Exploring the potential of custom GPTs
How can staff build their own AI bots to simplify work? At a recent ‘Build-a-Bot’ event hosted by the AI and Machine Learning Competency Centre, colleagues worked together to discover how custom GPTs could make work and life easier for them.
On Thursday 6 March, the AI and Machine Learning Competency Centre hosted their first hackathon event – Build-a-Bot: Hands-on AI for All – in partnership with OpenAI. This event saw over 100 colleagues from across Oxford come together to experiment with building custom GPTs with ChatGPT Edu.
What are custom GPTs?
Custom GPTs are modified versions of ChatGPT that users can tailor for specific tasks or topics by combining instructions, knowledge, and capabilities. An example of this would be an FAQ-style chatbot – the creator would give the GPT a document of their FAQs and the chatbot could then be asked any of those questions and produce the answer, without the user having to scroll through a page of numerous questions.
“As a complete newbie on the AI/GPT front, I’m now a convert and eager to learn more and embrace this amazing resource.”
Working in teams of four, attendees created AI bots to assist with administration, research, or education. Throughout the day OpenAI representatives as well as the Competency Centre’s own expert team were on hand to help teams create GPTs which could solve problems and simplify their own work. Teams came up with a diverse range of ideas , including GPTs to proof and edit text in accordance with the University Style Guide, a GPT to help school students understand the requirements and expectations of an Oxford Physics degree before starting the application process, GPTs to help answer questions about University policies in a variety of different contexts, and a GPT to interrogate the UKRI funding website to identify grant opportunities in humanities. All these ideas aimed to replace or reduce hours' worth of manual work as well as even enable tasks which cannot be done now due to time constraints.
Some of the winning teams, rewarded with a year’s free licence to ChatGPT Edu and exclusive OpenAI merchandise, were able to create the following bots:
- Female Futurists with Digital Co-Supervisor (DCS AI) - This AI-powered tool streamlines research supervision meetings by automating progress reports, updating project timelines, and structuring action plans. It saves students and supervisors time by collating discussion logs, Teams meetings and student reflections, eliminating manual notetaking and summarisation. By improving documentation, communication, and project planning, it enhances collaboration while reducing administrative workload.
- ParentBot Pioneers with Global Parenting Initiative (GPI) Monitoring & Management Assistant - This GPT is a key part of the Global Parenting Initiative (GPI) Monitoring and Management System providing accurate, evidence-based responses using supplied documentation, helping to improve internal knowledge management, programme monitoring, and reporting.
- Rrrrrrrrmind with Rrrr_Mind - A Quant GPT assistant to explore large data frames, extract relevant variables, clean, merge, and suggest improvements and recommendations on analysis strategies.
- Team Oxon with Oxford Cultural Assistant - This assistant is knowledgeable about the different museums in Oxford and the list of items they own. It can curate a museum exhibition based on a specified theme including finding the appropriate items to exhibit and create a story around it.
“It was an incredibly enlightening experience. I appreciated the opportunity to expand my knowledge of ChatGPT and the broader applications of AI.”
Colleagues can start creating their own custom GPTs with an ChatGPT Edu license: purchase your own ChatGPT Edu licence and start exploring the potential of GPTs for yourself.
Similar Build-a-Bot events are being planned, look out from more information on the Competency Centre webpage.
