MAICON 2025: Turning Custom GPTs into High-Impact Extensions of Your Team

AI is powerful, but its true value comes from applying it in the context of your work. At this year’s Marketing AI Conference (MAICON), Elise Horst, Associate Director of AI Solutions, showed how to move beyond the hype and unlock AI’s potential by building a custom GPT, a version of ChatGPT trained for your team. She began with this question:

Who’s ever wanted to clone a colleague?

While we can’t actually clone our coworkers, a well-designed custom GPT can come close. When trained to think and act in context, it can take on work that mirrors your strongest teammates by driving consistency, accuracy, and speed. But success doesn’t start with technology itself, it starts with a clear use case.

Ask yourself: What’s a task you’d train a new colleague to take over? That answer becomes your blueprint. From project planning and onboarding to coding support or audience research, these are the moments where custom GPTs can deliver measurable impact.

Custom GPTs in Action

We showcased three real examples:

1. Project Assistant: Aligns teams on realistic timelines and brings consistency to planning.
2. Email Deployment Specialist: Boosts efficiency and accuracy in large-scale email sends.
3. Patient Path: Delivers deeper insights into medical conditions, audiences, and engagement strategies.

Each GPT was trained on data, context, and how our teams actually work, enhancing performance without replacing people.

Checklist for Building a High-Impact GPT

1. Define its role: Clarify the problem it solves and the goal it supports.
2. Design the user experience: Keep it intuitive and conversational.
3. Provide resources: Equip it with the right knowledge and materials.
4. Test, share and iterate: Refine it with real team feedback.
5. Bonus – Humanize it: Add personality and empathy to make it feel like a true teammate.

Adoption happens when AI feels approachable and useful. Your custom GPT should evolve with your workflows, not as a one-time build, but an ongoing partnership that scales your team’s impact.

Ready to take the next step in your AI journey?

Check out the resources below to start, or advance, your AI adoption journey.

• Presentation deck: access the full demo session deck for more details.
• AI Empowered: download an essential guidebook for marketers exploring artificial intelligence.