7 ways to use ChatGPT at work to make your job easier

How many times a day do you Google something at work? ChatGPT may change that.

In fact, the search-engine giant is reportedly worried that you'll eventually put your queries into ChatGPT instead. The company issued a "code red" in December of last year over the bot's potential threat to its search business.

"Google may be only a year or two away from total disruption," Gmail creator Paul Buchheit tweeted a the time, adding that AI will be able to "instantly do what would take many minutes for a human" to do using a search engine like Google.

While ChatGPT isn't always accurate, it can analyze data from millions of websites to try and answer whatever question it receives. 

Rather than providing users a series of links to sift through — many of which are high up on the page simply due to advertising spend — ChatGPT provides the user with a quick answer. And if the answer is too complicated, ChatGPT can explain it in simpler terms if you ask it to. 

Having quick access to information could ultimately make your job more enjoyable by freeing up time for idea generation. 

"Some of the more boring parts of the job may disappear," Oxford economist Carl Benedikt Frey told Business Insider. "We may begin focusing more on generating the right ideas, asking the right questions, things that are more interesting."

As many students with essay assignments have already realized, ChatGPT can be quite useful as a writing tool. 

Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of online course provider Coursera, told CNN that he uses ChatGPT to write work emails and even speeches. 

"I use it as a writing assistant and as a thought partner," Maggioncalda said.

Creatives looking for inspiration for their books or songs have also asked ChatGPT to produce some rough drafts for them. 

TikTok user @frontlineleadership, who works as an executive coach, said that he even used ChatGPT to write employee evaluations and was satisfied with the outcome.

"I only had to make slight adjustments here and there," the TikToker said in a January post. "It literally saved me probably 12 hours of work."

"ChatGPT is a game changer," he said.

Many roles involve various forms of data analysis, and ChatGPT can process a lot of information quickly. 

"Analyzing and interpreting vast amounts of language-based data and information is a skill that you'd expect generative AI technologies to ramp up on," Madgavkar told Business Insider. 

"If you're an academic, it's quite nice that you don't have to do statistical analysis by hand," Benedikt Frey said. "You can produce a lot of more stuff."

Thanks to Code Interpreter, one of the chatbot's latest plug-ins, ChatGPT Plus users can now feed the AI large data sets and prompt it to identify trends.

It could use that analytical capability to help make data-based investment decisions, Muro previously told Business Insider. 

"AI can identify trends in the market, highlight what investments in a portfolio are doing better and worse, communicate all that, and then use various other forms of data by, say, a financial company to forecast a better investment mix," he said.

Getting your busy work schedule organized may be time consuming — but ChatGPT and other forms of AI can make the process a little bit easier.

Economists at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) conducted a study in 2022 on the skills that AI can replicate, and found that AI tools can handle scheduling and task prioritization — in many cases, even "better than humans." 

"Scheduling work and activities seems a perfect AI problem," the study said. 

Some users have tried this out with promising results. Micah, a YouTuber who makes videos exploring AI, posted a video demonstrating how he used ChatGPT to automate his work scheduling.

After he asked ChatGPT to create a daily work schedule that includes tasks like finishing a performance report and scheduling a meeting with his boss, the chatbot was able to spit out an hour-by-hour breakdown of a potential schedule in a matter of seconds.

"This is one of the underrated things ChatGPT can do," Micah said. 

If you're a current or aspiring entrepreneur, ChatGPT may be able to help you think through the process of starting a business. 

Business Insider's Jennifer Ortakales Dawkins asked the chat bot a variety of questions and found it to be a useful tool for generating ideas, estimating startup costs, and outlining a business plan. 

Jacqueline DeStefano-Tangorra, the founder of boutique consultancy Omni Business Intelligence Solutions, told Business Insider that the AI chatbot reduced the amount of time she spent on marketing and research, which she said freed up time to pitch new clients. 

Coursera's Maggioncalda told CBS MoneyWatch he used ChatGPT to think through business challenges and strategies. 

"I ask ChatGPT to become aware of where my biases and blind spots might be," he said. "And the answers it gives are a really, really good starting point to check your thinking."

Even Amazon employees who tested ChatGPT said it does a "very good job" of answering customer support questions and is "very strong" at answering queries around corporate strategy. 

Oded Netzer, a Columbia Business School professor, said AI will help coders rather than replace them. 

"In terms of jobs, I think it's primarily an enhancer than full replacement of jobs," Netzer told CBS MoneyWatch. "Coding and programming is a good example of that. It actually can write code quite well."

Specifically, ChatGPT is capable of quickly generating lines of code to resolve certain coding problems. One TikTok user, @asap_blockie, asked ChatGPT to identify the error in some code he was working on as part of his job, he said in a December 2022 video.

"It spat out what was wrong with my code," he said. "And then I copied that and pasted it in, and then it worked." 

In fact, ChatGPT Plus users can now use the Code Interpreter plug-in so the chatbot can identify its own coding mistakes and fix them.

But coders should proceed with caution when receiving help from an AI, as some users have found that ChatGPT incorrectly answers coding problems. 

Finally, if you're not happy at your job, ChatGPT may be able to offer some support. People are using it to craft their resumes and cover letters as they undergo their job searches. 

"It will make you a cover letter so you don't have to waste your time anymore," Jonathan Javier, CEO of the career consulting company Consulting, said in a January TikTok video. 

If you're fairly happy at work but feel like you're underpaid, ChatGPT might even be able to help you get a raise.

Insider's Sarah Jackson asked ChatGPT for advice to help her prepare for a theoretical salary negotiation, and two career coaches told her she'd probably be able to get a raise if she followed the AI's script. 

Story was originally published in February 2023.