AI Marketing tools: ChatGPT v OpenAI Playground

You probably use Chat GPT, Bard or many other generative AI applications on a regular basis already.  But have you heard of the OpenAI Playground?  The OpenAI Playground is an online platform provided by OpenAI that allows users to interact with and test OpenAI models, particularly the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) models without being a developer and without needing to write Python.  

ChatGPT is essentially a clever chatbot.  Its interface is akin to using a search engine and so it is familiar and easy to use. The OpenAI interface is more complex, but not as complex as the developer API interface where you would need to know Python to use it.  

As a marketer, you can steer a conversation with ChatGPT towards a desired length, format, style, level of detail, and language; creating content, code, and in the latest version of ChatGPT 4.0, images too.  The OpenAI Playground and ChatGPT chatbot serve different purposes.  It’s not necessarily about one being better than the other, but rather about what you are trying to achieve.  

Why then, you might ask, would a marketer be interested in the OpenAI Playground?  Well, the OpenAI Playground can take you from being a causal user of gen AI models, into a super-user and it is a useful AI marketing tool if you want to take your AI marketing to the next level and experiment.  

Why would a Marketer want to use the OpenAI Playground rather than ChatGPT?

The OpenAI Playground and ChatGPT essentially offer similar underlying capabilities as they both leverage the GPT Large Language Models. That’s where the similarity ends and the decision to use one over the other depends on the objectives of the marketer.  

A marketer would use the OpenAI Playground rather than ChatGPT when they need more control over the prompts and responses when they want to use the output beyond the ChatGPT interface and when they want to analyse the conversation logs.  ChatGPT does not offer the same level of control over prompts and responses. As a result, it can be more difficult to get the desired results from ChatGPT.  With ChatGPT, you are also restricted to the interface.  

With the OpenAI playground, you can build this Generative AI technology into your own interfaces such as websites and apps as the playground allows you to export your creations in code or access them via the API.  The OpenAI Playground is therefore a halfway house if you don’t want to use Python to code from scratch in the API interface.

The OpenAI Playground provides a number of features that allow marketers to fine-tune their prompts and responses, such as:

• The ability to adjust the temperature of the model. This controls how creative and original the responses are.
• The ability to specify the length of the response.
• Providing feedback on the responses, which helps the model learn and improve, is available.
• Collaborating with others on prompts and responses is an option.
• Outputting as code for use elsewhere is a feature.

For this reason, the OpenAI Playground comes into its own beyond the general creation of cut-and-paste copy for content which is probably the marketers’ biggest use case at present when using ChatGPT.  It gives marketers more of the following:

1. Experimentation: Users can experiment with various prompts to see how the model generates text in response to different inputs.
2. Model Selection: The Playground typically supports multiple OpenAI models, and users can choose which model they want to interact with.
3. API Testing: It provides a way to test and use API calls to OpenAI models, providing the ability to explore the capabilities of the models.
4. Prototyping: It can be used to prototype applications and test how the models perform in specific scenarios.

Without some form of programming skills such as Python, you will not get very far with the OpenAI API, but with the OpenAI Playground, you can go beyond the outputs you could in effect create in ChatGPT, without the need for such skills.  However, the OpenAI Platform has another trick up its sleeve, Assistants mode.

OpenAI Playground Features you’ll want to use

The Open AI Playground has four modes.  Each mode caters to a different scenario.

OpenAI Playground Assistants Mode

Assistants Mode can help you create new assistants that you can prototype and perfect before putting them into use.  Assistants mode allows you to explore the capabilities of the Assistants API and learn how to build your own Assistant without writing any code which you can then build into your own applications or websites.

An Assistant has instructions and can leverage models, tools, and knowledge to respond to user queries. In more complex models, you can also refine your models with Functions (pre-defined functions you can call on), Code Interpreter (Implements pre-written coded instructions) and Retrieval (pull in additional data).

From productivity tools to enhanced creativity, and improved customer service assistants, what you can do with assistants mode is only really restricted by the value you want to create. Marketers can for example use Assistants mode to automate marketing tasks, such as sending email newsletters, scheduling social media posts, and generating personalised product recommendations. Typically things you could not do in ChatGPT.

What are the Appropriate Use Cases for Each Platform?

1. OpenAI Playground:

• The OpenAI Playground is a web-based interface that allows users to experiment with various OpenAI models in a controlled environment.
• It’s great for developers, marketers, and enthusiasts who want to test the capabilities of different OpenAI models, explore their responses to different prompts, and understand how the models generate text.
• With a little bit of technical expertise, the marketer can also incorporate additional data sources or other pre-defined functions.
• The Playground provides a sandboxed environment for testing API calls, making it useful if you want to prototype applications, experiment with different prompts, and see the model’s responses in real-time.
• Users can interact with the model in a more interactive and exploratory manner compared to just receiving text-based responses. It’s a tool for experimenting with the models and understanding their behaviour.
• Always check to see if your application already exists. There are a pleather of AI marketing tools coming to market each week that have in effect built an application layer on top of the LLMs so that you don’t have to.

2. ChatGPT:

• ChatGPT, on the other hand, is a text-based interface. It’s designed for natural language conversation, although it can also be integrated into various applications and services using the ChatGPT API.
• ChatGPT is suitable for building conversational interfaces that work on the LLM data only. Use this to create interactive and dynamic conversations to create output within the ChatGPT interface.  
• While it doesn’t offer the same level of interactivity and experimentation as the Playground, ChatGPT is more suitable for real-world applications where users simply require an AI interaction through text-based conversations.

Here are some specific examples of when a marketer might use OpenAI Playground rather than ChatGPT:

• For generating creative content: OpenAI Playground’s ability to adjust the temperature of the model makes it ideal for generating creative content, such as blog posts, social media posts, and ad copy.
• When personalising marketing messages: OpenAI Playground’s ability to provide feedback on the responses can be used to personalise marketing messages based on individual customer data which can be added in as reference data.
• To automate marketing tasks: OpenAI Playground’s ability to collaborate with others on prompts and responses can be used to automate marketing tasks, such as generating email newsletters and scheduling social media posts.
• Improving customer service: OpenAI Playground’s ability to fine-tune the prompts and responses can be used to develop chatbots and other AI-powered tools that can answer customer questions and resolve issues quickly and efficiently.  The Retrieval function is key to this use case.

Overall, OpenAI Playground is a more powerful and flexible tool than ChatGPT. However, it is also more complex and less user-friendly to use. Marketers who need more control over the prompts and responses should choose OpenAI Playground. Marketers who need a simpler and more user-friendly tool should choose ChatGPT.

How to Experiment with the OpenAI Playground

Areas that marketers might want to experiment with the OpenAI Playground to create value or competitive advantage include:

1. Interactive Content:

• For interactive marketing campaigns, marketers can experiment with creating dynamic and engaging interactions. The Playground allows for back-and-forth conversations, enabling the development of interactive chatbots or conversational interfaces for marketing purposes.

2. User Engagement Strategies:

• Marketers can explore conversational strategies to enhance user engagement. By simulating dialogues with potential customers, they can identify effective ways to communicate product benefits, address concerns, and guide users through the marketing funnel.

3. Personalisation:

• The model can assist in crafting personalised messages based on user input. Marketers can experiment with personalisation techniques to create more targeted and relevant communication with their audience.

4. Prototyping Marketing Chatbots:

• If marketers are considering implementing a chatbot for customer support or engagement, they can use the Playground to prototype and refine the chatbot’s responses. This can help in creating a more effective and user-friendly chatbot experience.

In summary, the OpenAI Playground is useful for experimenting, understanding model behaviour, and prototyping, whereas ChatGPT is designed for integrating conversational AI capabilities into applications and services, based purely on the LLM, for end-users to engage in dynamic conversations. The choice between the two depends on your specific use case and whether you need a playground environment and additional data sources or functions for experimentation or a conversational interface for real-time interactions.

Want to try the API without writing any code? Start experimenting in the Playground now.

Additional Resources:

• OpenAI Cookbook: https://cookbook.openai.com/ – for in-depth example API use-cases, as well as code snippets for common tasks
• Check out OpenAI’s library of prompts if you are wondering what OpenAI’s models are capable of: https://platform.openai.com/examples
• For more AI Marketing Tools, see A Beginner Guide to AI Marketing Tools