ChatGPT has been adopted by the business world in the past year, and AI for writing and image creation is now being used across many industries. This cheat sheet contains answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about ChatGPT, its competitors, and other similar software.
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT, an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI is based on the GPT-4 structure. The GPT acronym stands for generative-pre-trained transformer. This is a large model of language that calculates the likelihood of words appearing in sequence. A large language is a deep-learning algorithm — a type of transformer model where a neural net learns the context of any language pattern. It could be a spoken or computer programming language.
OpenAI is updating ChatGPT to include faster and more capable AI models. OpenAI presented its next-generation o1 model in September. This model is optimized for complex reasoning, especially in math and sciences. The o1 model takes longer to process data than GPT-4o, but that slower and more steady pace can lead to more complex code or mathematical processes. OpenAI o1 will be available for ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Enterprise users in the coming weeks.
The model does not “know” what is being said, but it knows what words (symbols) will likely follow one another in the data set that it was trained with. ChatGPT and its Google competitor Bard are examples of the current generation of artificial intelligence chatbots that don’t make informed decisions. They are the internet’s “parrots”, repeating words that would be likely to occur next to each other in natural speech.
Probability is the basis of math. They are marketed as productivity geniuses by the companies who make and use these machines. They can create text in seconds that would otherwise take an individual hours or even days to produce.
In ChatGPT, this data set represents a large part of the Internet. Then, humans provide feedback to the AI on its output to confirm that the words used sound natural.
ChatGPT Plus can access current event information up to April 2023. ChatGPT Plus can call up current event information from as far back as April 2023.
OpenAI released GPTBot in August 2023. It is a web crawler that will help ChatGPT expand its knowledge. The company gave details on GPTBot, including how to stop it from crawling websites.
Chatbots are integrated into several software features. Microsoft, the funding partner of OpenAI, has rolled out ChatGPT for Bing Search as well as Microsoft 365. ChatGPT has been added to Salesforce’s CRM platforms as Einstein digital assistance.
Who is Behind ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a product of OpenAI, an AI research lab with for-profit and nonprofit branches. OpenAI was founded in 2015 with funding from Amazon Web Services and Infosys. Other investors included Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. Musk has cut his ties with OpenAI, and Microsoft will provide $10 billion of funding in 2023.
What is the Cost of ChatGPT?
ChatGPT’s base version can start a free conversation with you.
ChatGPT Plus is $20 per month and gives subscribers access to individual instances with priority, faster response time, and first use of new features. ChatGPT Plus users will, for example, be using GPT-4 while those on the free tier are still talking to GPT-3.5.
There is a waiting list available for developers and organizations that do not have an existing contract with OpenAI.
OpenAI will launch the ChatGPT enterprise in August 2023. This subscription plan is for businesses and offers more admin controls, security features, and administrative tools than the basic version. OpenAI’s Sales team can provide pricing information for ChatGPT. According to, Bloomberg, as of January 2024,260 enterprises had subscribed to ChatGPT Enterprise.
OpenAI launched the ChatGPT team in January 2024. This subscription allows users to access OpenAI’s large models as well as a collaborative workspace. It costs $25/month for each user when paid annually or $30/month for each user if paid monthly.
In December 2024, a Pro subscription of $200 per month was introduced. ChatGPT Pro gives you access to models that are designed for heavy-duty applications in research and business. ChatGPT users can use OpenAI o1, GPT-4o, or o1 mini, as well as the Advanced Voice Mode, for a small fee. Subscribers also get access to the o1 pro model, which is a slower version of OpenAI’s advanced model that works best with complex math, science,e, and coding questions.
ChatGPT App for IOS
OpenAI launched the ChatGPT iOS app free on May 18, 2023. The company said that the app syncs history across all devices, and integrates with Whisper, its open-source voice-recognition software. OpenAI stated that ChatGPT Plus users get exclusive access, early access, and faster responses on the iOS app.
OpenAI began this rollout in the U.S. By May 24, 2023, it will be expanded to 11 additional countries: Albania, Croatia, France Germany, Ireland, Jamaica Korea, New Zealand Nicaragua Nigeria, and the UK.
ChatGPT for Android
ChatGPT Android will be available to users in the US on July 25, 2023. Android users from these countries can now download the app via the Google Play Store. OpenAI stated that additional countries will be added over the next week.
Voice and Image Capabilities
ChatGPT voice was made available to all users on November 21, 2023. ChatGPT Voice allows users to speak out loud their questions and ChatGPT will respond in the same manner.
Subscribers of ChatGPT Plus & Enterprise reported the first new voice and image capabilities that were rolling out at the end of October.
OpenAI upgraded Advanced Voice in December 2024. Video and screen-sharing features are now available on ChatGPT. Video and screen-sharing features allow users to easily share what they are looking at with AI during real-time conversation. ChatGPT Pro and users can access this feature in most countries. OpenAI will release the feature to subscribers in the E.U. and Switzerland “soon”. Enterprise and Edu users can expect to have the new features available in January 2025.
Desktop Applications for Windows and IOS
OpenAI released a ChatGPT desktop application for Windows 10 or 11 on November 14. Alt+Space opens the app which has all of ChatGPT’s usual features, such as internet search, image interpretation, and more.
The beta version of the iOS app is now available and it will be compatible with these developer-focused apps:
- VS Code.
- Xcode.
- Terminal.
- iTerm2.
Developers will be able to connect the ChatGPT application to their IDE/terminal to ask questions regarding the content. OpenAI will soon open up the iOS beta app to Enterprise and Edu customers. The app is currently only available to Plus and Team subscribers.
ChatGPT Prompts for help
Open AI provides some helpful prompts. Open AI provides some helpful prompts.
- In a single sentence, summarize the notes from the meeting. Write down the names of each speaker and their main points. List any action items or next steps suggested by speakers.
- How can I add up the dollar amounts of a row in Excel? I would like to automatically do this for an entire sheet of rows with the totals appearing on the right side in a column named “Total.”
OpenAI offers the tips below for obtaining clear and useful responses from large-scale language models.
- Write clear instructions. You can specify if you want AI responses to be simple or detailed, short or long, or for a specific audience.
- Other texts that the AI can refer to
- Ask for “a chain of thought” to give ChatGPT time to find the correct answer.
- To increase the accuracy of responses, feed ChatGPT outputs from other tools such as RAG, or a code-execution engine.
OpenAI API and ChatGPT News
OpenAI is constantly updating ChatGPT, as well as its other services. These updates are developer-focused.
OpenAI’s Bug Bounty Program
OpenAI launched a bug-bounty program in April 2023. It offers between $200 and $20,000.00 to ethical hackers who find flaws in the code. Bounties increase as critical vulnerabilities are found.
OpenAI doesn’t want to know about solutions for problems in ChatGPT (e.g. the “hallucinations”) but rather wants hackers to submit reports on authentication issues, payment issues, plugin security, etc. Bugcrowd has more information about the bug-bounty program.
OpenAI’s Privacy Upgrade Allows Users to Exclude Themself from Training Data
OpenAI announced on April 25, 2023, that it had added a Chat History & Training option. This allows users to turn off their ChatGPT history and prevent future versions of OpenAI’s large language models training using those conversations. Click on your account name which is displayed as your email. Click Settings > Data Controls, then select Chat History & Training.
If this option is not chosen, the AI will use user data to improve its naturalistic responses.
OpenAI has told Reuters that OpenAI removes personally identifiable data from training data. Users can now download their ChatGPT conversations and view the training data that they produced. This will be available in April 2023. ChatGPT Enterprise uses the data of users to train OpenAI products.
Web Browsing and plug-ins
GPTPlus users have gained access to a beta version of web browsing and plugins during the week of 12 May 2023. ChatGPT can access the web to retrieve information on current events.
Second, the beta version will use third-party plug-ins when needed if they are enabled by the user. In the model switcher, you can access third-party plugins by going to the Plugin Store and clicking on Plugins. ChatGPT now has access to over 70 third-party plug-ins.
Updates on API Pricing and June 2023
OpenAI reduced the price for its embeddings, which helped the model to interpret tokens and the input tokens of GPT-3.5-turbo (one of the subscription models of the GPT 3.5) model.
Developers can use function calling to describe functions in GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 Turbo. The AI will then return a JSON Object that can be used to call these functions. This can be used to create tools for chatbots that call external plug-ins, convert natural languages into database queries, and API calls or extract structured information from text.
Other announcements in OpenAI blog post’s June 13, 2020 blog post include:
- GPT-4 and GPT 3.5-turbo are now updated and more steerable.
- The 16K context version is a new version of GPT 3.5-turbo, compared to its standard 4K version.
- On June 27, all applications using GPT-3.5, GPT-4, and GPT-432K will be automatically upgraded to the new models.
Code Interpreter
OpenAI will make the code interpreter available to all ChatGPT users on July 6, 2023. Code interpreter, an internal plug-in, allows ChatGPT to run code for data analysis, math problems, creating charts, editing files, etc. OpenAI’s blog article said that it uses a Python Interpreter in a sandboxed and firewalled execution area in a persistent chat session for the duration of the conversation.
The code interpreter is currently in beta. To access it, follow these steps on your ChatGPT Plus Account:
- Click on your name.
- Choose beta features in your settings.
- Select the beta features that you would like to test.
GPTs
OpenAI will release GPT-4 turbo on Nov. 6, 2023. These are custom versions of ChatGPT which can be created for specific tasks. This is for ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise users. GPTs can be created without any coding knowledge. Instead, users simply have a conversation with generative AI. Developers can create custom actions by making APIs available for GPTs. GPTs can be shared by enterprise customers within their organization.
Copyright Shield
OpenAI announced Copyright Shield on Nov. 6, 2023. Copyright Shield ensures that OpenAI will cover the cost of any legal action brought against users of ChatGPT Enterprise and OpenAI’s developer platforms for copyright violations.
April 2024 API fine-tuning Updates
OpenAI released features on April 4, 2024, to fine-tune ChatGPT by using the API. The new features include the creation of more checkpoints during training to reduce the need for retraining and third-party integrations. Custom Model now offers assisted fine-tuning.
ChatGPT Projects
Want to separate your projects within the ChatGPT interface if you are working on several? ChatGPT Plus Pro and Team users can customize a workflow by adding files and instructions. This feature allows users to add a style to a project or to connect memories. Projects will be available to Enterprise and Ed subscribers in January.
ChatGPT: Social Criticisms, Security Concerns
As more and more companies adopt generative AI many questions arise. Will AI fill the jobs that humans currently hold? What ethical and privacy concerns are raised? ChatGPT’s competitors can also perform similar tasks, so these questions are relevant to them as well. ChatGPT and other generative AI can create false information that is likely to cause confusion or disinformation.
ChatGPT: The Future of Business
ChatGPT will be used in many online products, but is it just a technology innovation that has yet to find a wider application? OpenAI has disclaimed that its “intelligence” was still at an early stage. ChatGPT might be able to put words in order, but won’t always keep the facts straight.
GPT-3.5 or GPT-4 could also be becoming worse at math. A report published in August 2023 by Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley highlighted this “drift” or gradual erosion of the ability to perform certain tasks such as identifying prime numbers. They believe that this is due to a reduced ability to follow instructions in a step-by-step manner.
Two MIT graduate economics students surveyed 453 professionals in July 2023. The study found that those who used ChatGPT to write tasks, such as press releases or short reports, took 40% less time than the control group. The professionals were scored by their colleagues. They received an average grade 18% higher than the control group, who did not use AI. This data provides qualitative information on the impact ChatGPT may have on white-collar workers.
The authors of the study Shakked Noy, and Whitney Zhang, wrote that participants with lower skills benefitted the most from ChatGPT. This has implications for policy efforts to reduce inequalities in productivity through AI.
Noy and Zhang concluded that the widespread use of ChatGPT to complete writing tasks may have both positive as well as negative effects on the workplace.
AI announcements can either be a good thing or a bad thing for investors. Microsoft stock prices increased after GPT-4 was announced, while Google stock prices dropped when Bard did poorly in a demo.
OpenAI has seen the number of visitors to the ChatGPT site drop for the first since it was released in November 2022. According to Similarweb worldwide unique visitors fell 5.7% between May and June. Global desktop and mobile traffic fell 9.7%. ChatGPT is still more popular than Microsoft’s AI on Bing.com. Chat AI’s shine has worn off, but it is too early to say if the business world also starts to lose interest in this technology.
What is Next for ChatGPT?
OpenAI has said that it will not be training GPT-5 for the time being, which is likely to be the successor of today’s model. Altman criticized an open letter that was reported by the Verge. In a speech given at MIT, Altman criticized its lack of technical detail.
Altman stated that “we are doing other things in addition to GPT-4 which I think have all kinds of safety issues that were important to address but were left out of this letter.”
