Greetings from the Omni La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, CA. Today is the official start of the OOH Media Conference, and I'm super-excited to do my keynote. There's so much AI news today that I may have to redo my deck.
In the news: OpenAI updated its blog post about ChatGPT's memory function: "Memory is now available to all ChatGPT Plus users except those in Europe or Korea." (They didn't say why they've excluded the EU and Korea.)
If you've ever spent time doing a long, complex task with ChatGPT, you know that there is a limit to what ChatGPT can recall inside of a context window. I wrote about this in February when the feature was first announced (see ChatGPT Remembers).
Now, ChatGPT will remember. For example, if you mention your daughter Alexis who likes pink butterflies, ChatGPT can later generate a birthday card for Alexis with those details.
You can store information in Memory two different ways: either by directly telling ChatGPT to remember certain facts (like coding language preferences) or having ChatGPT automatically pick up and remember relevant details from natural conversations. What’s nice is that the memorized information is persistent across conversations, and users have control over what is remembered and can view, edit, delete, and even turn off Memory. ChatGPT is designed to not store sensitive information without explicit consent.
Memory allows ChatGPT to act more like a digital assistant than a task-oriented chatbot. Potential uses include remembering formatting preferences, professional/personal context for better answers, and improved recommendations (like what books you’ve previously read). For enterprise customers, shared team memories could store preferences like company document styles.
Depending on your personal preferences, this feature may sit closer to "creepy" on the cool/creepy scale. The good news is that you can easily turn the feature on and off, and the memory management interface is simple and intuitive.
As always your thoughts and comments are both welcome and encouraged. Just reply to this email. -s
ABOUT SHELLY PALMER
Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500 companies with technology, media and marketing. Named LinkedIn’s “Top Voice in Technology,” he covers tech and business for Good Day New York, is a regular commentator on CNN and writes a popular daily business blog. He's a bestselling author, and the creator of the popular, free online course, Generative AI for Execs. Follow @shellypalmer or visit shellypalmer.com.
