OpenAI Adds Granular Personality and Tone Controls to ChatGPT

ChatGPT users can now fine-tune the AI's personality with a new set of granular controls. OpenAI announced the update on X today, allowing for manual adjustments to specific conversational traits like warmth and enthusiasm instead of relying solely on broad presets.



The new options are found within the "Personalization" settings menu. You can now use a series of dropdown menus to set distinct preferences for how the assistant handles both its tone and the way it structures information. For instance, you can tell the AI to use more headers and lists or to cut back on emojis. Each characteristic, including "Warm" and "Enthusiastic," can be set to "More," "Less," or "Default."


These tools expand on the base styles that arrived with GPT-5.1 last month. The updated menu features several new personality foundations, including "Efficient," "Nerdy," and a "Cynical" persona described as critical and sarcastic. The idea is to pick one of these base styles and then refine it further using the new characteristic selectors to create a more tailored experience.

These changes apply system-wide across all platforms. This includes interactions within the ChatGPT Atlas browser for Mac as well as the official mobile app. The ChatGPT app is available to download from the App Store for iPhone and iPad users.

OpenAI notes that while these settings change the assistant's personality and formatting, they don't have any impact on the actual reasoning or accuracy of the underlying models, such as the GPT-5.2 series. The new toggles work on top of existing custom instructions to shape how information is presented to the user.

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