Welcome to Day 4 of our AI Writing Workflow series. We've covered a lot of ground, but today we're taking it to a whole new level. We're going to build a digital clone of you.

And it definitely won’t murder you and take your place. Promise!

Let’s get started

Building Your Digital Clone: Custom GPTs and Chatbots

Why Build a Digital Clone?

Here's the deal: the methods we've discussed so far work well, but they have a limitation. Each time you start a new project, you need to load up your writing samples. It's a bit of a faff, right?

Don’t know about you but I’m lazy. That’s why I’m into AI. Lazy!

What we really want is a "container" that holds everything permanently. A digital version of you that's always ready to go. That's where custom GPTs and chatbots come in.

Creating a Custom GPTin ChatGPT

Let's start with the simplest option: creating a custom GPT in ChatGPT. Here's a quick step-by-step:

1. Go to ChatGPT and click on "Explore" in the left sidebar.

2. Click on "Create a GPT" at the top of the page.

3. Give your GPT a name and description.

4. In the "Configure" tab, upload your writing samples and style guide.

5. In the "Instructions" section, paste in your custom instructions (more on this later).

6. Test your GPT and refine as needed.

The main limitation here is the context length. Custom GPTs currently have a context window of about 32k tokens (which is roughly 32,000 words in English). It's a lot, but it might not be enough for all your content.

I’ve been writing this newsletter for a year now, 5 main issues a week, each at 1000-1500 words. We’re talking a ¼ million words (I’m coming for you Bible! The Bible has ¾ of a million words for reference!).

Obviously a 32,000 word limit just ain’t going to cut it there! But depending on the size of your writing sample a Custom GPT (using ChatGPT) may or may not be viable. It’s certainly the easiest and fastest to deploy though!

Building Your Own Chatbot

If you want more flexibility and a larger context window, you might want to set up your own chatbot. You can do this from scratch, but that's complex and would take a whole Playbook to cover (takes out battered, abused notebook and writes this down for the future…).

Instead, consider using off-the-shelf tools like Launch Lemonade.

Launch Lemonade (no affiliation, just a solid tool and Cien the founder is lovely) offers some key advantages:

1. Ability to upload a LOT more data

2. Can scrape your website - perfect if you have lots of blog articles and don’t want to copy/paste them all into a Word document

3. Multimodal - can use Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT so we can choose the model we subjectively believe matches our tone of voice.

The setup process is similar to creating a custom GPT, but with way more options for data input and model selection. You’ll end up with a higher quality tool for sure.

Custom Instructions for Your Digital Clone

Whether you're using a custom GPT or your own chatbot, you need to give it instructions on how to use your content. Here's a prompt to help you generate those instructions:

You are an AI assistant specialised in creating instructions for custom AI models and chatbots. Your task is to help the user create detailed instructions for their digital clone (custom GPT or chatbot) that will guide it in using the user's writing style and knowledge base effectively. Follow these steps:

1. Ask the user to provide the following information:
   a. A brief description of their writing style and tone
   b. The types of content they typically create (e.g., blog posts, social media, emails)
   c. Any specific phrases or expressions they frequently use
   d. Topics they often write about
   e. Their target audience

2. Based on the provided information, create a set of instructions that includes:

   a. Style and Tone Guidelines:
      - Describe the overall writing style (e.g., casual, professional, humorous)
      - Specify sentence length preferences and structure
      - Outline vocabulary usage (e.g., complex terms, industry jargon, colloquialisms)

   b. Content Structure:
      - Describe typical content formats and structures
      - Specify how to approach introductions and conclusions
      - Outline any recurring sections or elements in their content

   c. Topic Handling:
      - Provide guidelines on how to approach the user's typical topics
      - Specify any angles or perspectives the user often takes on these topics

   d. Audience Engagement:
      - Describe how to address and engage the target audience
      - Specify any particular ways the user interacts with their audience

   e. Unique Elements:
      - List any catchphrases, signature sign-offs, or recurring jokes to incorporate
      - Describe any unique formatting or stylistic elements

   f. Do's and Don'ts:
      - Provide a list of things the digital clone should always do
      - Provide a list of things the digital clone should never do

3. Create a section on how to use the knowledge base:
   - Instruct the digital clone to draw information and examples from the uploaded content
   - Specify how to blend this knowledge with new information or topics

4. Include instructions for different content types:
   - Provide specific guidelines for each type of content the user typically creates

5. Add a section on maintaining consistency:
   - Instruct the digital clone on how to maintain a consistent voice across different pieces of content

6. Include a reminder about collaboration:
   - Instruct the digital clone to ask for clarification or additional input when needed
   - Emphasize the importance of following the user's lead in co-writing scenarios

Present these instructions in a clear, structured format that can be easily copied and pasted into a custom GPT or chatbot configuration. Encourage the user to review and refine these instructions based on their specific needs and preferences.

This prompt will help you create custom instructions that tell your digital clone how to use your knowledge base for tone of voice, and how to approach different writing tasks.

Also don’t forget to upload your writing samples! It needs raw material.

Once you have your digital clone set up you can ask it to write in your style on any topic, and it will draw from your uploaded content and follow your custom instructions.

Remember, though, that even a digital clone needs guidance. Use the co-writing process we discussed yesterday for best results.

Tomorrow, we're wrapping up this series with something a wee bit epic: creating an automated content workflow. We're talking about a system that can generate endless content ideas and even produce drafts - all in your unique style.

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Keep prompting

Kyle