I’ve used ChatGPT extensively, here’s what you need to know about the AI chatbot

By Jasmine Mannan and Fionna Agomuoh Updated October 31, 2025

If you’re yet to hear about ChatGPT you must have been living under a rock for the past couple of years with it absolutely taking the world by storm. Artificial intelligence, otherwise known as AI, has been dominating the news cycle with ChatGPT being one of the most popular chatbot options.

Whether you’re a business or you’re hoping to pick up AI for personal use, ChatGPT has some impressive capabilities and advancements and with OpenAI’s latest model release, GPT-5, coming out back in August, its now smarter than ever.

Whether you’re a tech enthusiast or just curious about the future of one of the best AI chatbots, I’ve spent numerous hours exploring ChatGPT, so dive into my comprehensive guide to uncover everything you need to know and its best features. I’ve even developed excellent ChatGPT prompts to help you supercharge your experience.

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot which is a whole lot smarter than those you might be used to like Siri or Google Assistant. While these alternatives spit out predetermined responses to questions you ask, ChatGPT can actually think about answers, research topics or process information that you input.

This is thanks to the fact that it is built on a LLM (large language model) which is trained on massive amounts of data to generate human-like responses.

The current model of ChatGPT is GPT-5 which released back in August. GPT is trained on a range of content including websites, books, social media, news articles, and more — all fine-tuned in the language model by both supervised learning and RLHF (Reinforcement Learning From Human Feedback).

ChatGPT was created by OpenAI, a San Francisco-based AI research lab. OpenAI was originally founded as a non-profit organization in 2015 with the intention of developing safe and beneficial artificial intelligence. There were multiple rounds of large investments from names like Elon Musk.

OpenAI later transitioned to a for-profit structure in 2019 and is now led by CEO, Sam Altman. It runs on Microsoft’s Azure system infrastructure and is powered by Nvidia’s GPUs, including the new supercomputers just announced this year.

Microsoft has invested heavily in OpenAI since 2019 as well, expanding its partnership with the AI startup in 2021 and again in 2023, when Microsoft announced a multi-billion dollar round of investments that included naming its Azure cloud as OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider.

ChatGPT was originally released to the public in November 2022, running off of the GPT-3.5 model. Ever since, it’s had multiple advancements implements in order to improve the system leading to the current version which uses the GPT-4 model.

GPT-3 was first launched in 2020 but was licensed exclusively to Microsoft, GPT-2 released the year prior to that, though it was never used in the public-facing ChatGPT system.

Upon its release, ChatGPT’s popularity skyrocketed overnight. It grew to host over 100 million users in its first two months, making it the most quickly-adopted piece of software ever at the time, though this record has since been beaten by the Twitter alternative, Threads.

ChatGPT’s popularity dropped briefly in June 2023, reportedly losing 10% of global users, but has since continued to grow exponentially.

To use ChatGPT, open up a web browser and go to ChatGPT.com. If you’d like to maintain a history of your previous chats, sign up for a free account. You can use the system anonymously without a login if you prefer.

Users can opt to connect their ChatGPT login with that of their Google-, Microsoft- or Apple-backed accounts as well. At the sign up screen, you’ll see some basic rules about ChatGPT, including potential errors in data, how OpenAI collects data, and how users can submit feedback. If you want to get started, we have a roundup of the best ChatGPT tips.

Using the system itself is very simple, just type your prompt into the text box and the chatbot will respond. You can ask ChatGPT just about anything from very simple conversations and yes/no questions down to asking the chatbot to research entire projects for you.

If you don’t get the result you want, you can adjust or build on your original prompt which the AI will remember – it may just be the case that ChatGPT needs more instructions.

For example, starting with “Explain how the solar system was made” will give a more detailed result with more paragraphs than “How was the solar system made,” even though both inquiries will give fairly detailed results.

Take it a step further by giving ChatGPT more guidance about style or tone, saying “Explain how the solar system was made as a middle school teacher.”

You also have the option for more specific input requests, for example, an essay with a set number of paragraphs or a link to a specific Wikipedia page. We got an extremely detailed result with the request “write a four-paragraph essay explaining Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.”

ChatGPT is able to complete the majority of tasks thrown its way with the exception of physical tasks – not for lack of knowledge, if you ask the chatbot how to fold clothes, it will be able to tell you, the only thing stopping it is the lack of interface also known as its own working arms and legs.

You can’t ask absolutely anything, though. OpenAI has safeguards in place in order to “build a safe and beneficial artificial general intelligence.” That means any questions that are hateful, sexist, racist, or discriminatory in any way are generally off-limits.

Since its launch, people have been experimenting to discover everything the chatbot can and can’t do — and the results have been impressive, to say the least. Learning the kinds of prompts and follow-up prompts that ChatGPT responds well to requires some experimentation though.

Much like we’ve learned to get the information we want from traditional search engines, it can take some time to get the best results from ChatGPT. It really all depends on what you want out of it. To start out, try using it to write a template blog post, for example, or even blocks of code if you’re a programmer.

Our writers experimented with ChatGPT too, attempting to see if it could handle holiday shopping or even properly interpret astrological makeup. In both cases, we found limitations to what it could do while still being thoroughly impressed by the results.

You shouldn’t take everything that ChatGPT (or any chatbot, for that matter) tells you at face value. When ChatGPT first launched it was highly prone to “hallucinations.” The system would repeat erroneous data as fact. The issue has become less prevalent as the model is continually fine tuned, though mistakes do still happen. Trust but verify! You can ask the chatbot for its source when it provides you with information, making it easier to fact check the information it spits out.

While ChatGPT might not remember all of recorded history, it will remember what you were discussing with it in previous chat sessions. Logged-in users can access their chat history from the navigation sidebar on the left of the screen, and manage these chats, renaming, hiding or deleting them as needed.

You can also ask ChatGPT follow-up questions based on those previous conversations directly through the chat window. Users also have the option to use ChatGPT in dark mode or light mode.

ChatGPT isn’t just a wordsmith. Those users paying $20/month subscription for ChatGPT Plus or $30/month/user for ChatGPT Teams, gain access to the Dall-E image generator, which converts text prompts into lifelike generated images.

Unfortunately, image generation is not currently available to users at the free tier. Regardless of subscription status, all users can use image or voice inputs for their prompt.

As well as using ChatGPT on your browser you can also use it via the mobile app for both iOS and Android devices. The iOS edition hit an impressive half a million downloads in less than a week of its release.

Using the app is close to identical to the web version and nearly all of the features found on the desktop have been ported to the mobile versions, however it’s worth noting that you need to be logged in to use the app.

The clean interface shows your conversation with GPT in a straightforward manner, hiding the chat history and settings behind the menu in the top right.

There’s even an official ChatGPT app for the Mac which, shortly after release, was able to be used for free. The app is capable of all sorts of new things that bring Mac AI capabilities to new levels.

ChatGPT is free to use, however the free tier comes with a limited amount of queries of around 6000 words. You also won’t have access to a OpenAI’s other AI tools like image and video generation.

Upgrading to the Plus subscription which comes in at $20 a month will increase your query limit and also give you access to tools like image generation and the ability to create custom GPTs. The Plus subscription doesn’t provide you with access to the most advanced reasoning models or the Advanced Voice Mode.

In order to access the most powerful edition of ChatGPT, you’ll have to opt for the Pro subscription which offers users unlimited access to every available model.

Yes. APIs are a way for developers to access ChatGPT and plug its natural language capabilities directly into apps and websites.

We’ve seen it used in all sorts of different cases, ranging from suggesting parts in Newegg’s PC builder to building out a travel itinerary with just a few words. Many apps had been announced as partners with OpenAI using the ChatGPT API. Of the initial batch, the most prominent example is Snapchat’s MyAI.

Recently, OpenAI made the ChatGPT API available to everyone, and we’ve seen a surge in tools leveraging the technology, such as Discord’s Clyde chatbot or Wix’s website builder. Most recently, GPT-4 has been made available as an API “for developers to build applications and services.”

Some of the companies that have already integrated GPT-4 include Duolingo, Be My Eyes, Stripe, and Khan Academy.

There are a range of ChatGPT alternatives on the market from a range of developers. Google have designed their own AI chatbot called Gemini which runs off of its own model called Gemini 2.5 and offers integration into Google products like Gmail, Drive and Google Home.

You can also use Microsoft Copilot which also utilizes GPT-5. This comes built into a range of Windows devices and integrates itself into your PC, Outlook or any other Microsoft products you use.

Another, more edgy, alternative is Grok from Elon Musk. Grok works with X (formerly known as Twitter) and provides you with snarky answers which aren’t restricted by safety features like you might find with ChatGPT.

Although ChatGPT is an extremely capable digital tool, it isn’t foolproof. The AI is known for making mistakes or “hallucinations,” where it makes up an answer to something it doesn’t know. Early on, a simple example of how unreliable it can sometimes be involved misidentifying the prime minister of Japan.

Beyond just making mistakes, many people are concerned about what this human-like generative AI could mean for the future of the internet, so much so that thousands of tech leaders and prominent public figures have signed a petition to slow down the development. It was even banned in Italy due to privacy concerns, alongside complaints from the FTC — although that’s now been reversed. Since then, the FTC has reopened investigations against OpenAI on questions of personal consumer data is being handled.

In addition, JPMorgan Chase has threatened to restrict the use of the AI chatbot for workers, especially for generating emails, which companies like Apple have also prohibited internally. Following Apple’s announcement at WWDC 2024 that it would be integrating OpenAI’s technology into its mobile and desktop products, Tesla CEO and sore loser Elon Musk similarly threatened to ban any device running the software from his businesses — everything from iPhones to Mac Studios. Other high-profile companies have been disallowing the use of ChatGPT internally, including Samsung, Amazon, Verizon, and even the United States Congress.

There’s also the concern that generative AI like ChatGPT could result in the loss of many jobs — as many as 300 million worldwide, according to Goldman Sachs. In particular, it’s taken the spotlight in Hollywood’s writer’s strike, which wants to ensure that AI-written scripts don’t take the jobs of working screenwriters. Fat lot of good that did.

In 2023, many people attempting to use ChatGPT received an “at capacity” notice when trying to access the site. It’s likely behind the move to try and use unofficial paid apps, which had already flooded app stores and scammed thousands into paying for a free service.

Because of how much ChatGPT costs to run, it seems as if OpenAI has been limiting access when its servers are “at capacity.” It can take as long as a few hours to wait out, but if you’re patient, you’ll get through eventually. Of the numerous growing pains ChatGPT has faced, “at capacity” errors had been the biggest hurdle keeping people from using the service more. In some cases, demand had been so high that the entire ChatGPT website has gone down for several hours for maintenance multiple times over the course of months.

Multiple controversies have also emerged from people using ChatGPT to handle tasks that should probably be handled by an actual person — like being the mayor of Cheyenne, Wyoming. One of the worst cases of this is generating malware, which the FBI recently warned ChatGPT is being used for. More startling, Vanderbilt University’s Peabody School came under fire for generating an email about a mass shooting and the importance of community.

There are also privacy concerns. A recent GDPR complaint says that ChatGPT violates user’s privacy by stealing data from users without their knowledge, and using that data to train the AI model. ChatGPT was even made able to generate Windows 11 keys for free, according to one user. Of course, this is not how ChatGPT was meant to be used, but it’s significant that it was even able to be “tricked” into generating the keys in the first place.

All conversations you have with ChatGPT are used by OpenAI to further fine-tune the models, which can involve humans reading through conversations. While that doesn’t mean a human is looking through every single question, your conversations certainly aren’t completely private and OpenAI warns against providing personal information to ChatGPT.

It should be noted that if you don’t delete your chats, the conversations will appear in the left sidebar. Unlike with other chatbots, individual chats within a conversation cannot be deleted, though they can be edited using the pencil icon that appears when you hover over a chat. When you delete the conversations, however, it’s not that ChatGPT forgets they ever happened — it’s just that they disappear from the sidebar chat history.

Fortunately, OpenAI has recently announced a way to make your chats hidden from the sidebar. These “hidden” chats won’t be used to train AI models either. You can also opt out of allowing OpenAI to train its models in the settings.

According to OpenAI, you have the right to reprint, sell, and merchandise anything that was created with ChatGPT or ChatGPT Plus. So, you’re not going to get sued by OpenAI.

However, there is great controversy surrounding copyright and AI – with some saying generative AI is “stealing” the work of the content it was trained on. This has become increasingly contentious in the world of AI art. Companies like Adobe are finding ways around this by only training models on stock image libraries that already have proper artist credit and legal boundaries.

The larger topic of copyright law regarding generative AI is still to be determined by various lawmakers and interpreters of the law, especially since copyright law as it currently stands technically only protects content created by human beings.

It’s a possibility, yes. Numerous companies are working to integrate generative AI features into search. Microsoft started things off by integrating Copilot right into its own search engine, which puts a “chat” tab right into the menu of Bing search.

Google, of course, made its big move with AI Overviews, which uses AI-generated answers in place of traditional search results. Overviews rolled out widely in May 2024, replacing the company’s earlier iteration, Search Generative Experience.

OpenAI released its Google Search/Perplexity AI competitor, called ChatGPT Search, in October 2024. It, like Perplexity, allows users to search the internet for information directly from the chatbot interface. Upon the user’s request, ChatGPT Search will seek out relevant information on the internet, then synthesize that found data into a coherent, conversational reply, without the need to click through a returned list of website links as one would with Google.

While you can use ChatGPT to write essays, this is a very controversial topic considering people may achieve grades based on something outside of their own knowledge.

However, ChatGPT has demonstrated the ability to earn students surprisingly good grades in essay writing. Some generative AI tools, such as Caktus AI, are built specifically for essay writing.

Absolutely. It’s one of the most powerful features of ChatGPT. As with everything with AI, you’ll want to double-check everything it produces, because it won’t always get your code right.

Developers have used it to create websites, applications, and games from scratch — all of which are made more powerful with GPT-4, of course. A recent benchmark test found that both of OpenAI’s newest models, o1-preview and o1-mini, can code with nearly the same capability and fidelity as human data engineers.

There are multiple anti-plagiarism systems that have been developed specifically to detect the use of AI in school or university work.

While some schools are optimistic about the use of AI within the classroom, others aren’t very welcoming of the software with many institutions banning the use of ChatGPT in schools.

ChatGPT launched an updated version of its own plagiarism detection tool in January 2023, with hopes that it would squelch some of the criticism around how people are using the text generation system.

It uses a feature called “AI text classifier,” which operates in a way familiar to other plagiarism software. Third party developers have also stepped in with their own offerings, such as Plagiarism Checker.