You Can Now Customize ChatGPT’s ‘Personality’ to Suit Your Tastes Even More

When Spike Jonze’s film Her released in 2013, I found it to be a superb work of total fiction. Who would befriend, let alone fall in love with, an AI robot? 12 years later, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Not only do people love chatting with AI bots, but they also develop deep connections with them. I still don’t understand, but I can’t deny it: people really like these chatbots. plot.

Part of what people like about conversations with generative AI is each robot’s “personality” — or, at least, its perceived personality. After all, ChatGPT isn’t a monolith: you can tune the bot to sound very different from someone else’s app, which raises a few questions for me about these select companions. But I digress: this article is not necessarily a criticism of the way people relate to ChatGPT; I rather share the news that OpenAI now gives you more Control how the bot sounds and responds in your conversations.

Organize your ideal AI companion

On Friday, OpenAI announced new controls for “customization” of ChaGPT. In an article on X, the company revealed that users can now adjust the “characteristics” of their chatbot, or, in other words, its overall personality. These are adjustments to the personality types that OpenAI already lets you choose from, which include one of eight options: “Default” (preset style and tone); “Professional” (polite and precise); “Friendly” (warm and talkative); “Candide” (direct and encouraging); “Offbeat” (fun and imaginative); “Effective” (concise and clear); “Nerdy” (exploratory and enthusiastic); and “Cynical” (critical and sarcastic).

But no matter which personality you choose, you now have four “traits” to adjust to fine-tune the overall experience. There’s “Hot”, “Enthusiastic”, “Headers and Lists” and “Emoji”, with the possibility of having more or less, or the default quantity, as OpenAI sees fit. For Warm, you can either make ChatGPT more friendly and personable, or more professional and factual. With Enthusiastic, you can choose the bot that has more energy and excitement, or is calmer and more neutral. “Headers & Lists” lets you choose between clear formatting and lists, or multiple paragraphs. And, of course, you can control whether ChatGPT uses more or fewer emojis, depending on your sense of fun and joy.

As usual, you can take advantage of personalized instructions to guide ChatGPT’s personality in the direction you want, especially when the presets don’t give you these options. For example, if you want ChatGPT to talk to you like a hacker, or if you want it to end every response with a certain catchphrase, here’s your chance to influence the bot.

I’m really not someone who uses ChatGPT outside of testing coverage, so I can’t comment on whether these additional checks are useful. But if you want to try making your version of ChatGPT your ideal “AI companion,” the controls are at your disposal. You will find these options wherever you access ChatGPT. You can either access it from Settings > Personalizationor Personalization shortcut in the ChatGPT menu.