Use ChatGPT

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Go from idea to useful result

ChatGPT is an AI agent that you communicate with in natural language:

Choose how you want to work

Use Chat for a question or back-and-forth. Turn on Work in the switcher when you want ChatGPT to carry a larger task through to a reviewable result. Select Codex when you want developer views or more technical detail, especially for software development.

Use Chat to ask questions, brainstorm, draft or revise text, summarize files, compare options, or clarify a larger task. In Codex, point to New chat, then select Quick chat when that option is available.

When you need a finished, reviewable result, switch to Work and describe what it should include. See Get started with ChatGPT Work for example tasks, prompts, and best practices.

What ChatGPT Work can do

ChatGPT Work can plan a task, gather context, use tools, and carry the work through to a result you can review. Ask it to:

• Research and analyze information. Search the web, browse websites, compare sources, read files, analyze data, and summarize findings.
• Use your files and tools. Bring in uploaded files, projects, memories, ChatGPT Library, and installed plugins. Plugins can provide connected information, reusable workflows, and supported actions.
• Create finished files. Draft and refine documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and PDF files. Review the result, ask for specific changes, and download the completed file.
• Create visual and interactive work. Generate or edit images, make interactive visualizations, and build or share websites and apps with Sites.
• Work across websites and apps. Use the browser to research and interact with websites. In the desktop app, use the Chrome extension, Computer Use, and appshots when those features are available.
• Run code and review technical work. Run code and shell commands, analyze data, inspect files, review code, and work with repositories your selected environment can access.
• Delegate and continue longer tasks. Split independent work across subagents, follow their progress, and keep long-running work active.
• Repeat useful workflows. Set up scheduled tasks for recurring work and use skills to reuse a workflow.
• Talk through a task. On supported plans in the desktop app, use ChatGPT Voice to start work, check progress, or change direction.

Features depend on your plan, platform, region, rollout, and workspace settings. Your workspace administrator can control access to ChatGPT Work, plugins, browser use, and network access. ChatGPT Work and Codex share usage limits.

Choose cloud or local work

On the web, ChatGPT Work runs in a managed cloud environment. In the desktop app, you may also be able to choose where a task runs:

• Cloud: Run work in an isolated hosted environment. A task can keep going after you close the desktop app and continue from the web or mobile app. Cloud work can use uploaded files, connected tools, and approved websites.
• Work locally: Use files, apps, or the browser on your computer. Local work is available in the desktop app when enabled for your account or workspace.

ChatGPT shows its progress and pauses when it needs information or approval. Review consequential actions before approving them, and check the final result before you use or share it.

Compare ChatGPT Work and Codex on desktop

ChatGPT Work and Codex have overlapping capabilities. If you prefer Codex, you can keep using it for research, documents, presentations, and other knowledge work. When both are available to you, the desktop app changes the interface and how the agent presents its work.

Talk to ChatGPT naturally

Write as if you were explaining the request to a helpful colleague. State what you want to accomplish, add the details that change the answer, and describe the format you need. Your first prompt is only a starting point—you can add context or refine the result with follow-up messages.

Start simple:

Help me plan a 30-minute team meeting about our new customer feedback process.

Add context:

Help me plan a 30-minute team meeting about our new customer feedback process. The audience is a customer support team that hasn't seen the process before. Include five minutes for questions and end with clear next steps.

Choose a format:

Create a 30-minute agenda for a customer support team that hasn't seen our new customer feedback process before. Include five minutes for questions, end with clear next steps, and format it so I can paste it into a calendar invitation.

You can continue with simple directions such as:

• “Make this shorter.”
• “Give me three different approaches.”
• “What assumptions are you making?”
• “Ask me questions before you continue.”

Learn more about prompting, or take the AI Foundations course for guided practice.

Bring the right context into ChatGPT

Give ChatGPT the information, tools, and instructions that matter to the task. You don't need to provide everything—include the context that changes what a good result looks like.

Keep related work in a project

Projects help you organize ChatGPT around a topic, goal, or ongoing body of work. Keep related chats, files, and instructions in one project when the work will continue over time or depend on the same context. Learn more about projects.

Attach files

You can upload or attach documents, presentations, spreadsheets, PDF files, images, and data exports. Use them when you want ChatGPT to:

• Summarize or compare them.
• Find patterns or inconsistencies.
• Extract, clean, or reorganize information.
• Use them as source material for a new file.

When ChatGPT creates a file, open the preview and check its contents. You can then ask for changes without starting over. Learn more about working with files.

Connect tools with plugins

Plugins can connect ChatGPT to the tools and information you use for work, such as Google Drive, SharePoint, Salesforce, or Gong. Use them when a task depends on information outside the chat, actions in another system, or a repeatable workflow.

Plugin availability depends on your plan, workspace settings, and the plugin itself. Learn more about skills and plugins.

Make the result ready to use

Treat the first result as a draft you can inspect, challenge, and improve. A polished response can still be incomplete or wrong, so review the details that matter before you use or share it.

Check the work:

• Verify important numbers, names, dates, quotes, and claims.
• Open generated files and inspect every section, tab, slide, or page.
• Confirm that ChatGPT used the correct and most current source material.
• Look for missing information and unsupported assumptions.
• Ask for focused revisions when the result misses the goal.

Then ask ChatGPT to pressure-test the result:

• “What sources did you use for this?”
• “Cite the source for each major claim.”
• “What assumptions did you make?”
• “What information were you unable to access?”
• “What would change your recommendation?”
• “Check this result against the original files.”

If ChatGPT couldn't access a source or complete part of the task, ask it to say so plainly. An explicit gap is easier to address than a confident guess.

Legal, financial, medical, security, and other high-stakes decisions require appropriate expert review. Use ChatGPT to support informed judgment, not replace it.

Next steps

a]:min-w-0 [&>a]:no-underline"> [Open the quickstart

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  Start using ChatGPT with a guided first task.](https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/quickstart)

[Learn about prompting

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Write useful prompts for questions, finished work, and coding tasks.](https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/prompting)

[Personalize ChatGPT

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  Set preferences and carry useful context across chats.](https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/personalize)