ChatGPT has, well, entered the chat.

And if you’re looking at me like “What the heckadoodle is ChatGPT?!” Please, read on. And if you’ve played around with it yourself (seriously, it’s pretty fun), also, read on. 

I asked it to tell me about itself and here’s what it wrote:

In non-robot speak, ChatGPT is a chatbot optimized by artificial intelligence that is capable of writing long and short-form text based on user requests. It gathers information from the internet and learns along the way. 

Here are a few other things I’ve asked it to do for me to test its abilities:

• Write me a 500-word, first-person narrative about going through a breakup
• Write me a haiku about elephants
• Write me lyrics to a pop song about falling in love

I also gave it a story prompt and various scene ideas and had it walk through a story for me complete with dialogue. 

At this point, you might be thinking “This is IT! The solution I’ve been looking for.” 

But before you hop onto ChatGPT and start having it churn out content and copy for your website, here’s the truth:

Yes, ChatGPT can put together a good outline, a rough first draft, some grammatically correct sentences, run through a story, and write things that rhyme.

BUT (and this is a huge, Sir Mix-a-Lot size BUT), everything I’ve seen it write lacks personality, is full of cliches and generic sentences, and doesn’t provide any factual evidence to back up what it says.

That’s not to say it’s not a cool tool. Here’s how I’d recommend using ChatGPT moving forward (if you want!):

• To save time putting together outlines
• To get the ideas flowing when you’re getting started or when you’re stuck
• To rewrite something that you hate
• To get alternative ways to say something
• To have fun on a Friday night (seriously, get in there)

That’s not an exhaustive list but you get the idea. ChatGPT is a tool to use but it’s not a solution to all of your content and copy problems. 

Here’s how not to use ChatGPT:

• To write all your blog posts or emails (unless you hate personality and love everything generic)
• To write the final copy for your website 
• To write papers/essays for class, etc.

This is just an initial assessment of the tool. I would not be surprised if things change and evolve over the next few months or years. 

Have you played around with it yet? Reply to this email and let me know!