How to build a Brand Brain in ChatGPT

Before you start

A Brand Brain is one ChatGPT project that holds everything about your business, so every chat starts with the context instead of you typing it again. Most of this works on any paid ChatGPT plan. Two of the seven steps do not, and we flag exactly where.

Two steps depend on your plan. Step 5 uses skills, which are on ChatGPT Business, Enterprise, Healthcare and Edu only, not Plus or Pro. Step 7 uses a dot, which is on Pro and Business Premium only, and Pro does not include dots in the EEA, Switzerland or the UK. Australia is eligible. Both steps have a fallback that gets you the same result, so you can build the whole Brand Brain on any plan.

Gather these before you open ChatGPT. It takes ten minutes and saves an hour.

• Your logo files, your colour codes and the names of your fonts
• Five to ten pieces of your best performing content: emails, website pages, newsletters, social posts
• A list of what you sell, with prices if you publish them
• The three customer types you sell to most often
• Anything written down already: a brand guide, a tone of voice doc, old briefs

No brand guide and no polished content? Build it anyway. Step 2 has a prompt that drafts a visual identity from nothing, and step 3 works from whatever you have written, even rough emails.

Step 1. Create the project

The project is the container. Files you put in it and instructions you write for it apply to every chat you start inside it, and nothing leaks into the rest of your ChatGPT.

Open the sidebar and select New project. Name it Brand Brain. This works in a browser, in the desktop app and on mobile.

Then open the project, select the three dots, then Project settings, and paste the instructions below. These are the standing rules for every chat in the project. You will add two lines to them later, once the voice guide and the brand DNA exist.

You are the content team for [BUSINESS NAME], a [WHAT YOU DO] in [WHERE].

Always use the files in this project as the source of truth about the business. If something is not in the files and you need it, ask me rather than inventing it.

Rules for everything you write:
1. Follow the Brand Voice Guide in this project.
2. Follow the Brand DNA in this project for what we sell, who we sell to and what makes us different.
3. Never invent a statistic, a client name, a result or a testimonial.
4. Write in Australian English.
5. Say the specific thing. Cut filler, cut hype, cut any sentence that would be true of any business in our industry.

When I ask for content, tell me which channel you have written it for and why that shape suits it.

Step 2. Build your brand kit

Upload your logo files, a note of your colour codes, your font names and a few past designs straight into the project. Drag them in, or use the plus button inside a chat in the project.

Then have ChatGPT turn that pile into one written brand kit, so it can describe your look without needing to see the files every time.

How many files a project holds depends on your plan: 5 on Free, 25 on Go and Plus, and 40 on Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu. If you are tight, combine things. One document with your colours, fonts and rules beats six screenshots.

Look at every file in this project and write a Brand Kit document for us.

Cover:
1. Logo: the versions we have, and when each one should be used.
2. Colours: every colour code you can find, named, with what each is for. Flag any colour that would fail a contrast check against white or against our background colour.
3. Type: the fonts we use, and what each is for.
4. Look: describe our visual style in five lines, so a designer who has never seen our work could match it.
5. Gaps: what is missing or inconsistent across the files, and what we should decide.

Give me the document in full, ready to save. Do not summarise it.

We are [BUSINESS NAME], a [WHAT YOU DO] for [WHO YOU SERVE] in [WHERE]. We want to come across as [THREE WORDS].

Draft a visual identity we could use from tomorrow:
1. A colour palette: one main colour, one accent, two neutrals. Give hex codes and say what each is for. Every combination you suggest for text on a background must pass WCAG AA contrast, and tell me the ratio.
2. Two font pairings available free on Google Fonts, one for headings and one for body text, and why each pairing suits us.
3. A written description of the look: photography style, use of space, how much colour, what to avoid.
4. Three things that would make us look like every other [INDUSTRY] business, so we can avoid them.

Keep it to one page. We will test it on a real post before we commit.

Step 3. Teach it your voice

This is the step that makes the difference between content that sounds like you and content that sounds like ChatGPT. Upload five to ten pieces of your best performing content into the project. Not your most polished. Your best performing, and anything you wrote quickly and liked.

Then have it work out the pattern.

Read every piece of our content in this project. Work out how we write, then write a Brand Voice Guide.

Cover:
1. Tone: how we sound, in five words, each one backed by a line quoted from our content.
2. Sentence shape: how long, how varied, do we use fragments, do we start with the point or build to it.
3. Words we use: the specific words and phrases that come up again and again. Quote them.
4. Words we avoid: anything our content never does. Jargon, hype, exclamation marks, emoji, questions as openers.
5. How we open: the patterns in our first lines.
6. How we close: what we ask the reader to do, and how directly.
7. Three rules someone could follow to sound like us, and three mistakes that would instantly sound wrong.

Base every point on what is actually in the files. Where you are guessing, say so.

Then prove it: rewrite this sentence in our voice. "We are excited to announce our new service offering."

Save the guide as a file and upload it into the project. Copy it into a document, name it Brand Voice Guide, and add it like any other file. It needs to be a file, not a message in one chat, or it is gone next time.

The project instructions in step 1 already point at it.

Step 4. Create your brand DNA

The voice guide covers how you sound. The brand DNA covers what you actually sell, who to, and why they pick you. Without it, every piece of content is fluent and empty.

Do not write this yourself. Have ChatGPT interview you, one question at a time, in a chat inside the project.

Interview me to build our Brand DNA document.

Ask me one question at a time and wait for my answer before the next one. Keep each question short. If an answer is vague or generic, push back once and ask for the specific version.

Work through:
1. Who our customers are, in enough detail that I could point at one.
2. What problem they came to us with, in their words, not ours.
3. What they tried before us and why it did not work.
4. What we sell, and what it costs.
5. What happens after someone buys.
6. What makes us different from the obvious alternative, and the proof of it.
7. The objection we hear most, and our honest answer.
8. What we will not do, and who we are not for.

When we are done, write the Brand DNA document in full, using my words wherever you can. Mark anything I was vague about so I can come back to it.

Save it as a file called Brand DNA and upload it into the project, next to the voice guide and the brand kit.

Your Brand Brain is now working. Open a new chat inside the project and ask for a LinkedIn post about something you did last week. It should already sound like you and talk about the right things. The next three steps make it better, not possible.

Step 5. One set of rules per channel

A LinkedIn post, an Instagram caption, a web page and an email are different shapes. One brain with four shapes beats four brains.

The skill creator is part of ChatGPT skills, and skills are available on ChatGPT Business, Enterprise, Healthcare and Edu only. They are not on Plus or Pro. If you are on Plus or Pro, skip to the fallback below. It gets you the same result with one more click each time.

On an eligible plan, skills are in the plus menu in a chat. The skill creator is included by default, and you use it by telling it what the skill should do. Build one per channel, and have each one carry your brand files plus that channel's rules.

Create a skill called LinkedIn Post.

What it does: writes a LinkedIn post for our business, in our voice, from a rough idea I give it.

It must always:
1. Follow our Brand Voice Guide and our Brand DNA.
2. Open with a specific line, never a question and never a statistic we have not verified.
3. Keep it under 200 words, in short paragraphs with blank lines between them.
4. Make one point, not three.
5. End with a plain next step, not a call to action that sounds like an ad.
6. Use no emoji and no hashtags unless I ask.

It must never invent a client name, a number or a result.

Before it writes, it asks me one question: what is the specific thing that happened. After it writes, it tells me in one line why it chose that opening.

Write a Channel Rules document for LinkedIn, for our business, using our Brand Voice Guide and Brand DNA in this project.

It must specify:
1. Length, and how the post should be broken up on the page.
2. How to open, with three example openings written in our voice.
3. What one post should and should not try to do.
4. How to close, with three examples.
5. Formatting rules: emoji, hashtags, links, line breaks.
6. Five post shapes that suit this channel and suit us, each with a one line description.
7. Three things that work on other channels but would not work here.

Write it as instructions a person could follow, not as advice. Give it to me in full, ready to save as a file.

Step 6. Connect Google Drive

Your brand files will go stale. Prices change, products change, the research you did last quarter is now out of date. Connecting Drive means ChatGPT reads the current version instead of the copy you uploaded once.

On a personal plan: select your profile picture, then Settings, then Apps, find Google Drive in the app directory and select Connect. Sign in to Google and complete the authorisation.

On Business or Enterprise an admin does it: Workspace settings, then Apps, then enable it, then Connect for Google Drive.

When Google asks what ChatGPT can access, grant it. If you do not allow it to see and download your Drive files, setup fails and you have to disconnect and reconnect from the start.

A project can link Google Drive files and folders directly, so point the project at the folders that hold your live product information, your customer research and your marketing documents. Keep those folders tidy. Anything in them is now something ChatGPT may use as fact.

Read the Drive folders connected to this project, then compare them against the Brand Kit, Brand Voice Guide and Brand DNA files already here.

Tell me:
1. Anything in our brand files that the Drive documents contradict. Quote both.
2. Anything true in Drive that is missing from our brand files, especially products, prices and customer detail.
3. Anything in our brand files that nothing in Drive supports, so I can check whether we still believe it.

Then give me the corrected version of each file that needs changing, in full. Do not change anything I have not seen first.

Step 7. Set up a brand guardian

The last step stops being about writing and starts being about checking. A brand guardian reads your drafts before they go out and tells you where they are off brand.

Dots are on ChatGPT Pro and Business Premium only, for users 18 and over in supported markets. Pro does not include dots in the EEA, Switzerland or the UK. On Enterprise it is off by default and an admin turns it on. If you do not have a dot, use the manual version below. It is the same check, run when you ask for it.

With a dot: create it in the ChatGPT desktop app or a desktop browser. Attach your brand files with the plus button in the conversation, connect Google Drive so it can reach your drafts folder, then give it the standing brief below.

You are our brand guardian. This is an ongoing responsibility, not a one off task.

Your source of truth is the Brand Voice Guide, the Brand DNA and the Brand Kit I have given you.

Every weekday morning, check the Drive folder [FOLDER NAME] for drafts added or changed since your last check. For each one, tell me:
1. Whether it sounds like us, with the lines that do not and why.
2. Anything that contradicts our Brand DNA.
3. Any claim, number, client name or result that our files do not support. Flag every one, even if it is probably true.
4. The single change that would improve it most.

Keep it short. If a draft is fine, say it is fine and move on.

Do not edit anything yourself and do not publish anything. Bring it to me.

When I tell you a correction was right, add the rule to the Brand Voice Guide so you catch it earlier next time, and show me what you changed.

Without a dot: keep prompt 9 as a saved note, open a chat inside the project, paste your draft under it and run it before you publish. Same check, one extra step, and it works on any plan.

Make it bring problems to you rather than fixing them. A guardian that silently edits your drafts is how a brand drifts without anyone noticing.

What you have now

One project that knows your business, so no chat starts from nothing. A voice guide built from your own best work rather than three adjectives. A brand DNA that holds the detail ChatGPT could never guess. Rules for each channel you publish on. A live connection to the documents that change. And a check that runs before anything goes out.

The part people skip is the one that matters: the files have to be files in the project, not answers in a chat. Everything else is upkeep. Reconcile against Drive once a quarter with prompt 8, and add a rule to the voice guide every time the guardian catches something real.

• A project called Brand Brain, with instructions written
• Brand Kit, Brand Voice Guide and Brand DNA saved in it as files
• A skill or a rules file for every channel you publish on
• Google Drive connected, pointed at your live documents
• A draft check you actually run, whether a dot does it or you do

Common questions

• Do I need a paid ChatGPT plan? Steps 1 to 4 work on any plan, though Free holds only 5 files per project and you will run out. Step 5 uses skills, which are on Business, Enterprise, Healthcare and Edu only. Step 7 uses a dot, which is on Pro and Business Premium only. Both of those steps have a fallback in the guide that gets the same result on any paid plan.
• Why not just use custom instructions or memory? Custom instructions apply to everything you do in ChatGPT, including the parts that have nothing to do with work, and memory is a summary it chose to keep. A project holds files you control, applies only inside the project, and can be handed to someone else.
• Can I give the project to someone else on my team? On Business and Enterprise, yes. On a personal plan the project is yours, but the files are the real asset. Keep them in Drive and anyone can rebuild the same brain in their own account in twenty minutes.
• It still does not sound like us. What is wrong? Almost always one of two things. The voice guide was built from your most polished content instead of your best performing content, so it learned the formal version of you. Or the guide is an answer in a chat rather than a file in the project, so it is not being read. Check the files list first.
• How often should I update it? Run prompt 8 against Drive once a quarter, and add a rule to the voice guide whenever the draft check catches something real. Rewrite the brand DNA when what you sell changes, not on a schedule.
• Is this the same as the Claude version? Same idea, different build. Projects, files and connectors work differently in each, and skills and dots have no direct Claude equivalent. We have a separate guide for building a Brand Brain in Claude.