OpenAI released this the same time we were teaching ChatGPT
Earlier this month we were teaching our ChatGPT refresher to the AI Finance Club.
One hour before the class started, OpenAI released three new models (Luna, Terra and Sol).
An hour and a half later, ChatGPT released ‘ChatGPT Work’. And it’s the closest competitor to Claude Cowork I’ve seen.
Is it better than Claude? Today I will help you decide.
So, straight away. 2 things.
- What ‘ChatGPT Work’. is, and how your finance team uses it this week.
- The refresher basics that even daily ChatGPT users didn’t know.
1. ChatGPT Work
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Earlier this month (9th July), the same day as our class, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Work.
Imagine ChatGPT, but instead of answering your question and waiting for you to prompt again, it takes your brief, disappears for a few minutes, and comes back with the actual thing. Not a wall of text. The reconciled spreadsheet, or the board deck, or the finished variance memo.
OpenAI's own example is a finance one: a team cutting month-end close from days down to hours, reconciling variance across systems and building a live dashboard on top.
Two methods that will make you much better at briefing ChatGPT Work.
- Creating SOPs
- Creating checklists
Inside my company, my team writes an SOP for basically every internal process we run. And before anything goes out the door, it goes through a checklist.
You can use the same two concepts with ChatGPT Work. The SOP gives it the context (how this task gets done in your business). The checklist becomes the quality check, right before anything is completed.
Do that, and ChatGPT stops guessing at what "good" means for you. It works toward an outcome that's grounded in your business.
How to get started:
1. Find the mode switch
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ChatGPT now has two tabs sitting side by side, Chat and Work. Doesn't matter if you're on chatgpt.com in the browser or in the desktop app, macOS and Windows both, the switch is right there at the top. Click Work.
2. Set up a Project, and put your SOP and checklist inside it.
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A Project is a dedicated workspace for one type of work, and anything you drop in becomes background context for everything you run inside it. Create one for this task, add your SOP and your checklist as files, and Work has both open in the background every time, the SOP for how this gets done here, the checklist for what "good" looks like, without you re-pasting anything.
3. Connect only the apps this task needs.
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Open the Plugins directory inside Work and connect just those tools, Google Drive, SharePoint, Slack, Gmail, Salesforce, dozens more are there. You'll see and approve the exact permissions for each one before it can use anything.
4. Describe the outcome, not the steps.
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Now that the Project already has your SOP and your checklist, this can be short. Something like "Compare this quarter's pipeline against last week's forecast, summarize the risks and assumptions, then draft a one-page update for the finance-update Slack channel."
5. Review the plan, then approve
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Work shows you its intended steps before it starts. Read them the way a pilot reads a pre-flight checklist, out loud if that helps you catch something. Then it pauses again before it actually sends a message, posts to Slack, creates a document, or edits a spreadsheet. Nothing leaves the chat until you approve.
6. Check the output & refine
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You might have your own checklist for this. Think of it like quality control. And if there’s anything that doesn’t look right, you can chat like you would normally until you get the output you want. Then ask ChatGPT how to make sure when you run the task the next time that it produces the exact output you want.
This isn't theory. Better.com already plugged its mortgage underwriting platform into ChatGPT Enterprise, so loan officers can underwrite against guidelines from more than 45 investors, JPMorgan and Fannie Mae included, straight inside the chat. And OpenAI says close to their entire company, finance included, now runs on Work day to day. Crazy, right?
OpenAI are a bit late releasing this. Claude Cowork and Copilot Cowork already run the same way, by reading your files, doing the multi-step task, and handing back a finished deliverable.
A couple of things super important to know:
- Claude's version (Cowork) is only available via the Desktop app and can also read local folders.
- Microsoft Copilot Cowork is cloud-only, using things like OneDrive and SharePoint.
- ChatGPT Work, like Microsoft, is cloud only using the same connector database you could use previously, plus there is now plugins:
Connectors vs Plugins
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Connectors: OpenAI-maintained data bridges, built using MCP (Model Context Protocol) that index external sources like Google Drive, Gmail, SharePoint, Notion, Slack, and GitHub so ChatGPT can reference your applications directly.
Plugins & Apps: Bundled workflow packages that combine custom skills and app integrations, letting ChatGPT perform actions inside tools like Canva, Slack, or Jira.
2. ChatGPT Refresher
Part two, because the model underneath Work is still just ChatGPT, and most finance pros are using maybe half of it. Here are our tips.
- Which model to pick: New family: Sol, Terra, Luna. Basically OpenAI’s version of Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku. Use Terra or Luna for anything quick, well-defined, on clean data. Use Sol when you have a super tough task to work through. When in doubt, open two tabs, run the same prompt in both, compare.
- The plus sign: Web search, for anything happening right now. Deep research, for an actual report, not a summary, this is the one to use when comparing a few competitors. And image generation is finally good: on this one, ChatGPT beats Claude and Gemini. One change worth knowing: if you're looking for "Canvas" and can't find it, that's because it got discontinued.
- Use AI to build the prompt: Christian's trick, he calls it Prompting², is as simple as it sounds: screenshot the task, upload the dataset, and ask ChatGPT one question, "what is the best prompt for this?" That's how he got the full CFO dashboard prompt, KPI cards, actual vs. budget, scenario sliders, dark mode, in one shot, then had a working dashboard three minutes later.
- Excel and PowerPoint, not the web app. If your data already lives in Excel, use ChatGPT for Excel directly instead of using the browser. The charts it builds inside PowerPoint are native PowerPoint and Excel charts, not pasted images, so if one number is wrong, you fix the data and the chart updates itself.
- Custom GPTs: Start from a chat in your history that took several tries and that you'll need again next month. Once it's right, ask: "give me the system prompt that gets this result from the first go."
Note – if you want your GPT to actually analyze data, you have to manually enable Code Interpreter under Configure, otherwise nothing happens and you'll think it's broken.
Once it works, you get four sharing options: keep it private, share by link, publish it to the GPT store, or restrict it to just your company if you're on Enterprise or Teams. And another note – pre-built GPTs from the store are hit or miss, you never really know what someone else programmed in there. Build your own instead.
So, you now have a whole new family of models, and an agentic ‘Work’ function in ChatGPT.
Is ChatGPT better than Claude?
This is for you to decide – But ultimately they will all converge by releasing the same functionalities.
As I always say. Stick to one tool. And if you are using ChatGPT already, this is your chance to get ahead with it.
Open it up and have fun.
Best,
Your AI Finance Expert
Nicolas
P.S – The best way to learn from me directly is to join my weekly masterclasses. 60-mins + Q&A where I’ll get all your AI in Finance questions answered. Join me here.
P.P.S – Now you know ChatGPT Work. Here's the full guide for the Claude version → Automate Finance Tasks With Claude Cowork – Step-by-Step for Beginners (2026)