OpenAI Tipped to Add Skills Feature to ChatGPT, Could Be Available as Slash Commands

OpenAI could soon bring a new feature to ChatGPT that eliminates the need to add repeat instructions and prompts over and over. Last week, the San Francisco-based AI giant introduced Skills to Codex, its AI-powered coding agent for developers, which is accessible via a dedicated platform. Now, a tipster claims that the company might soon bring this feature to ChatGPT, alongside a Skills editor and an option to convert a custom GPT into a skill. This feature can save users valuable time.

OpenAI Could Bring Skills to ChatGPT

In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), Tibor Blaho, Lead Engineer at AIRPM, claimed that after Codex, OpenAI is planning to bring Skills to ChatGPT. Skills can be understood as custom instructions or prompts that users can access just by typing a few shortcut letters. This lets them access these specific instructions whenever they want, even if a new chat session has started.

For instance, if one uses ChatGPT for research and wants to make sure that the AI always remains grounded to the text or URLs being provided, they can create a shortcut for this instruction instead of typing it over and over. The same can be done to make the chatbot write responses in paragraphs, not use an em dash, or provide responses in a specific number of words.

OpenAI followed Anthropic's agentskills.io standard when integrating Skills in Codex. This allows users to activate the feature by tapping the forward slash key, followed by the shortcut they have created. This makes the process intuitive and easy to use. The same could be brought to ChatGPT as well.

Blaho also claimed that, alongside skills, OpenAI will add a Skills editor tool that can be used to revisit created skills and edit or update them. Additionally, another option could also be added that converts custom GPTs to Skills. GPTs are essentially mini chatbots where users add specific instructions to make them serve a specific purpose. For instance, a fiction-writing GPT will be good at writing fiction based on command prompts. However, there is one limitation with GPTs, that they only operate in a fixed chat. Skills eliminate that obstacle.

However, OpenAI has not officially announced the feature or confirmed its existence. We would recommend readers to take the abovementioned information with a pinch of salt until the company officially unveils or releases Skills in ChatGPT.