Getting Started with ChatGPT

You made an account, opened it, saw a blank box and a dropdown full of names you didn't recognize — and closed the tab.

This is the walkthrough that gets you past that. Not what AI is in theory. The actual app: where things live, which button does what, and how to run it without second-guessing every click.

You'll sort out which plan you need (start free — here's when to pay), find the five things on the screen that matter, learn which model to pick for the job in front of you, meet the buttons around the message box one at a time, and set it up to remember your context so you stop re-explaining yourself every single time.

By the last lesson you'll have your own "control panel" — a one-glance guide to which setting handles which task — and the two or three habits that keep ChatGPT safe and genuinely useful in your week.

Who it's for

People who keep hearing "just use ChatGPT": you're sold on trying it, you just want someone to show you around before you waste an afternoon guessing.

The made-an-account-once crowd: it's sitting there unused because the empty screen didn't tell you what to do next.

Anyone quietly unsure what they're paying for: free, eight dollars, twenty, two hundred — this untangles the plans so you buy exactly what fits, and nothing more.