ChatGPT is the number one AI platform. It’s the service that started the generative AI revolution. Since then, it has grown tremendously.
Today, it offers a multitude of tools, services, and plans. Moreover, because the industry is in such a dynamic phase right now, things keep changing.
In other words: It’s hard to keep up with the latest developments, to understand what is possible, and to know how to use it.
If you are a creative working in a field like Marketing, Online Marketing or Content Marketing, this page is for you.
With it I aim to give you a comprehensive overview of ChatGPT and its many features and offerings.
General overview
ChatGPT is a product of OpenAI. It is their most successful and influential offering to date. OpenAI started out as a pretty obscure research lab that wanted to develop AI to the benefit of humanity without worrying about revenue and profit.
When ChatGPT became an instant hit in late 2022, this changed dramatically.
As you will see below, ChatGPT is not just one product. It does several things, it does them in different ways, and it offers many ways to use it.
There is a free version with limitations. There are two paid levels as well as special offerings for big companies and education. Last but not least, there are options for developers that can be relevant for non-developers as well.
The core of ChatGPT is text. But it can also analyze and generate photos and videos. You can talk to it and it will respond in a human-sounding voice. It can do in-depth research for you.
ChatGPT is the most versatile AI assistant platform available today.
At the same time, there are good alternatives for some of these tasks. Claude can be better for writing. Midjourney can be better for image generation. And Runway can be better for video generation. Just to name a few.
But from my point of view there’s no other all-in-one AI platform that offers the same combined level of breadth and quality as ChatGPT.
Its main attraction is in its name: an AI assistant in a chat-based interface. This makes it approachable and easy to understand. It’s also infinitely flexible.
At the same time, the chat metaphor is not always the most practical choice for every possible use case. It’s awkward for writing, for example, because both the drafting and the discussion about it happen in the same place. ChatGPT’s “Canvas” feature alleviates this problem. More on this below.
Another difficulty with the chat interface: It’s not clear to a beginner what ChatGPT can do. OpenAI addresses this by offering some suggestions right where you type your prompt. But as of today, you are mostly on your own to figure it out.
Or you can of course subscribe to the Smart Content Report newsletter and get the latest tools, tips, and trends in your inbox every other Friday. Just saying!
I generally give away a lot of useful knowledge like these five steps to get better results with ChatGPT and other generative AI tools.
ChatGPT’s core AI models and what they can do
When you talk to ChatGPT, you can choose between different models (versions) with unique capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses.
Unfortunately, OpenAI is famously bad at naming their models. So bad, in fact, that it has become a meme and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has admitted as much. He has promised more clarity in the future.
Until then, we have to deal with an ever-changing array of weirdly named AI models.
To make it a bit less confusing: There are two distinct groups with different use cases.
- The “GPT” models are trained to give a helpful answer to your request (prompt) right away. With the right guidance, they are the better choice for creative tasks like writing, discussing a topic, or coming up with ideas. They are often referred to as “generative AI”.
- The “o” family of models is meant for tasks where the AI needs to figure something out before giving an answer. You will see a “thinking” phase when the AI explores your request and determines how best to fulfill it. These are best for non-creative, analytical tasks. They are often called “Reasoning AI”. In case you are interested: I explain Reasoning AI in more detail in this article.
The “o” models are slower, but more thorough and capable. Because they are much more expensive for OpenAI, their use is often limited.
One more tip: If you see “mini” in a model name, it’s a smaller and faster version of the full-size version. These are also cheaper for OpenAI.
This is the current roster of models relevant for Marketers:
- GPT-4o: Best general purpose model. This is ChatGPT’s workhorse and default. For many use cases, this is the best choice.
- GPT-4.1 mini: Fastest and cheapest model. There’s no reason for you to choose this one. If you have a free account or use ChatGPT a lot, you might be automatically downgraded to this one by OpenAI.
- OpenAI o3: Specialized in complex reasoning. Can be slow.
- OpenAI o4-mini: A smaller and quicker Reasoning AI.
- OpenAI o4-mini-high: A more capable variant of o4-mini. OpenAI recommends it for “coding and visual reasoning”.
These models are at the core of what you do with ChatGPT. The only exception is the video generation AI Sora that is a separate entity for now.
With them, you can discuss ideas and topics, come up with outlines, summarize and analyze documents, and much more.
By the way: I recommend not to let AI do the writing. It’s a much better idea to use it as a writing assistant. But even then, you need to know what makes a good prompt for ChatGPT.
Search and research with ChatGPT
One of the interesting use cases of ChatGPT is to research a topic, an idea, a question.
In the beginning, ChatGPT could only access its “world knowledge”: the information the AI has encountered during its training process.
Since this training process takes many months, this knowledge is often outdated. What was (and is) even worse: Even if it wasn’t outdated, it might have been incorrect, because the training material was not fact-checked.
Additionally, there’s the phenomenon of “hallucinations”: This term describes instances when an AI adds information that fits well, but is made up.
All of these made ChatGPT and others a deeply flawed tool for research. But that has changed thanks to three innovations:
1. Web access
Today, you can ask ChatGPT to look something up online or give it a URL to read. At times, it might also decide on its own that it needs to look for current information online.
It will give its sources at the end of the reply. It is a good habit to check these, because an AI can misunderstand or misrepresent information or still “hallucinate” it. It’s less likely. But the chance is not zero.
2. ChatGPT search
In addition to that, OpenAI has added ChatGPT search. This is a separate feature you activate by clicking the “search” button below the prompt input. It has a small globe icon.
ChatGPT will then search the web for information regarding your request and present it on a result page with a summary, as well as images and videos where useful.
It lists its sources as well.
ChatGPT search is helpful for getting a quick first overview of a topic.
OpenAI modeled this feature after the AI search engine Perplexity. Another example of the same idea is Google’s “AI mode”.
3. ChatGPT deep research
The third option is ChatGPT’s “deep research” feature. This is an automated (“agentic”) research assistant. It scours the web for information in relation to your request and presents its results in a comprehensive report that includes images and links in addition to text.
This can be an immensely helpful tool for finding facts, figures, quotes, and more on a given topic.
A deep research session can take several minutes, even up to half an hour. You don’t have to wait for the results. You’ll get a notification when it’s done.
In case you want to know more: I’ve written a comprehensive article on how to use ChatGPT deep research in Marketing.
Generate images with ChatGPT
For the longest time, ChatGPT’s image generator was called “Dall-E” and a separate AI. In fact, Dall-E predates ChatGPT.
In March of 2025 OpenAI integrated image generation directly into its GPT-4o model. Without getting into the technical details: It works fundamentally different from other image generators like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, Flux or Ideogram. I explain in a separate article, what makes ChatGPT’s image generation so special. I also show its capabilities with several examples.
Because of its unique approach, it also has unique strengths and weaknesses:
Strengths:
- Can handle complex image ideas with several different elements.
- Much better at rendering text correctly, even a lot of text.
- Good command of image styles and switching from one to the other. This has lead to the image generator going viral.
- Easy to use, because you don’t need to learn any special syntax. You can even use ChatGPT to come up with ideas.
Weaknesses:
- No advanced features and options to fine-tune results.
- Not as good at photorealism as other options.
- Still gets details wrong, doesn’t understand prompts or gets confused in longer chats.
In my experience, ChatGPT’s image generation is a very useful tool especially for the needs of marketers. One reason is its capability to display lots of text correctly. Another one is how it can handle visuals that are more graphics-heavy and complex.
Alternatives still have their place when it comes to photorealism or more artistic styles and creative expression.
Features that make ChatGPT more useful
Over the months, OpenAI has added several useful features that make working with ChatGPT easier. They address several shortcomings of ChatGPT.
Canvas
Problem: When working on a text, the draft and the discussion about it are intertwined. This makes it confusing and awkward to work on a piece.
Solution: Canvas separates the discussion from the draft: the chat is on the left, the text on the right.
How to use it: Ask ChatGPT to open a canvas or use the “Canvas” option in the “…” menu below the prompt. ChatGPT will open a Canvas sometimes by itself.
Tip: You can highlight parts of the draft and comment on it.
OpenAI introduced Canvas in October 2024.
Saved memories & chat history
Problem: Every new chat with ChatGPT starts at zero. It doesn’t know anything about you or prior discussions.
Solution: First, OpenAI added a way for ChatGPT to save information it deems important called (officially called “reference saved memories”). The AI can access this across chats. In the next step, it made all other chats available to ChatGPT (“reference chat history”).
How to use it: You can ask ChatGPT to add a fact to its memory. You can access all saved items and delete them in the settings. In addition to this, access to prior chats happens automatically, but can also be triggered by explicitly asking ChatGPT to take into account everything discussed so far. Both features can be enabled or disabled in the settings.
Tip: Especially the access to prior chats can open up new possibilities. For example, you can ask ChatGPT about your personal strengths and blindspots while taking into account everything it knows about you. Or, when starting a new project, it can remember certain facts about you, your background, your target audience, your preferences etc.
Memory was added in February 2024. The ability to reference chat history was announced in April 2025. Learn more about both in these FAQs.
Projects
Problem: When you need to start several separate chats to work on a bigger task, you need to add background information, instructions, and files every single time. It can also be difficult to find these related chats in your chat history.
Solution: Projects allows you to group chats into one folder and gives you the option to add instructions and files that ChatGPT will automatically access for each new chat.
How to use it: Use the “plus” symbol near the item “Projects” in the main menu. Name your project and add your instructions and files.
Tip: There’s a maximum amount of files you can upload to a project and you’ll get an early warning when approaching it. Too many instructions and files might lower the quality of ChatGPT’s answers.
Projects were introduced in December 2024. Learn more about it in this official support post.
Other notable features
- Custom GPTs. You can give ChatGPT custom instructions as well as files to reference to make it into a personalized and specialized version. These custom GPTs can be used privately, shared with others or made public in the GPT Store.
- GPT Store. A platform for offering and finding custom GPTs, specialized versions of ChatGPT.
- Custom Instructions. In the “personalization” option of the settings you can add instructions that ChatGPT will see in every chat. This way, you can adjust the chatbot’s personality and behaviors.
- Tasks. Ask ChatGPT to get back to you at a certain point in time. This can be a recurring task or a one-time task.
- Desktop: ChatGPT on your computer. An app for Windows and Macs that not only brings ChatGPT to your computer, but can also work and interact with content on your device.
- Sora: Generate videos. A video generator built into ChatGPT. The quality lags somewhat behind competitors like Runway, Luma, Pika, Kling.
- Advanced Voice Mode: Talk to your AI assistant. An impressive achievement with limited relevance for everyday tasks of creatives.
ChatGPT prices and access
OpenAI makes it challenging to fully understand what the different levels of access include. For one thing, the pricing page is only available to registered users. And even then, the terms are not entirely clear. What exactly is “limited access”? How much better is “extended limits”? Unclear. Even the official description is vague.
This is what their pricing table looks like currently:
ChatGPT Free
Not only can you use ChatGPT for free, you can also use it without an account. Unsurprisingly, this service is limited in several ways. Some features and options are not available at all, while others only give you a taste of what is possible. Features like image generation or access to reasoning models is especially minimal.
Note: It makes a difference whether you are logged in or not. One advantage of having an account is that you get a history of all your chats. You also need to be logged in to use custom GPTs, for example.
ChatGPT Free gives you an idea of what is possible and may be enough for occasional use. Bear in mind that there will be a downgrade to GPT 4o mini if you use it a lot. You will also encounter hard limits that will make you wait until you can use it again.
ChatGPT Plus
ChatGPT Plus is the first level of a paid tier for individual users. This is the option you are most likely to consider. At the time of writing it costs $20/month. For this amount you get more access to more advanced models and generally higher limits. However, there are still limits.
ChatGPT Plus is a good way to use this assistant and all its features for real work.
ChatGPT Pro
ChatGPT Pro is the latest and most expensive tier: $200/month. This is for heavy users, especially of the more advanced models like o1 or for much higher limits to generate videos with Sora.
The extreme jump in price makes this only viable for people with complex tasks, who need the most advanced and powerful AI models on a regular basis, and who use it a lot per day.
OpenAI’s subscriptions and their features
| AI Model or Feature | Free ($0/month) | Plus ($20/month) | Pro ($200/month) |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-4.1 mini | Available | Available | Available |
| GPT-4o | Limited | Extended Limit | Unlimited |
| Reasoning (o3, o4) | Limited | Extended Limit, multiple models | Unlimited, all models |
| OpenAI o1 “pro mode” | – | – | Available |
| Deep Research | – | Limited | Extended Limit |
| Projects | – | Available | Available |
| File Uploads | Limited | Extended Limit | Extended Limit |
| Image generation | Limited | Extended Limit | Extended Limit |
| Video generation (Sora) | – | Limited | Extended Limit |
| Custom GPTs | Use | Create and use | Create and use |
| Tasks | – | Create and use | Create and use |
| Operator | – | – | Access Preview |
ChatGPT Team
If you need more than one account, have a look at ChatGPT Team. It will cost you $25/month per member. As you would expect, you get an admin panel. The limits for some features are higher than ChatGPT Plus (no details given).
ChatGPT Enterprise
If you are in a large organisation, ChatGPT Enterprise may be the right choice for you. It includes more options and settings. As usual, no pricing information is available.
ChatGPT Edu
As the name ChatGPT Edu implies: This is meant for universities. No pricing information is available.
Not only for developers: API access
Last but not least: There’s a way to access OpenAI’s services, including its AI models, without using the official website. The keyword here is Application Programming Interface (API). This is meant for developers who want to build a product using OpenAI’s offerings. Learn more here.
But it’s also available to you. And you don’t have to be a programmer to find it useful.
The main advantage of API access is its pay-per-use pricing: Instead of paying a fixed amount per month, you pay for what you use. And in my experience, that’s often much cheaper than a subscription.
Also, there are not the same limits that you might find with the “Plus” account.
One downside: Special features like Canvas or Deep Research are not available this way.
A simple way to use this is one of many plugins for WordPress that bring AI into its backend. Examples include AI Engine and AI Power. Or you could choose a tool like TypingMind, which allows you to connect AI assistants from many services, including OpenAI.
Pricing examples for OpenAI’s API
| Model | Input | Output |
|---|---|---|
| GPT-4o | $2.50 | $10.00 |
| GPT-4.1 | $2.00 | $8.00 |
| GPT-4.1-mini | $0.10 | $0.40 |
| OpenAI o1 | $15.00 | $60.00 |
| OpenAI o1-pro | $150.00 | $600.00 |
| OpenAI o3 | $10.00 | $40.00 |
| OpenAI o4-mini | $1.10 | $4.40 |