ChatGPT’s New Features are MIND BLOWING (GENIUS Mode)

Table of Contents

• 🔎 Quick Overview: What changed and why it matters
• 🧠 Feature 1 — Thinking Modes: Control how long ChatGPT thinks
• 🛠️ Feature 2 — Personalization: Make ChatGPT behave the way you want
• 🔗 Feature 3 — Connectors & Developer Mode: Make ChatGPT an automation hub
• ⚙️ How I recommend configuring ChatGPT — a setup checklist
• 📌 Real-world automation examples and workflows
• 🧾 Meta description, tags, and suggested multimedia
• 🤔 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
• 🔚 Final thoughts and next steps

🔎 Quick Overview: What changed and why it matters

OpenAI introduced three headline updates that together make ChatGPT more powerful, controllable, and integratable than ever before:

• Thinking modes (Light / Standard / Extended / Heavy + control over auto/instant/thinking mini).
• Full personalization panel (personality profiles, improved custom instructions, and memory management).
• Expanded connectors & developer mode — plus the ability to connect ChatGPT to hundreds of external apps via third-party tools like Rube.app and dedicated GPTs that interface with those services.

These aren’t incremental UI tweaks — they change how you design prompts, how much trust you place in ChatGPT for complex tasks, and how you automate multi-app workflows without switching contexts. Below I break each feature down, provide recommended usage patterns, sample prompts, and safety/security considerations.

🧠 Feature 1 — Thinking Modes: Control how long ChatGPT thinks

One of the most immediately powerful changes is the ability to set “thinking time” for ChatGPT when using GPT-5. Instead of treating every request the same, you can now choose how much internal deliberation the model should use: Light, Standard, Extended, or Heavy. There are also related options: auto, instant, and thinking mini — but I’ll explain why I don’t recommend auto for most people.

How the thinking modes map to use cases

• Light: Quick, concise factual answers. Use for short summaries, definitions, or when you need an answer fast without deep deliberation.
• Standard: Multi-step processes or structured workflows. Good for step-by-step instructions where sequencing and accuracy matter.
• Extended: Business cases, strategy designs, nuanced trade-offs. Use this when you need scenario-based responses and clear reasoning across options.
• Heavy: Deep research, complex simulations, multivariable calculations. Use for financial projections, scientific reasoning, or when you need the model to think through many linked dependencies.

Practical rule of thumb

1. Don’t use Auto — it flips between modes and can be frustrating when you want consistent performance.
2. Use Instant for quick, GPT-4o-style responses when you want speed and short answers.
3. Use Thinking Mini for quick thoughtful answers that still require some deliberation.
4. If you select any “thinking mode” explicitly, pair it with Extended or Heavy for meaningful benefits — Light thinking mode isn’t needed when you could just use Instant instead, and Standard typically maps to Instant or Thinking Mini.
5. Use the Pro (research-grade) option only when you need rigorous, high-stakes answers — health, scientific problems, complex code debugging, or long-form research.

Example prompts and which mode to use

• Light — Prompt: “Summarize the key differences between GPT-4 and GPT-5 in under three bullet points.” (Simple, fact-based, short chain of reasoning.)
• Standard — Prompt: “Build a step-by-step workflow to scrape TikTok trends daily, push results into Google Sheets, and send a Slack notification.” (Multiple logical steps, needs sequencing.)
• Extended — Prompt: “I make $100,000/month from consulting, sponsorships, and ads. Show me three growth strategies to double revenue, including risks, dependencies, implementations, and timelines.” (Scenario analysis and nuanced trade-offs.)
• Heavy — Prompt: “I’m 28 with $1.3M invested, adding $72,000/year and an extra $2,000/year until age 59. Show detailed compound interest projections across asset allocations (S&P heavy, mixed ETFs, real estate heavy), simulate drawdowns, and recommend the safest path to $10M net worth.” (Long calculations, simulations, hidden dependencies — use Heavy.)

When not to use Heavy or Pro

Heavy thinking and Pro-grade models consume more compute and take longer. For most day-to-day tasks — email drafts, content ideation, meeting summaries — Light/Instant or Standard is sufficient. Save Extended/Heavy and Pro for when stakes are high or you genuinely need deep, multi-stage reasoning or verifiable calculations.

🛠️ Feature 2 — Personalization: Make ChatGPT behave the way you want

OpenAI reorganized personalization into a consolidated tab (bottom-left under your name). This centralizes everything: personality settings, advanced options, custom instructions, and toggles for web search, voice, code, and other capabilities. This is a big deal for two reasons:

• It gives you single-pane control over how ChatGPT adapts and behaves.
• Custom instructions and memories allow ChatGPT to give much more relevant and contextual responses — if you set them up thoughtfully.

Personality profiles — use with caution

There are prebuilt personalities like Default, Cynic, Robot, and Nerd. While they can be fun, I recommend caution:

• Default is the most adaptive for general use — it balances tone and reasoning without adding unnecessary bias.
• Cynic or Robot can be useful for novelty or a specific tone, but they reduce nuance. Avoid them for high-stakes business, emotional writing, or strategy questions.
• Nerd is exploratory and detail-oriented — good for deep dives but can be overly technical for general audiences.

Instead of relying on personality presets, I recommend building distinct “projects” or GPTs with specific system prompts that encode the behavior you want. Custom GPTs are far more flexible and reproducible than toggling a personality every time.

Custom instructions: the single biggest lever for better responses

Custom instructions are your opportunity to write a persistent system prompt that tells ChatGPT how to behave for most of your interactions. Fill this out deliberately. A few recommendations I always use:

• State your occupation and context: e.g., “I’m a content creator / founder running multiple businesses with a focus on monetization and automation.”
• Tell the model how to format responses: e.g., “Provide concise summaries + a TL;DR, then a detailed section with numbered steps, and an optional ‘risks & dependencies’ list.”
• Ask for verification: e.g., “Double-check claims and, when applicable, cite sources or state uncertainty.”
• Set follow-up behavior: e.g., “If vital context is missing, ask clarifying questions before delivering a full answer.”

Put your system prompt in custom instructions rather than relying on the smaller prefilled fields. This yields more consistent behavior across tasks.

Turn on the feature toggles you actually need

Make sure useful toggles are enabled in personalization:

• Record mode — keeps conversations accessible when needed.
• Web search / Browsing — for up-to-date information.
• Code — if you work with code or want runnable snippets.
• Canvas / Voice — if you use multimodal interactions.

These may have been reset with the UI change, so double-check to avoid unexpected behavior.

Memory management — audit regularly

ChatGPT saves memories that help it tailor responses, but left unchecked those memories create bias and noise. I recommend a routine:

• Weekly or biweekly: scan your saved memories for outdated or irrelevant items and delete them.
• Remove completed projects, trial ideas, or anything you don’t want the model to bring up unprompted.
• Keep only durable facts (e.g., role, company, recurring preferences) to maximize usefulness and minimize hallucination or irrelevant suggestions.

🔗 Feature 3 — Connectors & Developer Mode: Make ChatGPT an automation hub

The most transformative change isn’t just that ChatGPT can connect to your apps — it’s that connectors now support deeper actions when you enable developer mode. With this on, the model can read/send emails, manipulate documents, call APIs, and drive workflows across multiple apps.

Why developer mode matters

Without developer mode, ChatGPT may only suggest connecting to an app. With developer mode enabled, the model gets actual access to perform actions — like reading emails, searching your inbox, drafting and sending messages, reading and editing files, or triggering third-party workflows. This elevates ChatGPT from a suggestion engine to an execution engine.

Example: Gmail before vs after developer mode

Before developer mode: ChatGPT may recommend ways to respond to emails, but you still need to manually switch to Gmail, find the messages, and send replies.

After developer mode: ChatGPT can list recent emails, summarize sponsor replies, draft tailored sponsor scripts in Google Docs, and even send those emails for your approval — all from the chat window. That eliminates context switching and makes automation far more efficient.

Rube.app (Roob) + GPT for Roob: 500+ app integration

Third-party tools like Rube.app (sometimes shown as Roob) now let ChatGPT connect to hundreds of apps. There are two main ways to leverage this:

1. Install the Rube connector and grant permissions via developer mode. ChatGPT can then access many apps through that single connector.
2. Use a dedicated GPT (e.g., “Roob GPT”) which is preconfigured to use the Rube integration and exposes commands like “summarize my inbox” or “post a thought on X”.

What does this enable practically? Tons of automations:

• Check Gmail for sponsor replies → create sponsor scripts in Google Docs → send replies for approval.
• Aggregate CRM updates from multiple tools (HubSpot, Salesforce) and produce a weekly pipeline summary.
• Monitor social mentions or trending content across platforms, synthesize, and schedule posts.
• Trigger internal workflows (create ticket in Jira, update Notion databases, send Slack alerts) in response to a single natural-language prompt.

Rube.app provides an install workflow and examples for how to set up developer-mode instructions. It offers a free tier to get started, and once installed you can run multi-app orchestrations from a single ChatGPT chat.

Security and permission hygiene

Powerful as this is, giving apps access to your email, docs, and accounts requires strict security discipline:

• Only enable developer mode and connectors for accounts you trust and use for automation.
• Audit OAuth scopes before granting access. Prefer fine-grained scopes rather than full account access.
• Use separate automation accounts when possible — e.g., a specific Gmail used only for automation approvals.
• Log and monitor automated actions. Use approval gates for outbound emails and sensitive operations.

⚙️ How I recommend configuring ChatGPT — a setup checklist

To get the most practical, safe, and useful behavior out of ChatGPT, here’s a checklist I use and recommend:

1. Turn off Auto thinking mode. Set Instant or Thinking Mini for general browsing; use Extended/Heavy only when required.
2. Enable personalization and fill out custom instructions with a clear system prompt describing your role, preferred response format, and verification behavior.
3. Enable useful toggles: web search, code, canvas, voice, and record mode, only if you need them.
4. Regularly review and delete irrelevant memories; keep only evergreen context.
5. Enable developer mode only after auditing connector scopes and testing with low-stakes workflows.
6. Install Rube.app (or equivalent) and set up a test GPT that can read a sample inbox and summarize or draft messages for approval before automating broader workflows.
7. Document your automation flows and approval checkpoints so you can revert or pause automations quickly if something goes wrong.

📌 Real-world automation examples and workflows

Below are practical automations you can build now that combine thinking modes, personalization, and connectors. These range from simple automations to full multi-step workflows you can run inside ChatGPT.

Example: Sponsor negotiation workflow

1. Prompt (Standard mode): “Check Gmail for emails from sponsor@example.com and summarize any outstanding negotiation points.”
2. ChatGPT reads the emails, summarizes costs, deliverables, and timelines.
3. ChatGPT drafts a Google Doc script for sponsor outreach (Instant mode for the draft, Extended for negotiation strategy).
4. You approve the script; ChatGPT sends the email and logs the interaction to your CRM.

Example: Daily trends scraper

1. Prompt (Standard mode): “Daily job: Scrape top TikTok trending hashtags, push results to Google Sheets, and send a Slack message with highlights.”
2. Use a connector to run the scraper or call an existing API; store results in Sheets; build Slack message and post automatically.
3. Receive the Slack notification and approve follow-up actions if needed.

Example: Financial simulation

1. Prompt (Heavy mode + Pro if required): “Simulate retirement scenarios based on asset allocations X, Y, Z, include drawdown simulations and recommend the safest path.”
2. ChatGPT runs multi-scenario analysis, outputs spreadsheets with compound interest calculations, and flags assumptions.
3. You audit assumptions and ask follow-up: “If a 30% drawdown occurs at age 40, how does that change the path?” ChatGPT reruns the simulation.

🧾 Meta description, tags, and suggested multimedia

Meta description: ChatGPT’s new features let you control thinking modes, personalize behavior, and connect to 500+ apps — learn how to configure and use them safely.

Suggested tags: ChatGPT, AI automation, developer mode, Rube.app, personalization, custom instructions, AI workflows, GPT-5, connectors.

Multimedia suggestions:

• Screenshot: Personalization tab showing custom instructions (alt text: “ChatGPT personalization tab with custom instructions”).
• Animated GIF: Switching between thinking modes (alt text: “Switching thinking modes in ChatGPT interface”).
• Flowchart infographic: Sample automation workflow connecting Gmail → Google Docs → Slack via Rube.app (alt text: “Automation flowchart: Gmail to Docs to Slack”).

🤔 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: When should I use Heavy thinking vs Extended thinking?

A: Use Extended for multi-scenario business decisions, strategy, and nuanced trade-offs. Use Heavy for deep simulations, large numerical calculations, or when the problem requires multi-stage, multivariable reasoning. Heavy is slower and costlier but reduces the risk of missing dependencies.

Q: Should I enable developer mode for my primary Gmail account?

A: Preferably no. Use a dedicated automation account or a limited-scope service account if possible. If you must enable developer mode on a primary account, carefully review scopes and enable approval steps for outbound email or sensitive operations.

Q: Do personality presets replace custom instructions?

A: No. Personality presets are quick tone switches but are limited. Custom instructions (system prompts) are more powerful because they control behavior, output structure, and verification rules across all sessions. I recommend custom instructions for persistent behavior and using GPTs for task-specific behavior.

Q: What is Rube.app and do I need it?

A: Rube.app is a third-party connector that aggregates 500+ app integrations into a single interface ChatGPT can use when configured. You don’t strictly need it, but it dramatically simplifies connecting ChatGPT to many apps simultaneously. It’s especially useful if you want to build multi-app automations quickly.

Q: How often should I audit memories in ChatGPT?

A: Weekly or monthly, depending on how intensively you use ChatGPT. Remove completed projects, outdated preferences, and anything that might bias future answers in the wrong way.

Q: Is this safe for handling customer data?

A: Treat it like any other automation tool. Use fine-grained permissions, anonymize or pseudonymize sensitive data when possible, keep approvals for outbound communications, and comply with any regulatory constraints in your industry (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR).

🔚 Final thoughts and next steps

These three changes together — thinking modes, deeper personalization, and expanded connectors with developer mode — move ChatGPT from a reactive assistant to a proactive automation platform. Used carefully, they can save hours each week by eliminating context switching and by executing cross-app workflows from a single chat interface. But with that power comes responsibility: configure custom instructions deliberately, audit memories, and secure your connectors.

If you want to move faster, I built a course and community called AI Automation School where I teach how to automate work with AI, build AI agents without coding, and audit personal AI workflows. Check it out: https://www.skool.com/ai-automation-school/about. I also publish daily walkthroughs and demos showing practical automations — if you’re serious about staying ahead, this is where I go deeper into the examples above.

Want a quick next step? Do this right now:

1. Open ChatGPT → click your name → personalization → fill out custom instructions with your occupation and desired output format.
2. Turn on Record Mode, Web Search, and Code if you use those features.
3. Switch thinking mode to Instant for general queries; save Extended/Heavy for high-stakes queries.
4. If you plan to automate, enable developer mode and test a small, reversible workflow (e.g., summarize today’s emails and draft a reply) before scaling up.

AI is accelerating fast. Goldman Sachs estimates large-scale job disruption ahead — whether that affects you depends on whether you use AI to augment your skills or ignore it. Embrace the tools, be intentional with permissions, and design automations that amplify your strengths.

Want help auditing your AI workflows? Head to AI Automation School or drop a detailed prompt into ChatGPT describing one workflow you want to automate and ask for a staged automation plan with safety checkpoints.