1.1 – Introduction to GPTs Lesson

Lesson Overview

This lesson sets the foundation for your journey into creating and using custom GPTs. A custom GPT is your own version of ChatGPT—personally configured for specific tasks, workflows, or business objectives. Unlike the general-purpose ChatGPT everyone knows, a custom GPT can follow your exact instructions, refer to your unique knowledge base, and even automate actions beyond simple conversation.

The lesson introduces what makes custom GPTs valuable for entrepreneurs and organizations. You’ll see how GPTs are designed for ease of use: you don’t need to be an AI expert, but you do need a paid ChatGPT subscription, such as GPT Plus or GPT Enterprise. Since their introduction in November 2023, custom GPTs have been rapidly updated, bringing more powerful and configurable tools to users week after week.

Custom GPTs put advanced capability in your hands. You can set precise instructions, upload supporting documents (like PDFs or spreadsheets), and enable advanced features such as web browsing, image creation with DALL-E, or working with data through a code interpreter. If you need a streamlined way to automate specific tasks or provide tailored support, custom GPTs are a practical solution.

Who This Is For

This lesson is designed for anyone curious about using or creating custom GPTs—from beginners to those with some experience. It’s especially useful if you:

• Are an entrepreneur or startup founder wanting to scale with AI
• Work in a business and seek to automate repetitive tasks
• Create or manage content, documentation, or support resources
• Lead teams that could benefit from custom AI-powered assistants
• Want to explore the latest in practical AI tools without coding
• Are evaluating the benefits of personalized AI for your organization

Where This Fits in a Workflow

Getting familiar with custom GPTs is an essential early step for setting up efficient, AI-powered workflows. Before building or deploying any automation or content solution, understanding what custom GPTs offer—and how to configure them—ensures you use the right tool for each job.

For example, before launching a customer service assistant, you’d define a custom GPT’s instructions and knowledge base to match your company’s policies and resources. Or, before automating data analysis, you’d confirm the Code Interpreter capability is enabled for secure and accurate processing. This lesson equips you to recognize where custom GPTs can save you time, increase consistency, and support custom use cases, forming a reliable building block for more advanced automation later in the course.

Technical & Workflow Benefits

Previously, getting an AI assistant tailored to a niche business need required complex development or expensive consulting. The introduction of custom GPTs changes this completely. Now, instead of adapting your workflow to generic tools—or repeating actions in manual ways—you simply adjust a GPT to your preferences. Uploading documents for context, setting specific instructions, and enabling web browsing or automated actions make your GPTs more reliable and responsive.

Consider creating a GPT that summarizes reports from PDFs: before, you’d read and summarize manually or rely on someone else. Now, with a custom GPT, this happens almost instantly and with consistent quality. Or, if you need in-house AI support but want to control sensitive data, private GPT sharing allows it. These streamlined, flexible solutions not only save time but improve the quality and accuracy of your work, especially as you scale tasks or collaborate across teams.

Practice Exercise

To apply what you’ve learned in this introductory lesson, take a scenario relevant to your work—a repetitive question, a document you often reference, or an automation you wish you had. Then:

1. Write down one specific use case where a custom GPT could be helpful (e.g., answering common customer questions, summarizing daily reports).
2. List what custom instructions or documents you might provide to make a GPT effective for that task.
3. Reflect: How would this compare to your current approach? What would be the first thing you’d want to try automating or accelerating with a custom GPT?

This preparatory exercise will help you focus when you start building and customizing your own GPTs in the next chapters.

Course Context Recap

This lesson introduced you to the concept, capabilities, and workflow value of custom GPTs. It forms the entry point for the course, establishing the skills and mindset needed for everything ahead. You’ve seen what’s possible, what control you have, and how the pieces fit together. In the following lessons, you’ll move from this conceptual overview to practical, step-by-step instruction on configuring, training, and using your own GPTs—so you’ll always know exactly how and why to build solutions that matter to you. Continue through the course to unlock hands-on skills and best practices with custom GPTs.