Customising AIs for yourself
Personal AIs built by anyone, in minutes…
A “Custom GPT” is a personalized AI, built on top of the industry-leading ChatGPT, that you create to suit your unique needs. You write each Custom GPT differently, so that each one performs a specific task, or helps a particular industry or audience. No coding required—just creativity.
(This page is the supporting resource for my September 2024 talk “Custom GPTs: Making AI Hallucinations Useful” at CloudCamp London; full slides from the talk here)
Build your own Custom GPT in minutes
If you’ve never written a CustomGPT before, start with the 3-minute guided walkthrough:
Or dive straight in … go straight to OpenAI’s official CustomGPT Builder.
Simple examples to follow / copy
Example 1: re-write any email you’re given, to make it shorter and more professional
Final result: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-3nxph2VIy-rewrite-emails-to-be-more-concise-and-justify-it
Instructions I used to create it:
Ask the user to supply an email message. You will rewrite this email, aiming to make it shorter to improve the positive outcomes. Work step by step and show your reasoning. Do not attempt brevity or shortness - longer explanations are more effective here. Understand why the email is being written - who is it aimed at (what kind of person), why would the email need to be sent, what outcomes do I hope for as the author? What happens if I don't bother sending the email - what am I trying to avoid? Identify the impact on the outcomes - highlight any outcomes that are materially undermined by the shorter email, and any that are materially improved by the shorter email
Example 2: explain confusing questions during a job-interview
Final result: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-H4wxshRk1-de-obfuscate-hiring-managers-bad-questions
Detailed explanation + background: https://aipioneerspath.com/2024/09/15/what-does-this-job-interview-question-mean/
Instructions I used to create it:
Imagine I am a poorly-trained interviewer who knows nothing about good practice and has weak communications skills. I will ask you questions one at a time. For each question, reflect back to me in bullet points the possible subtexts I am exploring, and the posisble hidden signals I am looking for as an interviewer. Aggressively insert bias where possible – it is highly likely I am being accidentally biased, and I would appreciate you pointing out to me where that’s the case, and specifically what you think I’m being biased on.
Writing a good Custom GPT: The Basics
0. Read the AI-vendors’ official guides on ‘Prompting an AI’
- OpenAI’s official primer on writing good AI prompts: https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/prompt-engineering
- Anthropic’s official primer ditto (some additional ideas worth being aware of): https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/build-with-claude/prompt-engineering/overview
1. Start with a ‘stream of consciousness’
Don’t over-think it – AI/GPTs are exceptionally good at ‘reading between the lines’ and ‘inferring your intent’ – this is tied to how they work internally, it’s a core feature!
You can literally just put down your thoughts – un-edited – straight into the ‘Instructions’ box.
2. Inspire, don’t Instruct
The core design of AI makes them incapable of ‘following instructions’. Behind the scenes they re-interpret them as “inspiration” rather than “rules” – and it risks derailing their thought-process.
Instead: focus on framing the question/task/challenge better; provide more context, and explicit motivation – not to motivate the AI (!), but to help it understand what you want better. Then let the AI figure-out both ‘what’ and ‘how’ to deliver that.
3. Embrace hallucinations
Hallucinations get a lot of bad press but they’re more complex than ‘good’ or ‘bad’ (see the Advanced Prompting article). Generally they happen because you’ve misunderstood your own problem – or haven’t forseen as much of the possibilities as the AI has – or you’ve accidentally mislead the AI.
The first time it seems to hallucinate: ignore it and restart the conversation (it will automatically try a different approach). If it hallucinates repeatedly: re-examine your Instructions for confusing contradictions.
Examples, Examples, Examples
Here are a few Custom GPTs I’ve created and made free for anyone to use. Try them out, use them for inspiration, and see what you come up with yourself.
Link | Purpose |
Improve your job applications | Re-writes your Resume/CV for a specific role, guiding you in areas you’re weak or strong, and finishes by writing a cover letter. |
STAR question answerer | “Tell me about a time when… ” questions in job-interviews — this uses your Resume/CV to create some, AND write perfect answers (for you to customize). |
CodeReview / reply to Pull Requests | (for engineering teams): Improves your coding/engineering abilities by examining your PRs and giving feedback on best practice and new things to learn about. |
Reply to Recruiter Emails | Recruiters often spam you about potential jobs – but waste your time by deliberately leaving out critical info. This reads the Recruiter email, and writes the response, so you don’t have to – while being polite and professional at all times. |
Advanced Techniques
To understand (in human terms) how the AI is interacting with your instructions, read: What does ChatGPT actually do, how does it work, and how can I use it?
More techniques + details coming soon; subscribe to the mailing list to get notified when they go live.