If you’re launching or growing a business online in 2025, AI tools like ChatGPT are your ultimate unfair advantage.
They help you remain competitive in your industry, and enable you as a freelance professional to deliver uncompromising quality and speed of project execution.
So far, the data shows:
- ChatGPT is the most popular AI platform for making money online, “with 31% of freelancers using it as their primary tool,” according to Staffing Industry Analysts.
- About “62% of skilled freelancers use AI tools at least several times per week, versus just 53% of full-time employees,” says Upwork in its 2025 report of freelancers’ use of AI.
- And what’s more, an estimated 78% freelancers who are working for themselves full-time are satisfied with their income, in contrast to just 64% of full-time employees. Clearly, having your own AI-powered online business promises more financial and career stability than holding down a traditional job.
So the question is, What’s so exciting and different about ChatGPT-5, OpenAI’s latest model?
And how can you use it, like other freelancers are doing, to build your business and make money online outside of your 9-5?
What’s New With ChatGPT-5?
Quick facts:
ChatGPT-5 is OpenAI’s latest model, released Thursday (August 7), and is dubbed its “flagship model” which claims to be its best to date, being smarter, more efficient, more widely useful on various benchmarks compared to earlier models, according to OpenAI’s website.
It’s been designed to have less hallucinations (however still keep on the lookout as AI does have its moments) and was developed to be more efficient, accurate, detailed, and have greater depth in areas such as:
- Math (even at university-level)
- Creative writing (especially useful if you’re seeking to make money online)
- Coding (another fantastic feature for freelancers)
- Multimodal understanding (which is when ChatGPT or other AI tools can analyze, understand, and make sense of data in various formats like photos, PDFs, tables, etc., then use these to create a thorough answer)
For now, much to the chagrin of some users who’ve expressed their disappointment on social media platforms, access to previous versions of ChatGPT has been removed (at the time of writing).
How Can You Start Making Money With ChatGPT-5?
To start making money online using ChatGPT’s newest advanced model, you need to think about the features that are most relevant to your work, that can help in giving you an edge above your competitors.
3 Ways To Make Money Using ChatGPT-5
Here are some examples of how you might be able to use ChatGPT-5’s newest features to cut short your work and make more money:
- Speed up the process in building custom design assets for clients, for digital marketing and physical branding
- Develop entire apps with its advanced coding features, for use on your own website/platform for an improved user experience for your clients, and to sell as a feature for business clients
- Build a content calendar with full outlines for blog posts and social media assets for each (to sell to clients and/or to use for your own business)
That being said, ChatGPT-5 is not without its drawbacks, even in its first 72 hours. It has received mixed reviews from users, with backlash from many stating that this model is nowhere near as good as ChatGPT 4.0.
How Does ChatGPT-5 Work?
For my part, I wanted to test it for myself, so I decided to act as a freelance designer and posed ChatGPT this prompt:
“Create a ready-to-sell Instagram carousel design for a personal trainer client in the health and fitness industry, eliminating the need for manual design work. I have uploaded a screenshot of a sample post the client says they like and admire. They’d like the aesthetic of their branding on Instagram to be similar to this. The carousel will have quick facts about how to burn an extra 300 calories a day.”
(The photo I used in the prompt was a screenshot of a Canva template I had found.)
This is what happened:
- My immediate observation: The model was super-fast in developing what I required.
- My next observation: ChatGPT-5 seems to have lost the relatively human touch of its predecessor. It got straight to the point and designed what I asked, but there was no conversation. The previous model would have said something like, “Sure, here’s XYZ,” or ended the selection of photos with an explanation of some sort. This immediately felt cold and impersonal. I’m not alone in this observation either, with Reddit users commenting the same.
Jeff Hunter, an admin on Artificial Intelligence, a large Facebook community of 3.6 million AI enthusiasts, posted: “First thoughts on ChatGPT 5?” to which he was met with an overwhelming response of underwhelmed ChatGPT users expressing their disappointment.
Yahoo News also reported that there was mixed feedback at Sam Altman’s live Reddit session, with users noting that ChatGPT-5 is notably worse at writing assignments compared to version four.
I then gave ChatGPT this prompt:
“Give me design suggestions based on this style: what are the fonts used and what are the HEX color codes? Also give me a ready-to-use caption and hashtags using the client’s brand voice: energetic, sharp and to the point, no messing around tone, witty, motivating.”
The answer came almost immediately, most of which was extremely helpful and detailed if I was a real freelance designer. The hiccup came when it offered a promise it couldn’t fulfil:
“If you want, I can also give you a ready-to-use Canva or Figma template pre-loaded with these fonts, colors, and layout so you can plug in new tips each week without starting from scratch. That way you’ll have a consistent brand style in seconds.
Do you want me to prepare that next?”
When I said yes, this prompt took me on endless yo-yo before it finally came to the conclusion that it couldn’t access Canva or create a Canva link. I then asked it to create the full set of carousels instead.
The finished product? One lone image, almost identical to the cover image that we originally started with (see below):
Needless to say, I was disappointed as it seemed ChatGPT had gone backwards in its capabilities and understanding of my prompts.
Nonetheless, here’s what I learned about using ChatGPT-5 to make money online as a freelancer:
- With ChatGPT-5, you need to be extremely specific with your prompts, even more than you did with version 4.0.
- The 5.0 update doesn’t appear to live up to the high expectations we had in mind when it launched, however there are some instances where it performs very well, such as speed of response, and extremely detailed and technical answers.
- You still need to check the output of ChatGPT-5 for accuracy and reliability, although its hallucinations have decreased.
- AI companies are still experimenting to see what works and what doesn’t; each update may feel more or less like an improvement, nonetheless, we should embrace change and try to adapt our skills to understanding how best to use these AI tools to our advantage.
Finally, consider experimenting with other Gen AI tools like Claude and Copilot, to see which serves your needs best as you monetize your skills online. Some have clearly distinct advantages over others for specific tasks, like code reviews or debugging.
In an AI-driven world, remember, one of your greatest advantages is being able to out-innovate your competition. So, automate where you can, design your own custom prompts and AI workflows, and watch your skills make money for you.
This article was originally published on forbes.com.
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