The AI chatbot ChatGPT appeared relatively recently, but has already gained high popularity and achieved dizzying success in many areas of human activity. After the first interaction with it, most users understand why it is so in demand today. Having received a simple request, this smart assistant will write an essay for you in just a couple of minutes, analyze large amounts of data and draw meaningful conclusions, draw up a content plan, offer ideas for publications, a slogan for a brand, perform a high-quality translation into a foreign language, and more.
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As you know, there is no limit to perfection. In an effort to modernize ChatGPT, its creators from OpenAI and third-party developers decided to increase the functionality of the chatbot using plugins. Judging by their number and the skills each offered, the additional modules gave him almost limitless possibilities. Now a language model that used to work only with text generates images, transcribes interviews, extracts information from huge PDF files, constructs websites, refines queries for itself, and even allows you to play chess right in a chatbot. In our article, we offer you a selection of the top 10 ChatGPT plugins that will save you from having to use other programs and online services. From it you will learn what they can do, as well as how to install and use them.
What are plugins for ChatGPT
A plugin is an add-on program to expand functionality. The most striking example is the Google Chrome browser, which has long been complemented by a variety of third-party services. They allow you to check spelling, translate into another language, and transcribe videos without leaving it. And these are just a few examples. Plugins for ChatGPT work on the same principle. These are modules that are connected to the chatbot in order to expand its functionality. Each of them is tailored for a specific task: searching for information, solving mathematical equations and problems, e-commerce, data visualization, education, and so on.
The official chatbot marketplace features hundreds of plugins, both from big technology companies like OpenAI, Slack, and others, as well as from niche developers. With their help, ChatGPT gained the ability to generate images, create bibliographies, play chess, draw diagrams, as well as the ability to solve problems in chemistry and quantum physics, and more. We invite you to familiarize yourself with the ten best, in our opinion, plugins that will turn your ChatGPT into a professional multifunctional assistant right now.
AskYourPDF
Surely at least once in your life you have come across a situation where you had to find some important information in a huge PDF file. This could take several hours. The AskYourPDF plugin will complete this task in a couple of minutes. It greatly simplifies the work with legal documentation and scientific papers. With it, you can download a company's multi-page financial report and quickly find data on profit, loss and debt in it, as well as analyze them for correlation and dynamics.
By connecting this plugin, you simply provide the chatbot with a link to the desired file, wait for it to load, and then you can ask any questions about the material contained in the file. For example, ask for a summary, ask when the study was conducted, or how long the testing phase took.
Unlike other plugins, to enable this you will have to deviate from ChatGPT. First of all, you need to upload the PDF file you are interested in to the AskYourPDF service yourself. To do this, follow these steps:
Go to the AskYourPDF service website.
Click on the "Upload Document Here" button. In the window that opens, select the PDF file from your device.
When the download is complete, you will be given your document ID (doc_id). This is what you need to insert into your request to ChatGPT in order to use it to extract the necessary data from the PDF file using the plugin. As you can see, it takes a little time, but the result is definitely worth it.
Important note: OpenAI does not recommend introducing confidential or sensitive information into ChatGPT using plugins. The fact is that everything that gets into this chatbot can be further used to train the language model.
Code Interpreter
The Code Interpreter plugin will help a beginner in the IT field write and optimize code much faster. It uses the Python programming language and an isolated execution environment to operate. After enabling this module, the code runs in permanent session mode. It continues to remain active throughout the entire correspondence that you will have in the chat with the bot. In addition, using this plugin you can upload files to your current workspace.
Code Interpreter can:
- solve mathematical problems;
- analyze and visualize data;
- do descriptive statistics;
- build and test simple models;
- analyze sensitivity;
- convert file formats.
Interaction with ChatGPT with the Code Interpreter plugin connected is no different from any other contact with a chatbot. Each operation is preceded by sending him a simple text request. For example, if you need to analyze an Excel document containing information about venture capital investments, simply ask ChatGPT to build a regression model and render a visualization on the data from that file.
Browse with Bing
The plugin is currently disabled
OpenAI has integrated Microsoft's Bing search engine into ChatGPT, giving it the default search status and thereby significantly improving the speed and, most importantly, the relevance of the responses received from the chatbot. The Browse with Bing plugin is a tool that allows you to save your most valuable resource (time) and use information obtained from various sources. Its purpose is to search for information on any topic: for example, about an event that just happened, the score of yesterday's football match, or the release of a new product or service.
You will not find this module in the marketplace of plugins for ChatGPT. It is released separately. To find it and connect, follow these steps:
- Open chat.openai.com in your browser and log in to your profile.
- In the navigation menu (located at the bottom left of the window), click on the ellipsis icon located next to your email address.
- Click on "Settings & Beta". In the window that opens, you will see settings options.
- Click on "Beta features". Move the switch next to “Browse with Bing.”
To start using Browse with Bing, you need to select this plugin. While in the current chat, you will not be able to do this, since the plugin can only be changed in a new one. Click on the “New chat” button (located in the upper left corner of the window), and then move the cursor to the “GPT-4” tab. A menu will open in front of you, in which you need to select “Browse with Bing”. After this, the module will fire whenever you request something from ChatGPT that requires access to information on the Internet.
Key Point: In July, Open AI disabled Browse with Bing, saying it was actively working to bring it back. The reason for the removal is that this plugin got free access to paid content.
Bibliography Crossref
The Bibliography Crossref module for the ChatGPT chatbot is a useful tool for scientists, people involved in research and writing scientific papers. Its purpose is to simplify the search for publications and the compilation of bibliographies in the BibTeX system using the Zotero bibliographic manager and the international registry of scientific information materials Crossref.
Main functions of the plugin:
- Search for scientific articles related to a specific query. Performed via the Crossref API. Example prompt: “Find scientific papers on the use of AI in health care.” This is especially useful for writing literature reviews and working on academic research.
- Providing a static link to content. To do this, the plugin converts each search result received from Crossref into a DOI - a digital object identifier. Example prompt: "Convert search results for 'AI in Health' to a DOI."
- Generating records in the BibTeX system from search results. This allows the module to offer the user convenient means to cite articles in his scientific work. Example prompt: "Create BibTeX entries for search results that are related to 'AI in Health'."
- Adding Bibtex items to the Zotero manager's personal collection. Example prompt: “Add BibTeX entries for “Applying AI to Health” to my Zotero manager collection.”
ABCmouse
ABCmouse is a plugin created specifically for parents who are looking for interesting and useful educational activities for their children. When connected, ChatGPT will offer them a variety of exciting activities designed for children aged 2 to 8 years. The use of artificial intelligence technologies in the process of creating them gives the ABCmouse module the opportunity to adapt activities to each child, taking into account his individual interests, abilities and needs.
This plugin saves parents a lot of time, which they previously spent searching for the necessary information on the Internet and filtering out inappropriate options. Tell the chatbot what materials and budget you have, how much time you can devote to classes and what you want to get as a result. ABCmouse will select the most interesting and useful developmental games for your child, corresponding to his age and preferences, as well as taking into account the skills he currently possesses.
If you cannot find ABCmouse in the ChatGPT plugin store, it is temporarily unavailable due to technical issues with the integration. Eliminating them takes time, so it is recommended to try searching again in a few days.
Link Reader
The Link Reader plugin gives ChatGPT the ability to examine the contents of specific web pages or files via a link. The module supports not only text format, but also PDF, PPT, graphic formats. To start the process, connect the plugin and send the chatbot a link to a web resource, PDF document or any other source of information, and it will conduct a detailed analysis of its content. Now feel free to ask him any questions regarding the materials he analyzed. ChatGPT, enhanced by the Link Reader module, will provide you with detailed, comprehensive answers. By the way, it is also convenient to use it to get concise and capacious summaries of voluminous scientific articles or long financial reports.
Despite the fact that the main purpose of this plugin is to read and analyze various materials, it can be used for other tasks. For example, for fact checking. If you simultaneously connect the Browse with Bing and Link Reader plugins to ChatGPT, you can check the accuracy of the facts presented in the news you are interested in.
Wolfram
The Wolfram plugin gives ChatGPT access to the WolframAlpha knowledge base with its powerful computational tools, online data and visualizations. Thanks to this fusion, the generative language model gained better mathematical skills, the ability to produce accurate data and provide the user with solutions to complex problems. With this module, ChatGPT easily and quickly answers questions on mathematics, geography, astronomy, chemistry and other sciences, turning into a unique cheat sheet with artificial intelligence. But that's not all. Using Wolfram, the chatbot will create an audio spectrogram for you, create a family tree, illustrate anatomy, and more.
The Wolfram plugin doesn't just greatly extend the functionality of ChatGPT. It makes it much smarter, helping to overcome AI “hallucinations” and avoid inaccuracies in answers and errors in calculations. If you use ChatGPT to create content that contains any calculations or facts, the Wolfram module will be very useful. By using it, you can quickly check the facts in texts generated by ChatGPT for accuracy. The WolframAlpha system will compare the information provided by the chatbot with its knowledge base and make a verdict regarding the accuracy and correctness of the data contained in it.
Video Insights
The Video Insights plugin is useful for those involved in video transcription. Its purpose is to convert human speech on video into text format. This module will be useful, for example, to IT specialists who do not want to waste time watching an hour and a half training video about the details of working with a programming language, text editors, and copywriters. By connecting it to ChatGPT, you can quickly skim the text content of any YouTube video and evaluate how important what they say is to you, thus saving time. This material can then be used to write an article or verify any data.
Other functionality of the Video Insights plugin:
- compiling a video summary;
- answers to specific questions about the material covered in the video;
- extracting metadata (number of views, likes and comments for a video).
If you plan to use this module for metadata collection, be very careful and be sure to check the quality of its operation. When testing this ability of his, he was wrong about 50% of the time. But he sums up the video quite accurately. Also keep in mind that videos longer than 10 minutes may be transcribed with inaccuracies.
Show Me Diagrams
The Show Me Diagrams plugin was created to add text data visualization functionality to ChatGPT. Using this module, which interacts with external APIs, the chatbot quickly creates popular types of diagrams, mind maps, and flowcharts. The whole process takes place right in the dialog box. With Show Me Diagrams it is very convenient to “draw” a work plan or present a concept. This is what is needed for those who prefer to use the visual channel for receiving and processing information.
To generate visualizations based on user requests, the plugin uses a number of services: Draw.io, Google Maps, Google Images and the like. If you give the chatbot a description of the project you're working on along with deadline dates, Show Me Diagrams will give you a Gantt chart with a detailed timeline for completing tasks. In addition to the above, this plugin can create infographics and visual guides, like instructions for assembling furniture.
Prompt Perfect
The Prompt Perfect module turns poorly worded or ambiguous queries into clear, specific prompts that will be best understood by the chatbot. This clarity greatly improves the accuracy and relevance of the responses you receive from him.
How to install and use ChatGPT plugins
Getting the ability to connect plugins to ChatGPT is very simple. To do this, perform the following steps one by one:
Purchase a subscription to the ChatGPT Plus version if you have not already done so (without it, access to the plugins is closed). Go to Settings & Beta. Click on "Beta features". Move the slider next to “Plugins”.
Now you have the opportunity to use plugins while communicating with the chatbot. To select and connect the desired module, do the following:
Hover over the GPT-4 version. Select "Plugins Beta" from the drop-down menu.
Click on the “No plugins enabled” button and click on “Plugin store”.
You will see warning information regarding plugins. Review and click "OK".
Find the necessary modules in the catalog and click on the "Install" button for each of them.
Back in the ChatGPT dialog, simply select the plugin you currently need. Write a request to the chatbot, in which you must mark the requirement to use the installed plugin. However, do not forget that not only ChatGPT, but also the plugin “attached” to it is responsible for the output - or rather, how well it is developed. Please note that for now, you can use no more than 3 modules within one chat.
The ecosystem of plugins that enhance the functionality of ChatGPT is currently in beta testing. So don’t be discouraged if the chatbot sometimes gives wrong results or doesn’t work at all. That's what testing is for, to find all the bugs, fix them, and get a flawlessly working product as a result.
Summing up
Only ten plugins that we introduced you to in our article can turn ChatGPT into a full-fledged smart assistant, as well as take away a whole piece of work from some specialists. For example, with the Show Me Diagrams module, you can no longer ask the content manager to do some visualization for the text. Video Insights will save copywriters from monotonous video transcription and will allow you to refuse the services of a transcriber.
Since the plugins are still in beta testing, a natural question arises: can you trust the data that ChatGPT produces with their help? Unfortunately, not yet. Even OpenAI, the company that created this chatbot, notes that connecting a generative language model to external services not only expands its functionality, but also exposes the user to new, sometimes significant, risks. Therefore, when using additional modules when working with ChatGPT, do not forget to be careful.
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