ChatGPT gets smarter: OpenAI adds internal data referencing

OpenAI has finally added a long-requested feature for ChatGPT users: the ability to reference internal knowledge sources. 

ChatGPT Team users, one of the company’s paid tiers, can connect internal knowledge databases directly to the platform during this beta period, bringing company-specific information. A feature many enterprises say would give better responses to questions.

This lets users perform semantic searches of their data, link directly to internal sources in responses, get the most relevant and up-to-date context, and ensure that ChatGPT understands internal company lingo. 

Right now, ChatGPT Team admins can connect Google Drive to ChatGPT. However, Nate Gonzales, a product manager at OpenAI, said in a LinkedIn post that the team “is already working on the next wave of connectors, aiming to support all the key internal knowledge sources your team relies on today.” These could include data analytics platforms and CRMs.

“One of my favorite parts: over time, the model learns your org’s unique language—project names and acronyms, and team-specific terms—while respecting your user permissions so responses are grounded in the right context. (We love our codenames at OpenAI ?),” Gonzales said. 

Internal documents lead to better institutional knowledge

By connecting internal knowledge bases, ChatGPT Team could become more invaluable to users who already ask the platform strategy questions or for analysis. Querying company and domain-specific data gives users more context for their conversations and makes AI chatbots more useful. 

Unsurprisingly, many companies with AI platforms, chatbots, agents, or applications tout their proprietary internal knowledge graphs as a differentiator. This is also why enterprise search is a rising area of enterprise AI. 

Companies like Glean offer a way to use AI to find information throughout companies. ServiceNow acquired MoveWorks in a bid to boost its enterprise search capabilities. 

OpenAI already lets people upload documents directly from Google Drive or Microsoft’s OneDrive. Google brought the power of Gemini to its Workspace product, meaning users could ask the model questions about their work while in a file. Perplexity added the capability to use internal documents as data sources. 

Control and customization 

OpenAI said controls around the data sources will look different for some users. 

While only admins can add data connectors, users from smaller teams can configure when ChatGPT will tap into internal knowledge bases and which drives. However, larger teams require the administrator to decide which shared Google Drives can be accessed.

OpenAI said that ChatGPT knows when to access connected data sources for many common prompts. Users can still select “Internal Knowledge” in the message composer. 

The company said ChatGPT “fully respects existing organization settings and permissions,” so users who do not have access to specific drives or documents cannot force ChatGPT to read those.