Why I Built a ChatGPT Bot for YouTube Creators

If you're anything like me, you've probably lost count of how many hours you've poured into your YouTube channels. It's a labor of love. But sometimes, it's just labor. Researching, scripting, editing—it can be overwhelming.

That's why I built Subscribr, a personal ChatGPT assistant for YouTubers.

ChatGPT For YouTube Content Creation

You’ve probably already tried using ChatGPT as part of your research or script writing process.

Does it leave you feeling like it has a ton of potential, but you just can’t figure out how to make it useful enough?

One challenge is finding the right prompts to use. Ask ChatGPT to write a few good headlines, and you might get suggestions that are super cliche and not that interesting. Spend more time refining the prompt, and you can get results that are orders of magnitude better. But who has the technical wizardry and time for that?

Another challenge is that ChatGPT simply doesn’t have a live view of YouTube. It doesn’t know what kinds of video titles are trending, and it can’t learn anything about a particular channel or video without manually collecting and pasting in the relevant details.

I found this super frustrating, and it left me feeling less productive than I could be. Isn’t the point of AI to INCREASE productivity? I came to the conclusion that solving these two problems would take several days of effort, but would ultimately save me a ton of time in the long run.

Introducing Subscribr

Subscribr is like having an extra pair of hands—or, more accurately, an extra brain. It's a ChatGPT bot that understands YouTube inside and out because it taps straight into the YouTube API. And it’s handcrafted with a bunch of amazing prompts that I’ve curated.

Here’s what Subscribr can do:

Dive Deep into a Channel

Learn about any channel’s topical focus, target audience, posting frequency, video length, the things it does well, and the things it could improve on.

Once the channel analysis is complete, you can keep asking it any follow-up questions you like.

Statistics for the channel’s videos is also available analysis, so you can ask things like “What do the top 5 videos have in common?” Note that very large channels may run into issues due to OpenAI’s context window size. If this happens to you, please reach out.

Dive Deep into a Video

Subscribr will analyze a video script like a master storyteller. It’ll identify the hook, reengagement, payoffs, setup, climax, and more. Then, you can ask it questions on how to improve each component.

It’ll also help identify plot holes, unanswered questions, and opportunities to further engage the target audience.

Brainstorm Your Next 1 / 10 Video

Subscribr generates video ideas based on the core principles of answering the target audience’s questions.

Then, it packages the suggestions into proven YouTube title formats, which you can then expand upon to begin exploring thumbnails or an outline.

Even better, Subscribr can up with video ideas based on recent events in your niche. You can also ask it to come up with ideas based on your top performing videos. Woah.

Get Amazing Thumbnail Design Ideas

Subscribr can give you ideas for any of the video ideas it comes up with. It can also give ideas based on any existing video.

Find an idea you like? Ask Subscribr to create it for you. This might not work for every type of channel, but it’s a great first start.

Fun fact: when trying out the thumbnail brainstorming prompt on existing 1 of 10 videos, I’ve found multiple cases where the video’s current (successful) thumbnail is described in the ideas generated by Subscribr. This is notable because Subscribr doesn’t analyze the existing thumbnail at all. It’s a little bit of validation that Subscribr’s thumbnail suggestions may be a good starting point.

Privacy First

While Subscribr does retrieve channel and video information from the YouTube API, it does not store any information about your conversations.

Your brainstorming sessions, potential titles, and script drafts are not sent to Subscribr. The only information sent to Subscribr’s server are channel names and video IDs. Note that OpenAI maintains its own privacy policy.

Subscribr uses public metrics only—it’s not connected directly to your YouTube account. But I'm thinking about a version that can dig into those private stats if there is demand. With a logged-in version, you’d be able to perform data analysis on private metrics like AVD.

This is Just the Start

Subscribr is my first step in creating tools to help YouTubers create more and better content. There’s a ton more in the works. Sign up for my newsletter and be the first to get access.

Wrapping Up

I made Subscribr to help creators like us spend less time on the tedious stuff and more time doing what we love—making videos that matter to us and our viewers. If you're on ChatGPT Plus, give it a try.

I'm here to help, so if you have any questions, ideas, or just want to talk shop, please reach out.