From Data to Documentation: Exploring the Use of ChatGPT’s Custom Instructions for Report Generation

Abstract

Generative artificial intelligence has attracted global attention and interest in software engineering research, practical applications, and in business, especially in the past two years. Tools like Gemini, Copilot, and ChatGPT have been widely studied in various professional contexts for their exceptional ability to produce human-like content. Furthermore, the number of these artificial intelligence tools is increasing explosively. Within this context we have picked a very specific use case: namely, converting notes into a full, uniform report using ChatGPT’s custom instructions. In this paper, we present the process of creating custom instructions for a certain task, how the instructions were tested, and the results of our study. The study shows that even though using custom instructions alone is perhaps not quite sufficient yet for fully automatic report generation, the approach can still save a considerable amount of time and resources. This study also highlights the pitfalls and obstacles faced, and should help those who are planning to embark on a similar quest.