The Complete Guide to ChatGPT Teams

For organizations under 200 people that want to manage their use of ChatGPT and gain some collaboration features, OpenAI's main offering is ChatGPT Teams. This guide will consider ChatGPTs strengths and weaknesses and how best to implement and get the most value from ChatGPT Teams.

What Makes ChatGPT Teams Different?

Shared Workspaces and Projects

ChatGPT Teams organizes work through shared workspaces and project folders that create dedicated spaces for different initiatives. Team members can collaborate within these common workspaces by sharing their conversations (see below), uploading reference files, and maintaining templates for repeated tasks. This structure keeps related work together and makes it easy for team members to find relevant conversations and resources. Projects can be organized by department, campaign, product development cycle, or any other logical grouping that matches your team's workflow.

Chat Conversation Sharing

In ChatGPT Teams, each user's conversations remain private unless explicitly shared. After the conversation is shared, team members can view it and fork it (picking up on the conversation and making it their own). Note that the conversations are not truly shared in the sense of many people participating in one ongoing conversation.

External Tool Connectors

ChatGPT Teams can connect to external tools like Google Drive, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, and GitHub, allowing teams to pull content from across their tech stack for shared reference and analysis. These connectors enable ChatGPT to access and work with documents, code repositories, and other resources that teams already use in their workflows. This integration capability means teams don't have to manually copy and paste content between tools, making ChatGPT a more natural extension of existing processes.

Custom GPTs

Users of ChatGPT teams can create and share custom GPTs across the organization. CustomGPTs are specialized AI assistants trained on your company's specific needs, processes, and knowledge.

Senior employees can encode their knowledge into custom GPTs, making their insights available to junior team members 24/7. This creates a multiplier effect where institutional knowledge doesn't walk out the door when key people leave.

Currently, custom GPTs are available to all team members without granular permission controls, which encourages sharing and collaboration while maintaining simplicity.

Early Access Advantages

ChatGPT Teams users sometimes get priority access to new models and features. This early access can be a benefit for teams that need cutting-edge capabilities for competitive advantage.

Individual Usage Caps (Not Shared Limits)

ChatGPT Teams gives each member their own message allocation. This prevents the scenario where power users consume all available resources, leaving teammates without access when they need it most.

Administration and Controls

ChatGPT Teams provides a streamlined three-tier role system that balances simplicity with necessary governance:

Owner: Full permissions including billing access and all admin functions
Admin: Can invite and remove users, configure custom GPTs, manage integrations, and control team settings
Member: Can invite other users and access all team resources

Workspace owners and admins get centralized control over team resources and access through a single admin console. They can manage who joins the team, configure which external connectors are available to members, and control access to shared resources like custom GPTs and uploaded files. Admins can enable or disable specific connectors based on security requirements, control privacy settings, rate limits, and data retention policies.

While the permission system is relatively simple, it provides enough governance for most teams while keeping administration straightforward. Any member can invite other users to join, which enables usage to grow rapidly but provides less control than some organizations desire. The admin console provides visibility into usage patterns and helps identify opportunities for optimization or additional training, allowing teams to maintain consistent policies across all members while adapting settings as organizational needs evolve.

ChatGPT Teams Weaknesses

Lacks Real-Time Collaboration with your Team

ChatGPT Teams lacks true real-time collaboration with your team. You cannot be in the same chat with your teammates interacting with the AI. You can only share a chat after the fact and have the teammate branch off of it. Many organizations copy from a chat into a Google Doc to have team collaboration and then someone copies back from the Google Doc to ChatGPT to continue. This is a major flaw for a Teams solution.

Lacks collaborative document editing with AI

ChatGPT Teams also lacks true collaborative editing features with AI. You can't co-edit documents with AI. You can work with AI in a chat, copy the output to Google Doc, edit it there, and copy it back. This is the second major flaw for a Teams solution.

No Granular Permission Controls on GPTs

Custom GPTs are all-or-nothing for team access. You can't restrict certain GPTs to specific departments or roles, which can be problematic for organizations with sensitive or specialized processes.

ChatGPT Strengths and Weaknesses Analyzed

ChatGPT Teams excels when:

Your team needs to scale expertise thru shared custom GPTs
Individual productivity gains are the primary goal
Early access to AI capabilities provides competitive advantage
Your organization values simplicity over granular control

ChatGPT Teams struggles when:

You need real-time collaborative conversations with your team and AI
You need real-time collaborative document editing and co-creation with AI
Complex permission structures are required
Heavily regulated compliance requirements must be met

Understanding these trade-offs upfront helps set realistic expectations and guides implementation decisions. The most successful teams acknowledge these limitations and design their workflows accordingly, rather than trying to force ChatGPT Teams into use cases where it's not optimized.

Best Practices for Team AI Collaboration

Organize with Project Folders

Project folders are key for ChatGPT Teams organization. Create dedicated spaces like:

"Marketing Campaign Q4"
"Product Development Research"
"Training Playground" for new users

This keeps related conversations together and makes knowledge retrieval much easier.

File Management Best Practices

Some best practices on sharing files in ChatGPT Teams

Use .txt or .md files over PDFs for better context retention
Save code and document updates directly in chats to refresh ChatGPT's memory
Create custom GPTs for extensive projects to maintain context

Handle Long Conversations Strategically

When conversations get unwieldy (around 500k characters), don't just start over. Instead:

Ask ChatGPT to "Generate a prompt that includes all of the information in this conversation so that I can continue in a fresh chat"
Use this prompt to maintain context in a new conversation
Share the continuation prompt with teammates who need to jump in

Understanding ChatGPT Teams Pricing and Plans

ChatGPT Teams is priced at $25 per user per month (when billed annually) or $30 per user per month (when billed monthly).

Measuring Success and ROI

Key Metrics to Track

Productivity Metrics

Time saved on routine tasks
Increase in output quality or quantity
Faster project completion times
Reduction in revision cycles

Engagement Metrics

Active users per month
Messages sent per user
Custom GPT usage rates
Feature adoption rates

Business Impact

Cost savings from reduced outsourcing
Revenue impact from faster delivery
Customer satisfaction improvements
Employee satisfaction and retention

Reporting and Analysis

Create monthly reports covering:

Usage statistics and trends
Success stories and case studies
Challenges and resolution plans
ROI calculations and projections

Security and Compliance Deep Dive

Data Handling and Privacy

Understanding how your data is handled is crucial for enterprise adoption:

Conversation Privacy: Individual conversations remain private to each user unless explicitly shared
Data Retention: OpenAI stores conversations for 30 days for safety and abuse monitoring
Training Data: Team conversations are not used to train OpenAI models
Enterprise Controls: Admins can configure data retention and sharing policies

Compliance Considerations

GDPR Compliance: OpenAI provides data processing agreements and supports data subject requests
SOC 2 Type 2: OpenAI maintains SOC 2 Type 2 certification for security controls
Industry-Specific Requirements: Consider additional compliance needs for healthcare (HIPAA), finance (SOX), or other regulated industries

Advanced Team Management Strategies

Onboarding New Team Members

Successful teams follow structured onboarding:

Pre-boarding: Send team guidelines and use case examples
Initial Setup: Walk through workspace navigation and custom GPTs
Hands-on Practice: Assign low-stakes projects to build confidence
Mentorship: Pair new users with AI-experienced team members
Regular Check-ins: Schedule weekly sessions for the first month

Managing Different User Types

Power Users: Often need advanced features and early access to new models

Grant admin privileges selectively
Encourage them to create and maintain custom GPTs
Use them as internal consultants for complex prompts

Casual Users: May only need AI for specific tasks

Provide template prompts for common use cases
Create simple custom GPTs for their specific needs
Focus on time-saving applications they can immediately use

Skeptical Users: Need to see clear value before adoption

Start with their biggest pain points
Show rather than tell - demonstrate specific solutions
Provide concrete before/after examples

Industry-Specific Applications

Marketing Teams

Content Creation: Blog posts, social media, email campaigns
Market Research: Competitor analysis, trend identification
Campaign Optimization: A/B test ideas, audience insights
SEO Support: Keyword research, content optimization

Sales Teams

Proposal Writing: Customized presentations and proposals
Email Outreach: Personalized communication at scale
Objection Handling: Response strategies and scripts
Market Intelligence: Company and contact research

Development Teams

Code Review: Automated code analysis and suggestions
Documentation: API docs, user guides, technical specs
Debugging: Error analysis and solution suggestions
Architecture Planning: System design discussions

HR and Operations

Policy Development: Employee handbook updates
Training Materials: Onboarding content and guides
Process Documentation: Standard operating procedures
Communication: Internal announcements and updates

Advanced Custom GPT Strategies

Creating Effective Custom GPTs

Knowledge Base Integration

Upload relevant company documents and procedures
Regular updates to maintain accuracy
Version control for important knowledge bases

Specialized Functions

Department-specific GPTs (HR Bot, Sales Assistant, etc.)
Project-specific assistants with context and constraints
Role-based GPTs with appropriate permissions and focus

Prompt Engineering for Custom GPTs

Clear role definitions and constraints
Example interactions and expected outputs
Error handling and fallback responses
Integration instructions for team workflows

Maintenance and Optimization

Regular performance reviews and user feedback collection
A/B testing different prompt approaches
Documentation of successful patterns and configurations
Sunset planning for outdated or unused custom GPTs

Alternatives to ChatGPT Teams

Anthropic Teams: Claude for Work provides similar team features with Claude AI, offering shared workspaces, custom instructions, and team management tools. It's positioned as a more privacy-focused alternative with strong security controls, though it currently has fewer integrations and a smaller ecosystem compared to ChatGPT Teams. It also has the two strongest weaknesses of ChatGPT Teams ... inability to collaborate in a chat conversation with your team and inability to collaboratively edit AI output with the AI and your team. https://www.anthropic.com/learn/claude-for-work

Stravu: Stravu is a next generation AI solution addressing ChatGPT Teams' two greatest weaknesses. Stravu enables you to collaborate with your team in a shared AI conversation and it enables you to work in a collaborative document/notebook editing it with AI and with your team. No more copying to Google Docs and back. https://stravu.com

Bottom Line

ChatGPT Teams has some benefits for teams under 50 people who want to share historic AI chats, group chats and attachments in projects, and scale expertise in shared GPTs. It's simple to manage but limited in collaborative features. Consider alternatives, like Stravu, for true team collaboration with AI in conversations and editable documents.