How to use ChatGPT: a practical guide

Getting started

ChatGPT is an AI assistant made by OpenAI. You can use it in a web browser at chatgpt.com or through its official apps for phones and computers. There is a free version, which is fine for learning and for most everyday tasks, and paid plans with extra features. If you are just starting out, begin with the free version and see how you get on.

Once you have signed in, you will see a message box. That is really all there is to it: you type a message, press enter, and ChatGPT replies. Each conversation is saved in a list so you can come back to it. Starting a new chat for each new topic keeps things tidy and stops earlier conversations confusing later answers.

Your first few conversations

Resist the temptation to test it with trick questions. You will learn much more by giving it something genuinely useful to do. Some good first tries:

• “Explain what an ISA is as if I’ve never heard of one. Keep it short.”
• “Here’s an email from my landlord. Summarise what he’s asking me to do and by when.” (then paste it in, with any personal details removed)
• “I’ve got chicken thighs, rice, a tin of chickpeas and some spinach. Suggest three simple dinners.”
• “I need to write a polite note to a neighbour about their hedge. Draft something friendly, not passive-aggressive.”

How to write a good prompt

A “prompt” is just what you type. The most common reason people are underwhelmed by ChatGPT is that they give it very little to work with. Compare these two:

Weak: “Write a job advert.”

Better: “Write a job advert for a part-time assistant at a small independent bookshop in York. Twenty hours a week, weekends included. Friendly, down-to-earth tone. Under 200 words, with a short bullet list of duties.”

The second version tells ChatGPT who it is for, what the situation is, the tone, the length and the format. A handy checklist:

• Context: who you are and what the situation is.
• Task: exactly what you want it to do.
• Format: bullet points, a table, an email, a short paragraph.
• Tone and length: formal or casual, a sentence or a page.
• Examples: paste in something similar you like, if you have it.

Follow up: the step most people skip

Think of the first answer as a first draft. ChatGPT remembers what has been said earlier in the same conversation, so you can refine as you go: “shorter”, “more formal”, “turn that into a checklist”, “give me two alternatives”, “what have you assumed that might not be true?”. That last one is especially useful, because it prompts ChatGPT to point out its own weak spots.

Everyday things ChatGPT is genuinely good at

• Writing and rewriting: emails, letters, social posts, cover letters, speeches. It is particularly good at changing the tone of something you have already written.
• Summarising: long documents, terms and conditions, meeting notes, articles.
• Explaining: “explain like I’m new to this” works well for jargon, forms and concepts.
• Planning: trips, revision timetables, event checklists, weekly meal plans.
• Brainstorming: gift ideas, names, ways to approach a tricky conversation.
• Working with files: you can upload documents, spreadsheets and images and ask questions about them.

Checking answers

ChatGPT can be wrong while sounding completely sure of itself. People call this “hallucination”. It is most likely with specific facts, figures, quotations, recent events, references and anything niche. Some simple habits help:

• Ask it to show its sources, then open them and check they say what it claims.
• For health, legal, tax or money questions, use it to understand the topic and prepare questions, then check with an official source or a professional.
• If something matters, ask the same question in a fresh chat or a different assistant and compare.

Privacy: what not to type

Treat anything you type into an AI tool as something you would be comfortable sharing with a company. Avoid passwords, bank details, National Insurance numbers, medical details about other people, and confidential work information unless your employer has approved the tool. Look through the settings to see whether your conversations are used to improve the service and whether you can switch that off.

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok or Copilot?

They are all built on large language models (LLMs) and work in broadly similar ways, so the skills in this guide transfer between them. Each has strengths, and it is worth trying more than one once you are comfortable. If you use Microsoft 365 at work, Copilot may already be available to you; if you live in Google’s apps, Gemini fits in naturally. Claude is well regarded for writing and working with long documents, and Grok is built into X (formerly Twitter) and is also available as its own app. If you want to compare many models side by side, services such as OpenRouter give you access to lots of them from one account (see AI agents, OpenClaw and OpenRouter explained).

Learn it properly, with someone to ask

Reading about ChatGPT only gets you so far. The beginner course covers everything above live, on your own screen, with time for questions, and goes further into research, images, voice and safety. The first session is free. If you would rather go at your own pace one-to-one, have a look at private sessions.