Ever asked ChatGPT to change one thing in an image, only for something else to mysteriously change too? The background looks lovely, but your product now appears to have a new logo. Cheers for that. 😂 OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Images 2.5, with improvements aimed at making image creation and editing more useful for everyday work. Here's what stands out: • More precise edits, with better preservation of the details you want to keep. • Better consistency across several rounds of changes. • Sharper detail, more natural lighting and improved layouts. • Faster generation, with OpenAI reporting up to 50% lower latency compared with Images 2.0. There are also three handy additions: Sketch lets you draw a rough idea directly in ChatGPT, templates help you start with a format such as a poster, and prompt sharing lets other people adapt your creations. For business owners, I'd start with a small, real job: a promotional graphic, a product image or a thumbnail. Try uploading a product photo and asking: “Create a square social media graphic using this product photo. Keep the product, packaging and logo unchanged. Use a clean cream background, leave space at the top for a headline, and add the exact words: ‘Meet your new favourite’.” Then ask for one change: “Change only the background to pale blue. Keep everything else the same.” Check the logo, wording and product details yourself. That's a much better test than whether the first image looks impressive! OpenAI says Images 2.5 is rolling out across all ChatGPT tiers on web, mobile and desktop. Full announcement: https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-images-2-5/ What would you try first: product photos, thumbnails, social posts or something completely different?

Before you buy another tool because a LinkedIn post made it look magical, give ChatGPT a proper research job. Pick the problem you need to solve, then give it your current process, the must-have features, budget range, and the three or four tools you are considering. Ask for a decision pack, not a verdict. For each option, have it show what it can do, what it cannot do, the likely setup effort, pricing source, integrations you actually need, and the questions you should ask before paying. Crucially, ask it to link every claim to its source and mark anything it could not verify. You could finish with: "Create a one-page decision pack with a comparison table, the gaps against our requirements, questions for each supplier, and a short recommendation only where the evidence supports it. Do not invent pricing, features or integrations." That gives you something far more useful than a pile of tabs and a vague feeling that one of them probably looked good. What purchase decision would you most like to make with a bit less tab chaos?

Alright, we've got a new ChatGPT model to play with. It's called GPT-6 Astra. I know, another model name to remember! But this one does look like a pretty big step forward. The interesting bit isn't all the benchmark scores. It's that Astra is meant to be much better at actually getting on with a job, rather than just telling you how to do it. OpenAI says it can handle multi-step tasks across browsers and everyday business tools. That includes online research, filling in forms, updating records, organising a calendar, and creating documents, spreadsheets, presentations and websites. What it can do will depend on which ChatGPT tools you have access to, of course. It should also be better at knowing when to make a sensible assumption and when it genuinely needs to ask you something. Hopefully that means less babysitting, without it charging off like an unsupervised intern with admin access. One important thing to know is that ordinary ChatGPT customers can't use it just yet. Right now, access is limited to approved organisations that apply for it. OpenAI says Astra should start rolling out to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise users over the next few days. So don't waste half an hour hunting through your settings or repeatedly refreshing the model picker. It isn't hiding from you. We just need to wait for the wider rollout. When it arrives, let's give it something more interesting than a trivia question. Give it a real job, the information it needs, and a clear idea of what "done" looks like. Then come back and tell us how it got on. What are you going to try first? Official announcement: https://openai.com/index/gpt-6-astra/

Most people already know ChatGPT can answer a question. ChatGPT Work gets more interesting when you give it a proper business job with a finished outcome. Try an offer-gap audit. Give it your main sales page, a few recent sales-call notes, and customer emails. Then ask it to compare what you say with what people actually ask, hesitate over, or value. "Create an offer-gap report. Show where our website message matches the customer evidence, where it is vague or missing, and where a claim needs proof. Quote the source behind each finding. Finish with a ranked page-change backlog, with the likely customer question each change should answer. Flag anything uncertain rather than filling gaps with guesses." That is not a clever prompt for the sake of it. It is a piece of work you can hand to whoever owns the page, the sales process, or the next campaign. The useful bit is the traceability: every suggested change should point back to something a customer actually said or did. Run it once a month, make the two most important changes, then compare the next report. That is how ChatGPT starts helping with the work around the work, not just producing another answer. Which recurring business job would you most like ChatGPT Work to take ownership of?

Custom Instructions and GPTs can both save you from repeating yourself, but they solve different problems. Use Custom Instructions for the rules you want in most chats. Your usual tone, your audience, British spelling, how concise you like answers, and a reminder not to invent facts are all good examples. Keep this short and stable. If it changes every week, it probably does not belong there. Use a custom GPT when you have one repeatable job with its own instructions, examples or reference files. Think of a proposal helper, a content brief checker, or a meeting-notes organiser. It gives that job its own little workspace, so your everyday chats do not become a filing cabinet with no labels. A simple rule: start with Custom Instructions if you want better answers across the board. Build a GPT when you keep doing the same specific task and want a reusable starting point. Before creating anything, write down the job in one sentence and test it in a normal chat twice. If the same instructions keep coming back, that is your cue to turn it into a GPT. Which repeat task would you most like to stop explaining from scratch?