Stop Explaining Who You Are to ChatGPT Over and Over Again

This month alone, you've already explained your role, context, and way of working to ChatGPT 47 times. Every new conversation starts from zero. You describe your company, your industry, your way of working, and still get advice that sounds like it came out of a management textbook instead of from someone who understands your situation.

This isn't an AI limitation. It's a configuration problem.

From question-and-answer to thinking partner

Most professionals use AI as a search engine with better sentences. Ask a question, get an answer, close the tab, repeat. The problem? AI treats every conversation as if you're a stranger. And strangers get generic advice. A properly configured AI chatbot like 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 chats within that project (it's possible to have multiple projects, each with its own instructions and context). First, let's create a new project to test this.

We can choose whether ChatGPT gets access to information from all your other chats, or only information from chats within this project. For this example, we'll use the ‘Project-only’ setting, since this is a test and this way we can clearly see the effect. In general, the ‘default’ option is recommended (giving access to all memory from other chats, we'll 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

• If you click ‘add files’, you'll see the project settings. As an illustration, an instruction has been written here for ChatGPT that will clearly make it behave differently than usual.

The result is immediately noticeable.

Within the project settings, it's also possible to add files. See the image above. Instead of a short set of instructions, it's also possible to 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 chats within the project folder.

WARNING: don't upload sensitive (company) documents to AI, not even in project folders. Only provide descriptions of context and instructions that don't constitute critical information. For AI solutions where data privacy must be guaranteed, it's always advisable to bring in a professional party that can build such solutions.

Let's come back for a moment to the ‘project-only’ vs. ‘default’ options for memory. The ‘project-only’ option is useful if you want the general memory of your chat and the project memory to stay separate. An example is when you're working on 2 projects that each have a completely different context. That context shouldn't 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 across different project folders (each with its own instructions). For example, you could create a project folder where ChatGPT is your brainstorming partner (and therefore only gives conceptual advice without suggestions). Once you've worked out an idea conceptually, you could set up a 2nd project folder to give practical suggestions instead of conceptual advice. ChatGPT will remember your chat from the 1st project folder and pick up the conversation smoothly.

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 have to explain again that you work with Microsoft cloud applications (Azure), that you have GDPR obligations, and that your data is stored in SQL Server. AI suggests tools you can't use and approaches that will never pass compliance.

To solve this, we're going to create a project folder with instructions and context that take this information into account. We create a new project again as described earlier, this time with the ‘default’ memory option (since we might have finance-related questions later from another folder, with a supply chain perspective, for example).

Without instructions, the answer is generic. We can improve 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 improved even further? Absolutely! We haven't yet defined an audience, writing style, and so on for the AI. If you're making a presentation for management on this topic, you'll expect a certain style that's short and to the point. If you're writing an implementation plan about this for the Business Intelligence/IT department, that will look different again. Let's expand the instructions.

You need to brief the management team on how AI can be deployed within your organization. ChatGPT delivers something too formal, too long, or structured completely differently from how your organization communicates. You spend 30 minutes editing a “first draft” that hasn't 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, and if you click on it, you'll see a pop-up on the right with extra explanation about the program. The AI's answer is now much more relevant and usable for a management team presentation than the generic answer we got at first.

In summary

AI is smart enough, you just need to know how to configure it. 10 pages of detailed instructions aren't necessary, as we saw. 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 context and instructions on writing style, audience, tone of voice, and structure, ChatGPT can give substantively strong answers that fit your context.

In every project folder (under project settings), you can write instructions tailored to a specific context. That way, per project folder (and therefore per context), you can have ChatGPT give relevant answers from that perspective. Next time ChatGPT doesn't quite understand your context and gives too generic an answer, you'll now know what to do about it.

What's next?

In my next blog, I'll cover the system prompt: instructions/context you can give the AI that apply to all chats and project folders. This is the central place to influence the ‘personality’ and behavior of an AI like ChatGPT.

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Written by Tom de Bruijne
BI Consultant