What’s a GPT and why should I care?

I really, really think this is the beginning of something that is very important for our industry. It’s going to change a lot of other things. Not so much in their current form, but in their potential. It’s the first step in having a real robot friend. An AI assistant that can get to know your interests, and suggest thing to help you in your daily life. Of course, this is just the sort of things brands are going to get in on, and figure out where in the course of the day they can interact with their customers.

Go and play with the Robot is Friend GPT here.

And if you just want to read about them, here’s what I wrote about them when they were first released:

I’m not going to go into how to build them except for this wafer-thin paragraph: You can do it all with natural, conversational language and expand on it by uploading knowledge in the form of documents including word, ppt, pdf, images and even code. You can also give them tasks as they have access to the internet, can create code, generate images and analyse images that are uploaded for content and context. You can type with them or talk to them with voice chat. Creating them is fun and easy, getting them to be exactly the experience you want them to be is a little more challenging, but I’m sure that will change as they move through beta.

So today, let’s just stick to how (I think) it’s going to impact our work, both when it comes to internal processes and also in our consumer facing work. This is not going to be an exhaustive list, by any means, but just some ways that I feel we can easily use GPTs to connect with ideas, strategies and even people.

And before we get into it, Amazon, Meta, Google and probably some kids in a garage somewhere that we haven’t even heard of yet are all building similar avatars, agents and generative AI based personas. Since Open AI got there first, and I’ve spent all weekend playing wit them, we’re just going to call them GPTs for this article

So what are some ways you can use them right now?

Artificial Research

Nothing beats talking to a real person to get a gut-check on your concepts. Yet building GPTs that are based on the people you want to talk can give you a perspective not only on your ideas, but they also can become customer journeys that you can interact with. Using deep strategic insights, you could build GPTs that can talk about your ideal consumer’s day and where you could impact their lives. Keeping them constantly updated would be a way to keep their artificial opinions closer to real world feelings.

Brainstorm with anyone

If someone isn’t already filling a GPT with all of the writings of David Ogilvy, I’d be very surprised. No machine is going to be able to give you the real experiences of shooting ideas back and forth, but at some point, given enough training, you could have anyone living or dead who has enough work to draw from as a sparring partner.

Literal Brand Voices

We’re about to have an interesting moment as GPTs and conversational technology collide. We now have the unique opportunity to define what our brand actually sounds like. Is it old, folksy, giggly, is it a take no shit seen it all been there done that sort of voice? Is it a man, woman, child, dog? With GPTs generating the output from your knowledge, do you want to rely on the stock voices available or stand out with something akin to an audio logo.

Chat with your guidelines

Having one source or truth for global brands with a very strict grand guardian can be an amazing way to keep brands compliant to the identities that have been developed. With a GPT who can answer questions about the brand book, provide assets and check layouts as a final approval it can keep some of the day to day work flowing while giving creatives time to come up with bigger ideas.

Unique Experiences

What is it that your brand does better than anyone else? What can it do for people that no one else can? Now turn that into a GPT. From helping people to live a more sustainable life to telling them where exactly in the world it’s 5:00. Connecting a GPT to your brand is a fun and valuable exercise you and your teams should immediately start doing, so you’re ready to launch the second you’re allowed by legal.

And honestly, if you can’t easily come up with a handful of GPTs for your brand, maybe it’s time to update the brand purpose.

But wait, there's more!

This is just a tiny surface scratch. What are you most excited about? Have you built one? SHOW ME I WANT TO SEE or tell me about what you want to do.

I’m excited about our new robot friends getting even more friendly, and I hope you are, too.