OpenAI is rolling out two significant updates to ChatGPT, making the Projects feature free for all users and introducing a new “Branch in new chat” option, enhancing user experience and functionality.
The Projects feature, previously available to paying subscribers, is now accessible to free users. Projects allow users to create dedicated “workspaces” to organize chats, files, and custom instructions for specific tasks. OpenAI highlights that Projects offer “independent memory, context, and flexible tools,” making them suitable for “repeated and evolving work such as writing, research, planning, and more.” This addresses the issue of ChatGPT attempting to retain information across all conversations, which can dilute focus.
The “Branch in new chat” feature enables users to create new conversations stemming from a specific point in an existing chat. When selected, ChatGPT generates a new conversation that includes all previous messages up to the point where the user branched off. This new branching capability is designed to facilitate multiple focused conversations on different subtopics within a broader discussion. OpenAI suggests that this feature is especially useful for brainstorming activities and works well when combined with the Projects feature.
