Stop Explaining Who You Are to ChatGPT Over and Over Again

This month alone, you have already explained your role, your context and the way you work to ChatGPT 47 times. Every new conversation starts from scratch. You describe your company, your industry and your way of working, and still get advice that sounds like it came out of a management book rather than from someone who understands your situation.

This is not an AI limitation. It is a configuration problem.

From question-and-answer to thinking partner

Most professionals use AI like a search engine that writes better sentences. Ask a question, get an answer, close the tab, repeat. The problem? AI treats every conversation as if you were a stranger. And strangers give generic advice. A properly configured AI chatbot such as ChatGPT becomes a thinking partner that already knows your context and perspective.

How do you configure ChatGPT with specific context and instructions?

Within a project folder, we can give the AI specific context and instructions that only apply to the chats within that project (you can have multiple projects, each with its own instructions and context). First, we create a new project to test this.

We can choose whether ChatGPT gets access to information from all other chats or only to information from chats within this project. For this example, we use the ‘Project-only’ setting, since this is a test and it lets us see the effect very clearly. In general, the ‘default’ option is recommended (giving access to all memory from other chats; we will come back to this later).

Next:

• We name the project ‘Test’
• We click ‘create project’
• Within our new project, we can chat with ChatGPT as usual, with 1 extra feature: we can add files to the project memory.
• ChatGPT can always read those files in chats within that project

• When you click ‘add files’, you will see the project settings. As an illustration, we have written an instruction for ChatGPT here that will make it behave noticeably differently than usual.

The result is immediately noticeable.

Within the project settings, you can also add files. See the image at the top. Instead of a short set of instructions, you can also write a longer Word document with instructions and then upload it to the project folder. The AI will then use those instructions as context when generating all answers in the chats within the project folder.

WARNING: do not upload sensitive (business) documents to AI, not even in project folders. Only provide descriptions of context and instructions that do not contain critical information. For AI solutions where data privacy must be guaranteed, we always recommend bringing in a professional party that can build such solutions.

Let’s briefly return to the ‘project-only’ vs ‘default’ memory options. The ‘project-only’ option is useful if you want to keep your chat’s general memory and the project memory separate. An example is when you are working on 2 projects that each have a completely different context. Those contexts should not mix.

One reason to use the ‘default’ option, and thus give the AI access to the memory from all your other chats, is to brainstorm with ChatGPT about an issue from different project folders (each with its own instructions). For example, you could create a project folder in which ChatGPT is your brainstorming partner (and therefore only gives conceptual advice without suggestions). Once you have worked out an idea conceptually, you can set up a 2nd project folder that gives practical suggestions instead of conceptual advice. ChatGPT will remember your chat from the 1st project folder and pick up the conversation seamlessly.

Use case: Finance

Now that we know how a project folder works, we can create one with instructions and context for an actual business use case. Take finance, for example: a field with a lot of data and reporting.

Every time you ask the AI about report automation, dashboard design or data validation, you explain again that you work with Microsoft cloud applications (Azure), that you have GDPR obligations, and that your data is stored in SQL Server. The AI suggests tools you cannot use and approaches that will never get past compliance.

To solve this, we will create a project folder with instructions and context that include this information. We create a project again as described earlier, this time with the ‘default’ memory option (since we might later have questions about finance matters from another folder with, for example, a supply chain perspective).

Without instructions, the answer is generic. We can improve on this. In the project folder settings, we give the AI clear context and concrete instructions.

The impact is noticeable: it now takes our context and situation into account.

Can this be even better? Absolutely! We have not yet defined an audience, writing style and the like for the AI. If you are creating a presentation for management on this question, you will expect a particular style that is short and to the point. If you are writing an implementation plan on this for the Business Intelligence / IT department, it will be different again. Let’s expand the instructions.

You need to brief the management team on how AI can be used within your organization. ChatGPT delivers something that is too formal, too long or structured completely differently from how your organization communicates. You spend 30 minutes editing a “first draft” that has not saved you any time.

We add extra instructions (at the bottom) in the project folder settings.

This addition changes the output considerably. The structure of the answer follows our instructions. In the text, Power BI is underlined; if you click on it, a pop-up appears on the right with extra explanation about the program. The AI’s answer is now much more relevant and useful for a management presentation than the generic answer we got at first.

In summary

AI is smart enough; you just need to know how to configure it. As we saw, 10 pages of detailed instructions are not necessary. 10 to 25 sentences are usually enough. To get the most out of your interactions with ChatGPT (and other AIs), the right configuration (instructions) is crucial. With a clear description of your context and instructions on writing style, audience, tone of voice and structure, ChatGPT can give strong, substantive answers that fit your context.

In each project folder (under project settings), you can write instructions that match a specific context. This way, you can have ChatGPT give relevant answers from that perspective per project folder (and therefore per context). The next time ChatGPT does not properly understand your context and gives an answer that is too general, you now know what to do about it.