November 2, 2025

You're not using ChatGPT nearly to its potential

By Aaron Seelye

Taking a step back from our normal blog post series, I’m going to reference a post on X by Sam Altman, who mentioned that most users of ChatGPT are not using its full abilities, not even close. He said that just 1% of non-paying users (the free tier) had queried a reasoning model like o3 before ChatGPT-5’s release. Among paying users, only 7% had. After the release of GPT-5 on August 7th, those numbers went from 1% to 7% for free users and from 7% to 24% for Plus users.

This highlights a real deficit in people’s understanding of what ChatGPT can do for them. And that’s not even touching things like connectors: tools that let you integrate your own applications or datasets with ChatGPT. Every user has access to multiple models, but Plus and Pro users have greater access and flexibility. There are roughly four tiers of models available: instant-answer models, reasoning models, and for higher-tier accounts, deep research or Pro models that handle complex, multi-step tasks.

What does this mean for you? When you’re talking to ChatGPT, understand that some answers will be immediate, the simple yes/no type of responses. Other times, when deeper research or more deliberation is needed for a complicated decision, dataset, or strategy, you’ll want to engage the thinking or Pro models.

When you use these models, response times vary. Quick-answer models might reply in 5–15 seconds. Thinking models could take a few minutes. Pro models might not start responding for 10 or 15 minutes, depending on the complexity of what you’ve asked. For example, I recently used the Pro model (similar to the Plus version’s deep reasoning model) to find a certain type of business within 100 miles of my location. I asked it to search every chamber of commerce within 150 miles, check each member listing, visit their websites, identify their business type, and note any overlap with the kind of business I was researching. It took about 20 minutes to complete, and then compiled everything, industry associations, locations, and sources, into a spreadsheet I could download and verify.

This is one benefit the various chat models can offer. If you can offload the basic, mundane tasks, the kind you might give to an eager intern with no industry experience, and verify or specify the data sources being used, you can automate those tasks and get results in a fraction of the time it would take a human. That becomes a force multiplier, freeing you up to focus on the things that really highlight the value you and your business bring to customers.

Just think about it: if you had two days of research to do and could get it done automatically in 20 minutes, what’s the value of that? You’re literally buying back your own time. When you put it in those terms, $20 per month is a steal. Once you see this in action, I think you’ll be hooked.

So, this leads us to “OK, what next? What do I do?” The answer is simple. First, follow the MDO pages on whatever social platform you use. Second, keep an eye out. MDO, in conjunction with the West Richland Chamber of Commerce, will be putting on an “Intro to AI” class that covers this exact topic. Using real-world examples from the audience, we’ll show you how to get maximum results from tools like ChatGPT for minimal time and cost. The course will be free and held at a local venue here in the Tri-Cities. Keep an eye out this month (November) for details on when and where.