Key Takeaways
- Specialized chatbots require less skill in prompting than ChatGPT, ensuring accurate and specific responses.
- Niche chatbots provide answers from relevant sources only and often include additional features.
- Responses from niche chatbots are standardized, making information easier to read and ensuring no crucial details are omitted.
Most niche AI chatbots available online are powered by ChatGPT (or OpenAI’s GPT3 or GPT4). Still, I prefer these specialized chatbots over ChatGPT itself for the following four reasons.
1 They Don’t Need Much Prompting Skill
Learning to write effective prompts is necessary if you want to get the most out of ChatGPT. With the right prompts, you can even jailbreak ChatGPT, but that requires a great deal of practice.
If you aren’t that skilled at prompting, it’s always a good idea to use specialized chatbots wherever possible. Since they are trained to provide a specific type of output, you won’t have to play around with prompts.
Moreover, some chatbots like AI Lawyer have a built-in prompt library containing prompts for common tasks.
2 Niche Chatbots Answer From Relevant Sources
ChatGPT is trained on tons of data and can even access the web. So it can get off track and respond from not-so-relevant sources.
On the other hand, developers can restrict niche chatbots to use only selected information sources while responding. A good example of such a bot is Buffett Bot, which answers based only on Warren Buffett’s past letters, meetings, and interviews, citing all its sources.
3 Responses Are Formatted in a Standard Manner
Often, these niche AI chatbots are trained to answer in a pre-defined format. This not only ensures that no important information is left out but also makes it easier to read responses.
As an example, I asked both ChatGPT and AI Lawyer how to create a car purchase agreement. While ChatGPT focused more on the contents of the agreement, AI Lawyer provided more detailed step-by-step guidance, along with necessary contents and additional considerations.
When I asked AI Lawyer about creating rent and employment contracts, the answer followed a similar structure.
You can use ChatGPT custom instructions to personalize the responses you get. However, if you use ChatGPT for multiple purposes, you’ll have to change these custom instructions quite often.
4 They Offer Additional Features
Since these chatbots are made for very specific purposes, they include additional features relevant to the tasks they are supposed to perform.
For instance, many AI companion chatbots, like Anima, let you customize your companion’s avatar and include various games and activities. However, ChatGPT, being a general-purpose chatbot, doesn’t contain these add-on features.
While I do use ChatGPT as a Swiss army knife of chatbots, I prefer niche AI chatbots for specific tasks. If you don’t feel comfortable leaving ChatGPT, perhaps you can try out various custom GPTs. Custom GPTs can answer from a defined knowledge base, respond according to set instructions, and don’t need high prompting skills.
