OPENAI GUIDE
The platform that started the modern AI era
OpenAI is the company behind ChatGPT and the GPT series of models — the most widely adopted AI platform in the world. With hundreds of millions of weekly users, it spans consumer chat, creative tools, developer APIs, and enterprise deployment. For businesses, the combination of GPT-5's broad capability, the o-series reasoning models, the Custom GPTs ecosystem, and Operator for agentic work makes it the most versatile starting point for AI adoption.
ECOSYSTEM MAP
Every tool in the OpenAI suite — what it does, which plan you need, and how the pieces fit together.
TOOL GUIDE
Best for: Everyday text, vision, and voice tasks
OpenAI's flagship multimodal model handles text, images, files, and real-time voice with strong all-round performance. It's the best default starting point for most business tasks — drafting, summarising, explaining, and analysing content across any format. Available on the free tier with limits and via Pro with higher usage.
Best for: Complex, multi-step reasoning and analysis
o3 is OpenAI's most capable reasoning model — thinking step-by-step before responding to deliver significantly better results on tasks requiring careful logical deduction. Ideal for legal analysis, financial modelling logic, and research where accuracy matters more than response speed. The reasoning trace makes conclusions verifiable.
Best for: Fast, accurate coding and technical tasks
A smaller, faster reasoning model optimised for coding, mathematics, and structured technical tasks. Delivers near-frontier reasoning quality at a fraction of the cost and latency — ideal for development teams embedding reasoning capabilities into automated workflows and pipelines.
Best for: Business image and visual asset creation
OpenAI's image generation model creates detailed, high-quality images from text prompts and integrates directly with ChatGPT for iterative creative work. Best for producing concept visuals, marketing images, presentation graphics, and branded content at scale — without needing a designer for every iteration.
Best for: AI video generation from text descriptions
Sora generates short, cinematic-quality video clips from text descriptions. Currently best suited for concept visualisation, brand storytelling, and early-stage content production. Quality and coherence limitations mean it supplements — rather than replaces — traditional video production.
Best for: Natural real-time spoken conversations
Advanced Voice Mode enables low-latency, natural voice conversations with GPT-4o, including detection and response to emotional tone in speech. Useful for training simulations, accessibility-focused applications, and conversational interface prototyping.
Best for: Tailored AI tools for specific tasks
Custom GPTs allow anyone to build a specialised AI assistant using instructions, uploaded knowledge files, and tool integrations — no coding required. Businesses use them to create internal knowledge bases, brand voice assistants, client onboarding guides, and customer-facing support tools.
Best for: Building AI-powered applications at scale
The Assistants API provides infrastructure to embed GPT-based AI into products and workflows — with persistent thread management, file storage, and integrated tools including code execution and web search. Used by development teams building customer-facing AI features that need memory and tool use.
Best for: Autonomous web task completion
Operator is an AI agent that browses the web, interacts with websites, and completes multi-step tasks autonomously — from filling forms to placing orders. It represents the leading edge of agentic AI and is useful for repetitive web-based workflows requiring minimal supervision.
Best for: Shared AI workspace for growing teams
ChatGPT Team provides a collaborative workspace with shared Custom GPTs, higher usage limits, and data privacy guarantees — conversations are excluded from model training. Best suited for teams of 2–149 who want a simple, managed AI environment without the complexity of enterprise procurement.
Best for: Enterprise-grade AI with security and control
ChatGPT Enterprise adds SSO, admin controls, usage analytics, unlimited GPT-4o access, and a 128K context window. SOC 2 Type II compliant with data isolation and no training on company conversations. The appropriate tier for regulated industries and organisations with strict data governance requirements.
IN PRACTICE
FINANCIAL SERVICES
An asset management firm receives 50+ analyst reports weekly. Research associates spend 40% of their day reading and summarising before material reaches portfolio managers.
A Custom GPT built on the firm's investment thesis and sector criteria reviews each incoming report, produces a structured one-page brief, and flags relevance to current positions. Research review time drops from two hours to 20 minutes per analyst per day.
MARKETING
A brand needs to produce 200+ creative assets per quarter across social, digital, and print formats in multiple markets. The creative team is at capacity with no budget for additional headcount.
A Custom GPT loaded with brand guidelines generates copy variations instantly. DALL-E 3 produces on-brand concept visuals for review. Campaign production time per brief reduces by 65%, enabling the team to run three times more campaigns without increasing headcount.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
Associates at a commercial law firm spend six to eight hours reviewing commercial agreements for risk before escalating to senior review — a significant cost for routine, standard-form contracts.
o3's step-by-step reasoning flags unusual clauses, missing protections, and jurisdiction-specific risks across standard agreements. First-pass review time drops to under 90 minutes. Senior partner escalations for routine contracts reduce significantly, freeing capacity for complex matters.
RETAIL
A 200-person customer service team supports 8,000 SKUs across a complex product range. Agents frequently escalate queries due to gaps in product knowledge, driving high handling times and re-contact rates.
A Custom GPT trained on product catalogues, returns policy, and FAQs resolves 60% of queries instantly. The Assistants API surfaces relevant information mid-conversation for remaining queries. Average handling time falls 40% and the escalation rate drops across all product categories.
EXPLORE MORE PLATFORMS
ANTHROPIC
The AI built for nuanced thinking, code, and design
Read the guideAI woven into the tools your organisation already uses
Read the guideMICROSOFT
AI built into the software your organisation already runs
Read the guidePERPLEXITY
Real-time research with sources you can verify
Read the guideBring practical AI learning to your team or your next offsite.