Skip to content

Projects

Platforms: claude openai gemini m365-copilot perplexity

What Projects Are

Project workspaces ("Projects") are professional-grade AI capabilities that scale your expertise and amplify your impact. Instead of starting every conversation from scratch, a project gives the AI persistent memory, specialized knowledge, and standing instructions that shape every interaction.

Project Workspaces — strategic capabilities and platform options

Strategic Capabilities

Projects provide three capabilities that turn a generic AI assistant into a purpose-built tool:

Memory

Build up deep context to guide the AI and improve model performance. Every conversation in a project contributes to a shared history, so the AI learns your preferences, terminology, and working patterns over time.

Knowledge Base

Embed specialized knowledge, industry insights, and proprietary data that generic LLMs lack. Upload reference documents, style guides, templates, data files, and examples — the AI draws on this knowledge in every conversation without you re-uploading it.

Custom Instructions

Shape every response an AI gives you inside a workspace. Custom instructions are the difference between a generic assistant and one that knows your role, your standards, and what good output looks like — without you repeating yourself every conversation.

Platform Options

Platform Project Feature Key Characteristics
Claude Claude Projects Project knowledge files, custom instructions, conversation history
ChatGPT ChatGPT Projects Project instructions, file uploads, shared conversations
Google Gemini Gems Custom instructions, uploaded context, reusable specialists
Perplexity Spaces Shared research spaces with persistent sources and instructions
M365 Copilot Copilot Notebooks Instructions, Microsoft Graph integration, enterprise knowledge

When to Use a Project

Use a project when:

  • You run the same workflow weekly or more often
  • Multiple context files (3+) are needed every time
  • The same reference materials are used across conversations
  • Conversation memory across sessions would improve quality
  • Multiple people need to run the same workflow

Use a regular conversation when:

  • The task is a one-off or experimental
  • Little or no persistent context is needed (0-2 files)
  • All context can be provided inline each time

What Makes a Good Project

The best projects follow one principle: one workspace, one purpose.

A "marketing workspace" is too broad. A "blog post review workspace" or "weekly client report workspace" is focused enough to have clear instructions, relevant knowledge, and consistent output quality.

Good projects have:

  • A clear single purpose — what this workspace does, stated in one sentence
  • Specific custom instructions — role, task, context, and format guidance (not vague "be helpful" statements)
  • Curated knowledge — only the reference materials this workflow actually needs
  • Test prompts — 2-3 prompts you can use to verify the workspace works as intended

Guides

Guide Description
Write Custom Workspace Instructions Meta prompt that walks you through creating purpose-built workspace instructions using the 4 Elements framework
Set Up Claude Projects Step-by-step setup guide for Claude's project feature