Ray Poynter, 3 April, 2025

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Next week I am running an online course of using Custom GPTs, using OpenAI’s platform, for insights and market research, check it out here.

To give you a better idea of the sorts of things you can use Custom GPTs for, here are six ideas to consider.

Project 1: Survey Generation GPT

Create survey questionnaires in your organisation’s preferred tone and structure. This Custom GPT will draft survey questions that follow your house style, ensuring consistency in wording, format, and flow. It helps you quickly generate surveys while maintaining a professional and brand-aligned voice.

Project 2: Discussion Guide GPT

Develop qualitative discussion guides tailored to your approach. This GPT will assist in writing interview or focus group guides that follow your preferred style – ensuring the flow of topics, tone of questions, and probing techniques match your qualitative research standards.

Project 3: Data Checking Assistant GPT

Ensure your data is clean and ready for analysis. This GPT will act as a data checking assistant, helping you to clean, validate, and format survey data before you analyse it. It will look for common issues (missing values, outliers, inconsistent responses) and suggest fixes, following your formatting preferences (including how numbers and percentages should be presented).

Project 4: Analysis Assistant GPT

Assist in analysing data and summarising findings in your preferred style. This GPT will take quantitative results and qualitative insights and produce summaries and interpretations consistent with your reporting style. It ensures that any figures are presented in the format you require (always including base n, using appropriate significant digits, etc.) and that the narrative follows the tone you use in reports.

Project 5: Reporting Assistant GPT

Generate report-ready content, such as slide text or written summaries, in line with your typical reporting style. This GPT will help turn analysis into polished deliverables – drafting the text for PowerPoint slides, creating an executive summary, or writing a detailed report section – all following your house style for reports. It ensures consistency in phrasing, formatting, and inclusion of necessary details (like sample sizes, etc.), making your reporting process faster.

Project 6: Client-Facing Insights GPT

Develop a Custom GPT that allows clients to interactively explore and query research findings, tailored to their specific interests. This GPT is an interactive deliverable, enabling clients to delve into data, uncover insights, and generate reports autonomously.

Beyond Creating Your Customer GPTs

Once you have created your Custom GPT there are several key steps to follow: before your publish:

1. Add prompt starters to suggest how it should be used.
2. Check that you have the correct additional settings, for example, web browsing and advanced data tools.
3. Test the GPT in Preview.

Once you have published your Custom GPT, you can continue to evolve it. For example, consider the Discussion Guide GPT in Project 2. Here are some ways you could develop and improve it.

• Incorporate Examples: As you conduct interviews or groups, you can refine how you ask questions. Add notes to the GPT’s instructions based on what worked well. For example, if a particular phrasing elicits better responses, include that as a model in the instructions (or add the entire question as an example probe).
• Expand Knowledge Base: Upload transcripts or summaries from past qualitative sessions. For example, an excerpt from a previous focus group could help it better understand the natural flow of conversation.
• Fine-Tune Tone: Your house style might evolve (perhaps becoming more informal over time). Continuously adjust the instructions to mirror any changes in how you address participants.
• Add Specific Probing Techniques: If you have preferred techniques (like projective techniques, laddering questions, etc.), instruct the GPT on when to use them. E.g., “If the topic is feelings or motivations, include a probing question like ‘How does that make you feel, and why?’”.
• Review and Update Regularly: After using the guide for a project, note any improvements. Did the guide flow well? Were any crucial questions missing? Update the Custom GPT with these learnings to improve the following guide.

Want to Learn More about Custom GPTs

I am running an online, in-person training session on Wednesday, 9 April, register by clicking here.