. Here are some prompts for specific situations:

• Understanding complex information: Explain cryptocurrency to me like I’m 10.
• Introduction or conclusion for a large piece of information: Write a brief conclusion for this article. (Then copy and paste the article right into GPTChat.)
• Summary of a business or product: My business creates online courses for companies to use to train their employees. It’s called Emp-Ed. Write a 30-second summary of my business for me to say at networking events.
• Summary of team updates: Here are updates from 3 of my real estate agents—Jen, Claire, and Dylan. Summarize their updates into a brief email that I can share with the rest of my team. I’m mostly interested in new listings and open houses. (Copy and paste the email updates from Jen, Claire and Dylan.)

Create Content

This is where things get really wild. ChatGPT can produce long-form content in minutes that would typically take hours to write. For long-form content, the key is to start with the main points and then refine the work by supplementing each generated response with more details.

Here are some example prompts and their initial generated results.

• Blog posts: Write a blog post about how to prepare for windows to be installed in your home.
• White papers: Create a white paper from a parcel carrier company about shipping services for small businesses.
• Fact sheets: Create a fact sheet about catnip toys written for a cat.
• Social media posts: Create 3 Facebook posts for my home construction company.
• Website content: Write a page for my law firm’s website about family law services.
• Lists: Create a list of the top 20 skills to look for on a resume when hiring a new employee.
• Playlists: Create an appropriate music playlist for a dentist’s office that includes 20 songs.
• Emails: I am the owner of an accounting firm. Write an email for me to send to all of my employees at the beginning of November with the following information: – Great work on the Spectrum project. – Meijer project is also wrapping up, thanks for continued work on that. – The holidays are coming up and then it will be tax season. It will be busy so be sure to put in your time off requests. – Our holiday party is December 12. People need to bring food to share. We’ll also do a gift exchange.

Use A Different Tone or Voice

It’s important to adjust your tone based on what you are writing and who you’re writing to. For example, a motivational speech from a football coach to his team is going to have a much different tone than an email from a therapist checking in with her patient.

You can have ChatGPT use a different tone in 2 ways

• ask it to apply a specific tone to the response it just gave you, or,
• provide content you’ve already written (copy and paste) and ask it to apply a specific tone to that

Here are some common tones you may want to consider using, and resources to many more:

• Professional
• Sympathetic
• Youthful
• Upbeat
• Inspirational
• Accessible (great for content that’s heavy in technical words)
• The Ultimate List of Tone Words for AP English Language

You can also ask ChatGPT generate a list of tones that might apply to your demographic.

Brainstorm

Find your next best idea with a little help from AI. Use ChatGPT as a sounding board for business development, marketing, training, or just about anything. Here are some example questions to get started:

• What’s another product or service I should offer?
• How could I market _______?
• What demographics am I missing?
• How can I make this process more efficient?
• What are some new ways to set my company apart from my competitors?

Handle Confrontation Gracefully

There are some situations where it can be very challenging to put our emotions aside and discuss business. There are also topics that require a very carefully worded explanation or response. Ask ChatGPT for help to give you talking points that will get your point across professionally and gracefully.

• Ask for a raise
• Request time off
• Be considered for a promotion
• Fire someone
• Announce your resignation
• Respond to a negative review or news story about your business
• Announce a product recall

Always Review for Accuracy

This all sounds too good to be true, right! Well, not entirely. ChatGPT is an incredibly powerful tool. But with great power comes great responsibility. Always, always, always check the accuracy of responses before stating them as fact. While many of the above use cases aren’t factual and don’t need to be checked (for example outlines and ideas), when you are developing actual pieces of content like emails and blog posts, it is critical to review the information for accuracy.

Legality

There currently aren’t any laws regarding ChatGPT and plagiarism. There is no rule saying you can’t copy exactly what ChatGPT generates, paste it onto your website or marketing materials, and hit publish.

That being said, there are a few steps you can take to make sure you are posting original content:

• Run a quick Google search on various sections of text that you’ll be using. You want to be sure someone didn’t already generate and publish the same content as you!
• Rework, regenerate, re-focus:
  • Rework the structure of the content.
  • Request that ChatGPT regenerate the content using a different tone.
  • Adjust the focus of the content using different perspectives (for example, asking to put the focus on what the customer gets, not what you’re offering).
• Add your own spin. Once you have the content, add your own opinions, ideas, photos, quotes, etc. to make it your own.

It’s also considered best practice to disclose if you used ChatGPT for any writing that you’re using commercially.

Have Fun!

Writing this blog post, I had a ton of fun coming up with prompts and uses for ChatGPT. A cover letter from Homer Simpson? A fact sheet written for actual cats? The possibilities are truly endless. So get creative, have fun, and see how ChatGPT helps you get work done better and faster!

Portions of this blog post, primarily those identifying uses of ChatGPT in business and defining what ChatGPT is, were written using ChatGPT.