Want to use the most popular AI chatbot available? We’ll walk you through how to get started with ChatGPT and how to get the most out of it.
OpenAI unleashed an artificial intelligence (AI) revolution when the company launched ChatGPT for public use in late 2022. Since then, ChatGPT, a chatbot powered by OpenAI’s large language models (LLMs), has dominated headlines and preoccupied the minds of executives running Twitter, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta, inspiring them to create their own generative AI projects.
ChatGPT has many capabilities that you can use for free, so we’ll cover how you can access the AI chatbot to try these features yourself.
1. Go to ChatGPT.com
Start by going to ChatGPT.com. You no longer need to create an account on OpenAI’s website to log in and access ChatGPT, but you must create a free account to access GPT-4o, view past conversations, generate images, and upload files. You also need to log in to use ChatGPT Plus.
To create an account, click “Sign up” on the bottom left of the chat screen and follow the prompts to enter your information. OpenAI requires a valid phone number for verification to create an account on its website.
2. Learn how to use ChatGPT
Once you open ChatGPT, learn how to navigate the user interface. Here’s a breakdown of what you will see, with the image below as an example:
As you can see here, I’ve logged in to ChatGPT. This is the new UI launched by OpenAI.
3. Start writing your prompts and questions
Now that you know how to access ChatGPT, you can ask the chatbot any burning questions and see what answers you get — the possibilities are endless. The ChatGPT tool can be useful in your personal life and many work projects, from software development to writing to translations.
Type a ChatGPT prompt in the text bar at the bottom of the page, and click the submit button to pose your questions. The chatbot will then generate text to answer your query.
ChatGPT doesn’t work like a search engine. Instead, the chatbot responds with information based on the training data in GPT-4 or GPT-4o. The free version of ChatGPT uses GPT-4o mini and GPT-4o (when available), which is OpenAI’s smartest and fastest model.
