Custom GPTs: Why Constant Updating Is Essential for Relevance ...
Over the past few weeks, I've been immersed in the necessary but time-consuming task of updating my Custom GPTs—AI tools I designed using OpenAI’s GPT Builder platform. Some are private, tailored to my work as a lawyer, educator, and writer. Others are freely available to the public. You can find them through the OpenAI GPT Store search or directly from links in this post.
To use any Custom GPT, you need to be logged into ChatGPT—either a free or paid account. If you’re new to ChatGPT, you can create an account here. To see a collection of ten web pages describing all of my Custom GPTs in greater detail than provided in this short article, go here to Losey.ai and use the pull-down menus for GPTs at the top of the page.
Why Most Custom GPTs Are Junk
Let’s get something out of the way: most of the GPTs in the public store are half-baked. They’re built once and abandoned—often created by hobbyists experimenting for a few hours and never returning. Some of these models still rack up user numbers because of good promotion—or sheer novelty—but they haven’t been updated in months. Others were never built properly to begin with.
The Myth of “Set It and Forget It”
We are in a period of hyper-acceleration. OpenAI alone has released or iterated on multiple versions this year—GPT-4.5, GPT-4 Turbo, and GPT-4o (Omni), GPT-1o mini—each with subtle, undocumented behavioral changes. We expect another new model, GPT-1.5, to be released soon.
Many internal updates to these existing versions roll out silently. That has been especially true lately on Omni and GPT-4 Turbo. All Custom GPTs currently run on 4-Turbo but that will change soon. When using an OpenAI model a small alert will just appear in the top corner of your screen telling you to refresh your session because there has been an update. That’s it. And yet those quiet backend tweaks can significantly affect how your Custom GPT performs, especially if your instructions were tightly engineered or dependent on specific behaviors.
I sign into ChatGPT daily. I test my Custom GPTs regularly. I rebuild their workflows when needed. Yes, I also use Google’s Gemini AIs occasionally—but for my GPTs, OpenAI is the foundation. I will now have to spend more time than ever before updating my Custom GPTs but it is worth it because they are becoming ever more powerful. Some are becoming truly incredible in what they can do.
RAG, Instructions, and “Behavioral Fine-Tuning”
Let’s clear up a common misconception. Custom GPTs do not support traditional fine-tuning—that is, retraining the model’s parameters on your own data, although it does seem like that.
You can fine-tune behavior using two powerful tools:
More on Private Instructions. Every Custom GPT includes a set of private instructions, also known as system instructions. These are hidden from users during normal interaction, but they are what truly define the GPT’s behavior. Think of them as the GPT’s operating system settings. This is where you tell the Custom GPT model you are designing:
If you want your GPT to behave like a no-nonsense lawyer who writes in IRAC format (issue, rule, application, conclusion) with embedded case citations—this is where you program that. If you want a whimsical illustrator who gives art critiques in the voice of Salvador Dalí, it starts here too.
These instructions are far more influential than people realize. They don’t just tweak tone—they shape how the GPT thinks about your question, what it notices first, and what it treats as noise.
The best instructions are goal-directed, specific, and tested in real conversation. And they need to be updated often to adapt to OpenAI’s shifting model behavior. What worked in GPT-4.0 may produce different results in GPT-4o—even with the same prompt.
More on Custom Knowledge. Custom GPTs also allow you to upload files or curated content—what OpenAI calls custom knowledge. This is where the real power of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) comes in. Think of RAG like giving your GPT a secure, searchable private library.
When you upload documents—case law, policies, workflows, datasets, FAQs, blog articles, even transcripts—the GPT doesn’t memorize them. Instead, it indexes them and retrieves relevant passages in real time when responding to a user’s prompt.
Combined, these two-Special Instructions and RAG-let you create a GPT that’s smarter than the base model. But here’s the catch: You have to keep updating both.
Why Professionals Should Build Custom GPTs
If you’re a lawyer, educator, consultant, or content creator, this is your edge. A well-crafted Custom GPT can:
In my work, these GPTs save me hours every week. I use them for legal analysis, writing, prompt testing, teaching CLEs and other public speaking, especially to local seniors. See one of my favorite Custom GPTs, AI Speaks to Seniors, a gentle, voice-enabled AI guide designed especially for adults aged 60 years and up. It was built using recent scientific studies that I update regularly.
Some of My Custom GPTs
Some of these are private. Others are public and free to try:
Visual Muse: My Creative Partner
My most-used and popular custom GPT is Visual Muse: illustrating concepts with style. I use it nearly every day. So do my friends at EDRM. Almost all of the images on my blogs in the past few years were generated using Visual Muse. You can try it yourself on the OpenAI GPT Store.
I love generating images with AI. It is a very relaxing process and helps inspire many of the ideas in the text. The images start by illustrating the text but then often go on to inspire me to revise the text in surprising ways. The images usually delight me with unexpected perspectives that inspire new ideas. It is a new kind of positive feedback loop.
With Visual Muse, you simply describe what you want to illustrate and pick a style. The Muse responds by suggesting six artistic styles—distinct, imaginative, and often unexpected—that can be used individually or blended together. You can also bypass the suggestions and name your preferred art style directly, or request imagery in the tradition of a particular artist, genre, or movement. As mentioned the above image used a style the Muse suggested called Expressionist Horror.
Take a look at this same image of an artist painting and looking back in three different styles, Steam Punk, Picasso-Cubist, and Soft Watercolor.
Any prompt asking for an image will summon the Visual Muse to create. Then, like any good collaborator, she’s ready to iterate—refining the image, remixing the style, or shifting the mood—until it’s just right.
A big challenge right now for all Custom GPTs for image generation is a pending major upgrade by OpenAI. The new, significantly improved graphic capabilities in GPT4o (omni) will phase out and replace DALL-E 3. I have been busy upgrading Visual Muse so that it will use Omni just as soon as it is available to individual users. Open AI is in the process of rolling it out now based on level of paid subscription and their own server capacities.
Yes, these are some of my favorite prompts to use with Visual Muse. For details and examples on what happens when you use each of these prompts see the website that I just updated on Losey.ai, Visual Muse: illustrating concepts with style. It includes a history of OpenAI’s ever evolving image generation models.
Coming Soon: Omni and Multimodal Upgrades
OpenAI is now rolling out GPT-4o (Omni), its most advanced model. Omni is natively multimodal—understanding text, image, and audio together in real time. Visual Muse is being retooled to integrate Omni’s visual brainpower. The artwork it can create is more expressive, detailed, and emotionally resonant. Soon, prompts like: “Create an image of a Swedish Vallhund floating in zero gravity” will create images like these created today on 4o Omni.
Conclusion
Building a Custom GPT is just the beginning. The real value emerges over time—through testing, revision, feedback, and iteration. Updating isn’t optional, it’s essential. OpenAI’s models evolve. Instructions need tuning. Knowledge expands. Your own workflows and goals change. If your GPTs don’t grow alongside you, they won’t serve you for long. But that’s not a burden, it’s an opportunity. You’re not just building software. You’re designing the most advanced thinking tool even known to Mankind. It can evolve to mirror your expertise, anticipate your needs, and collaborate with you on everything from strategy to storytelling. Done right, a Custom GPT becomes more than a time-saver. It becomes a partner.
