Building your own AI agents with a custom GPT or a Claude Project: how far can you go?

On your own: what can a GPT or a Claude Project do?

In ChatGPT, a custom GPT is an assistant you set up without code. You give it instructions and reference files. OpenAI allows up to 20 files per GPT, each up to 512 MB.

According to OpenAI's help center, personal accounts (Free, Go, Plus and Pro) can no longer create new GPTs. Creating and sharing them happens in company workspaces, depending on what the admin allows. In its September 2026 release notes, OpenAI said it plans to retire custom GPTs across all plans and offer a migration path to plugins.

In Claude, a Project groups chats, instructions and a knowledge base of documents. Every account gets Projects, including free ones, which are capped at five. Each file can be up to 30 MB. There's no limit on the number of files, but together they have to fit in what Claude can read at once. On paid plans, a retrieval mode stretches that capacity up to ten times.

Sharing a Project with coworkers takes a Team or Enterprise plan. Each person can view it or edit it, depending on the access you give them.

Years of documents: where does it break down?

Your company's knowledge is spread across years of proposals, meeting notes and deliverables, filed away in SharePoint, OneDrive or Dropbox. Someone has to pick which ones to upload, and that pick decides what the assistant knows.

An uploaded file is a copy. When the proposal changes in SharePoint, the one in your GPT or Project stays the same until someone swaps it out. With several GPTs or Projects across a team, each one has its own copies to keep current.

The assistant reads the text in the files. Which meeting notes belong to which client, which method a project followed, who worked on it: you have to spell out those links in the instructions, or leave the assistant to guess from the passages it finds.

With Saména: what changes?

Saména reads the SharePoint, OneDrive or Dropbox folders you choose, with read-only access. Your files stay where they are, and Saména keeps none of them. You don't copy or sort anything.

Every document is linked to the others by client, project, method and team, in the terms your business actually uses. Your agents know which meeting notes go with which client, and who ran the project.

Our engineers, who trained at Télécom Paris, build those agents with you, starting from what eats up your team's time. The agents cite their sources and draft Word and PowerPoint files.

They live in the Saména app, and you can also reach them from Claude, ChatGPT or Copilot. Your team keeps the assistant it already uses.

Doing it yourself: when is it enough?

A custom GPT or a Claude Project does the job well when you have:

• One focused task that relies on a few stable documents, like a style guide or a price list
• One person or a small team who already knows which files matter
• A trial run, to see what an assistant can do with your documents

And when it stops being enough?

That happens when the right answer depends on your track record: past projects for a similar client, the method that worked, the person who knows the account. Nobody uploads all of that into a GPT or a Project by hand.

You can start small with Saména: one department, one first agent, then expand when you want.

Frequently asked

Can we build an AI agent for free with Claude or ChatGPT?

With Claude, yes: Projects are open to every account, free included, up to five projects; you add instructions and documents. At OpenAI, personal accounts can no longer create new GPTs. On a free account, your conversations can be used to train models unless you opt out, so don't upload anything confidential.

Do we need to sort our documents first?

No. You pick the folders, and Saména reads the documents as they are, where they are: SharePoint, OneDrive or Dropbox.

Can our team keep using ChatGPT or Claude?

Yes. Your agents live in the Saména app and are also available from Claude, ChatGPT or Copilot. Everyone keeps the tool they know.

Does Saména keep a copy of our files?

No. Saména reads your sources with read-only access and keeps none of your files. What it retains from your documents is encrypted with a key unique to your company, and everything is deleted on request.

How many people can use the agents?

Your whole company. The subscription covers unlimited users, and we share pricing in a demo.