In the parlance of tech companies, I’m a “heavy user” of AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude.
How much do I use these tools?
Let’s put it this way: If ChatGPT goes down for a few hours, my productivity grinds to a halt and I end up standing around aimlessly in my backyard with a La Croix instead of getting anything meaningful done.
OpenAI is constantly tweaking the interface for ChatGPT. But a recent change is especially impactful. The company now requires users to select between “Chat” and “Work” when interacting with paid versions of the bot.
Choosing the wrong setting can derail a whole project—or at least deprive you of some of ChatGPT’s most powerful functions.
As a heavy (perhaps addicted) ChatGPT user, I can give you a breakdown of the differences between Chat and Work, and the best ways I’ve found to choose between them.
Chat is for information
ChatGPT’s Chat mode is designed for situations where you need information. Selecting it puts the bot into a conversational mode, optimizing it for tasks like research and brainstorming.
In Chat mode, the bot tends to be more collaborative and friendly. It’s there to work alongside you, or perhaps field your burning questions about whether phones are allowed during jury duty or whether a raccoon pooped in your garage (two actual questions I recently posed to Chat).
To that end, in Chat mode ChatGPT tends to point you to resources rather than doing things for you.
Ask about optimizing your T-Mobile bill, and it will point you to blog articles and current deals that might interest you. Ask a straightforward question (“Which dryer vent cleaning company should I use?”) and it will simply respond with the best answer.
Under the hood, Chat mode often uses slightly less powerful versions of OpenAI’s frontier models. That means Chat will often burn through your usage quotas more slowly than Work, and will likely respond faster to queries that don’t require tons of thought. No one wants to wait seven minutes for a response when asking a basic question.
One highly technical “tell” is the fact that ChatGPT embeds so-called UTM parameters in the outgoing links it shows in Chat mode. These invisible bits of tracking data help third-party websites see when they get a click from a user of the bot.
Their inclusion suggests that in Chat mode, OpenAI is expecting you to find something useful, and then click through and take action yourself.
Work is for getting things done
In contrast to Chat mode, Work mode in ChatGPT is for actually getting specific things done.
Switch to Work mode, and the bot becomes far more gruff and business-like, and a lot less friendly and pleasant to interact with. It also gets better at translating your requests into specific deliverables and end products.
Hand ChatGPT some data from your YouTube channel in Chat mode, and it will spitball with you about new video ideas.
Hand it the same data in Work mode, and it will make you a PDF report breaking down your top-performing videos, complete with official-looking graphs and no-nonsense titles such as “MONTHLY CONTENT PERFORMANCE AUDIT.”
Chat mode makes ChatGPT into an ideas person, throwing out great suggestions without actually doing much of anything. Work mode turns it into the quiet guy at your office who’s always deep in an Excel spreadsheet and never fails to deliver deliverables.
Again, enabling Work mode unlocks specific, under-the-hood changes. Work mode typically uses OpenAI’s most advanced models. It’s thus likely to use up your usage quota very quickly if you’re not careful. UTM parameters are generally missing, indicating that the bot doesn’t expect you to follow its work with work and research of your own.
In short, Work mode turns ChatGPT into what’s basically an agentic AI platform. In this mode, the bot generally thinks longer before delivering a response and has an easier time staying focused on the task at hand.
If you want ideas for new kinds of Kouign-amann to sell at your bakery (tried pistachio?), Chat mode is a better bet. But if you want to create a PO for flour—or get a jump on your estimated taxes—Work mode has you covered.
How I Choose
When I sit down to use ChatGPT, I first ask myself what I want to get out of my session.
Am I seeking information, like an answer to a specific question or a list of ideas? Or am I looking to get something tangible back—a table of data, a downloadable graphic, or a PDF report I can print out and read on the BART train?
If it’s the former, I select Chat. For the latter, I use Work.
I also select Chat if I want ChatGPT to be more personable and, well, chatty. For personal queries, it’s almost always the better choice.
Just as you wouldn’t turn to your tax lawyer for advice about puppy training, you probably shouldn’t ask Work mode for help solving personal problems.
Although it can be a drag to start each AI session by thinking about your intentions, pausing for a moment to choose the right ChatGPT mode can make your time with the bot far more useful and efficient. You’ll get a better result, and you’ll be less likely to needlessly burn through usage credits or waste time waiting for a too-detailed response.