OpenAI gives ChatGPT a long-term memory

AI and tools like ChatGPT are changing the way that many people work and do business. And now an update from OpenAI, the name behind ChatGPT, means that the powerful AI tool will now have a longer memory. This new long-term memory delivers the capability to remember facts from previous conversations, which could be a positive for chatbots and other tools that make use of AI technology. Along with this new ability for ChatGPT to remember things is also the option to tell it to forget anything you no longer want it to recall.

OpenAI recently began rolling out this new feature for a selection of free and paid ChatGPT users. It will eventually be rolled out to more users at some point in the future. The new memory controls give the user the option of telling ChatGPT to remember something or of turning off its memory. It's also possible to test what it remembers.

A blog post from OpenAI explains that: “ChatGPT can now carry what it learns between chats, allowing it to provide more relevant responses … As you chat with ChatGPT, you can ask it to remember something specific or let it pick up details itself. ChatGPT’s memory will get better the more you use it and you’ll start to notice the improvements over time.”

The key update and benefit here is that ChatGPT is able to carry knowledge between chats if you want it to. This provides a number of benefits for businesses that want to make full use of AI to save time and money. It could be used to remember things like tone of voice and formatting preferences so that they can be consistently applied to various materials and conversations. ChatGPT Enterprise and Team subscribers could have the benefit of better collaboration. Shared team memories could include important information such as document formatting or programming frameworks.

OpenAI also powers GPTs, custom chatbots that will have their own memories. However, the things that GPTs remember aren't shared with ChatGPT and neither is ChatGPT's memory shared with GPTs. GPTs are developed by both OpenAI partners and the wider web development community. The GPT Store is available to users who have a premium ChatGPT plan.

GPTs with memories can deliver a number of advantages to businesses, especially when it comes to customer service and customer relationship management. If a chatbot can remember details about a specific customer and their preferences, it can deliver more personalised customer service. Additionally, it will be able to provide them with more useful and accurate information based on what they have said before. Perhaps a customer is looking for recommendations for video games. The chatbot could remember that they have previously said they do not like first-person shooters but they do like sandbox games. It could remember this information and recommend games fitting these parameters without the customer having to restate their preferences every time they want advice.

Both ChatGPT and GPTs have the option to turn off their memory feature. This can be done from the settings menu, where there is also an option to view and delete specific memories or delete all memories. Memory from a chat has to be deleted separately from the chat itself. Control over memory can give businesses more say in how they store information from their customers or others they interact with, as well as what ChatGPTs or GPTs remember about the business itself.

When it comes to privacy concerns, OpenAI has acknowledged that it could be an issue. They say that although they may use memories to improve their models, they will offer an opt-out option for users and business customers. They also say that they are moving ChatGPT away from automatically remembering sensitive information and instead requiring the user to ask for this to happen. A Temporary Chat is also being rolled out, which allows users to have a conversation with ChatGPT without the use of memory or knowledge of previous conversations. However, this tool will still allow users to give ChatGPT custom instructions to follow. These conversations could be kept for up to 30 days for safety reasons, according to OpenAI.

Giving ChatGPT and GPTs a longer memory can open up a number of exciting possibilities. Integrating a chatbot into your website could soon enable your business to deliver even more personalised customer service. Customer relationship management could be improved with a new way to cater to customer needs. However, it's important to remember that privacy is a concern that needs to be carefully considered.