5 GPTs for Public Affairs Practitioners
I venture into the GPT store in search of a treasure trove of pre-made GPTs designed to supercharge your public affairs workflow
In Issue #004, I walked you through how to create your own Custom GPT.
This week, I go on the hunt for pre-made GPTs that will save you time.
In January, OpenAI released its GPT store, where Pro users can access a wide collection of GPTs that have been developed by OpenAI’s developer community. In the short time the store has been live, it’s been a massive time saver for me.
Here are some of the best pre-made GPTs I’ve been using in my public affairs workflow.
1. Consensus
What it is: search and synthesize results from 200 million academic papers.
How I use it:
Become smarter in the industries I follow
Conduct policy research
Find thought leaders on regulatory topics
Sample use case:
Can you find me papers about food labelling?
Estimated time saved:
It’s not an exaggeration to say that each prompt I have given this GPT, I’ve saved at least 2-3 hours in searching.
The best part?
Each paper is cited, with a link to the original paper. No hallucinations or fabricated papers.
When you click on the link, you get a snapshot of the paper with the option to load the original.
2. Books
What is it: Find your next read with useful summaries that explain how the book meets your reading goal or topic.
How I use it:
Become smarter at my tradecraft
Surface case studies and corporate stories I can learn from
Find new connections, authors, and topics that once seemed unconnected.
Sample use case:
Can you recommend 5 books that deal with public affairs in a corporate context?
Interestingly, I had already read Bad Blood, but in my brain, I had only thought of if it as a business/crime drama. Of course, there are massive regulatory considerations to that story, but this is only obvious now that this GPT surfaced the connection for me.
Estimated time saved:
I used to spend hours and hours digging through Amazon to find my next read. I was limited by searching the way my brain thinks — by topics. This GPT finds books that answer a specific question I have. I now have too many books in my reading pile, which is a problem I like to have.
The best part?
Engaging in literary discussion with the GPT about the recommended books, or books you’ve already read. Take a look:
3. Video Insights
What is it: a GPT that can retrieve transcripts, provide video summaries, conduct meta-analysis and even summarize comments on YouTube videos.
How I use it:
To save me countless hours watching videos, and getting the crux of what I need quickly.
To assess the public reaction and sentiment to a video, especially if it has received a lot of comments.
To capture important notes on industry trends, or for my own learning. We can read faster than most videos play, even at 2x speed, so I love getting the transcript and scanning it for insights.
Sample use case:
Can you summarize this video: 
Estimated time saved:
Well, in this use case alone, I saved 52 minutes. Multiply that over every video I watch because I need to capture information quickly, and the capacity for absorbing information compounds. Having read that summary, I can make an informed decision on whether watching the video is worth my time.
The best part?
I love the summary and analysis of the comments section, which I would normally ignore unless assessing it on behalf of a client. Rather than dig through hundreds or thousands of comments to see how users are reacting to the video, the summary tells me all I need.
4. Video Maker
What is it: your video script writer and producer who gets you a finished product in seconds, or minutes, depending on how much information you give it.
How I use it:
For now, I’m using it to develop concepts that I then work with professional videographers to fine-tune. I find it much easier to talk about the idea with a prototype than to rely on a creative brief alone.
Sample use case:
Let's create a YouTube shorts video! I want to make the case to City Hall that it's time to build a sidewalk on my street. Traffic is getting busy and I'm getting really muddy boots every time I take my dog for a walk! Besides, it's just safer for pedestrians to have a sidewalk, especially at night.
And then it provides me a link to my invideo.io workspace (which takes little time to register for) and watch as my video gets produced before my eyes like magic. This is what the first draft looked like:
https://ai.invideo.io/watch/g4UEqi7vP9k
Estimated time saved:
If I factor in the time from conceiving the idea, explaining it in a creative brief, then briefing a video producer, and the producer then producing the first draft, we’re looking at 10 hours saved. Maybe more. Scale that over a high-volume campaign, and the savings are huge.
The best part?
It guides you through questions and ensures you’re onboard with the target audience, tone, focus, etc. So if you’re not in the habit of writing creative briefs, this GPT does it for you.
While this GPT is pretty cool, I can’t wait for OpenAI to role out its new text-to-video capabilities. They put out some unreal previews yesterday!
5. Grimoire
What it is: the crazy smart kid in the corner of your campaign office who can build anything with code, like a fully functional campaign website in minutes.
How I use it:
To get a step-by-step breakdown of how to build a website and demystify the development process.
In my example below, I asked the GPT to create a campaign website to get a sidewalk built on my street. In building the site, it walked me through its process, stopping along the way to ask me clarifying questions. This alone surfaces a detailed task-list and work-back plan you could use with your own developers or creative agencies to track progress.
Sample use case:
Build me a website to campaign my city to build a sidewalk on my street
As I kept answering questions and agreeing to proceed, the GPT got more granular, explaining its approach with every step. A gold mine for project management and planning for a website build.
Estimated time saved:
In project management and planning alone, this saves me a proper day’s worth of effort.
The best part?
During the entire build process, the GPT keeps the original context in mind. For example, as it built out my sample sidewalk campaign site, it recommended an interactive map to show the exact location where the sidewalk is proposed. It’s offering strategic considerations as it’s building the site.
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