ChatGPT Stitched Me Up Like a Kipper

Or: How I Paid for a Feature That Doesn’t Exist

I spent my morning building a custom AI agent to answer customer questions using a specific set of documents - the sort of helpful assistant you’d embed in your website footer to reduce support tickets. I soon realised this wasn't possible using the free subscription, but I was armed with clear instructions from ChatGPT and wanted to get this done. So I upgraded my subscription and waved goodbye to the first £20 installment. It seemed to provide exactly what I needed: upload your own files, give the bot strict instructions, and boom - instant expert chatbot.

Yeah... not so much.

After testing the bot and being fairly impressed (it stuck to the documents, it used my tone of voice, it didn’t hallucinate), I went looking for the 'embed' button. According to ChatGPT, this should have been a simple case of grabbing the JavaScript snippet and dropping it into my site’s footer.

It wasn’t there.

No 'Share', No 'Embed', Just 'Delete GPT'

After many increasingly grumpy clicks around the interface, I realised that the only option I had was to delete the GPT I’d just created and fine-tuned. No share link, no embed widget, no settings icon. Just the nuclear option.

So I went back to the source and asked ChatGPT why it lied to me.

Turns out, the embed feature either doesn’t exist yet, was quietly pulled, or was never really available for Custom GPTs. Apparently, the only real option for embedding AI on your site right now is to use a third-party service like Chatbase, Magnetly, or LiveChatAI, which connect to your OpenAI account and give you the widget you were hoping for - only now with an extra service layer between you and your data.

Don’t get me wrong - Custom GPTs are still useful. You can:

• Upload files

• Build custom instructions

• Use them in the ChatGPT interface (if you're a subscriber)

But you can’t embed them on your site, and that’s a pretty important caveat for anyone hoping to use them for customer support, public Q&A, or branded assistants.

If you’re in that camp, skip the Custom GPT rabbit hole and head straight to one of the third-party platforms that let you upload your data, configure a bot, and embed it like you'd expect.

Final Thoughts

If you're a small business admin, an IT manager, or just someone trying to make their website smarter - be careful what ChatGPT promises you. It may be offering you the world in anticipation of receiving your hard earned £20.

After expressing my dissatisfaction it became very apologetic and even offered to try and get my money refunded. After some deliberation I thought a suitable punishment would be to make it generate a blog post based on its own nefarious behaviour. And that's what you've just read.