In short
ChatGPT is a general-purpose assistant from OpenAI. Verbatim gives you a team of AI agents for research, analysis and writing. It was built first for journalists. Its agents work on a whole project, for hours or for weeks: monitoring, reading, finding people, interview preparation, live checking and writing in your style. Every fact stays tied to its source, and Verbatim records the origin of every line. On ChatGPT’s individual plans, content is used by default to train the models. Content in Verbatim is hosted in Europe and is never used to train third-party AI.
This page compares ChatGPT and Verbatim on the criteria of journalistic work: style, research and sources, the origin of the text, interviews, data, publishing and pricing. The information on ChatGPT comes from OpenAI’s official pages.
Verbatim and ChatGPT, point by point
| Criterion | Verbatim | ChatGPT |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Demanding research, analysis and writing, starting with journalism. Agents work on a whole project, for hours or for weeks, and check each other’s work. | Everyday tasks: writing, brainstorming, editing, code, and analysis of files and images. |
| Style | A proprietary style engine, developed with linguists. It measures dozens of features in everything you have published and rewrites a wire story or a rough draft the way you would. Every correction refines your style profile. | Custom instructions: 1,500 characters on the free plan, 5,000 on paid plans. Project instructions, which take priority over custom instructions. |
| Research and sources | The agents search the web and public registers, and read every page they find from start to finish. A proprietary algorithm ties every fact to the exact excerpt it comes from. Every claim gets a status: Supported, Contradicted or Not found. | Web search on every plan. Answers cite their sources in a Sources panel. |
| Origin and marking of the text | Verbatim records the origin of every line: you, the AI or a source. The record is ready when the AI Act requires it. | OpenAI’s help centre describes no tracking of the origin of passages. Marking: C2PA and SynthID for images, SynthID for audio. For text, OpenAI presents marking as a future goal. |
| Interviews | In interviews, press conferences and meetings, Verbatim transcribes every word and checks every sentence as it is spoken. It also transcribes imported recordings, in most languages. | The Record feature in the macOS app, from the Plus plan upwards: 4 hours at most, with the best results in English. Transcription of an imported audio file is not described. |
| Data | Content hosted and processed in Europe. It is never used to train third-party AI. A specialist cybersecurity firm oversees Verbatim’s security. | Free, Go, Plus and Pro: content used for training by default, with a setting to turn it off. Business, Enterprise and Edu: no training by default. Data residency in Europe for new Enterprise and Edu accounts. |
| Publishing | Articles, news briefs, scripts, notes and rewritten wire stories, drawn from the same sources. Publishing to your current CMS, WordPress or any tool connected by webhook. VerbatimOS also has its own built-in CMS. | A WordPress.com plugin developed by Automattic. Other CMSs are not described. |
| Price | VerbatimAgent: €49.95, €99.95 or €149.95 a month, VAT included, with a 14-day free trial. VerbatimOS: €109 to €249 a month. Fixed price, with no AI usage fees. | Free €0, Go €8, Plus €23, Pro from €103 a month. Business: €21 per seat per month, billed annually. |
When to choose Verbatim
Verbatim is built for these cases:
- a subject has to be followed for weeks, with monitoring across hundreds of sources;
- the work starts from thousands of pages, recorded interviews and people to track down;
- every fact in a text has to be tied to its source;
- the newsroom needs to know which lines come from the AI;
- the journalist wants texts written in their own style.
When ChatGPT is enough
ChatGPT is enough to rephrase a paragraph, find a headline or summarise a public document. Its web search cites its sources. It also handles code and image analysis. For a confidential document, choose a plan that excludes training, or turn the setting off.
Questions
Can you publish an article written with ChatGPT?
Yes, under conditions. Since 2 August 2026, Article 50 of the AI Act has required a disclosure on any text of public interest that is generated or manipulated by AI. The obligation does not apply after human review or editorial control, when a natural or legal person holds editorial responsibility for the publication.
Does ChatGPT use my drafts for training?
On the Free, Go, Plus and Pro plans, yes by default. The “Improve the model for everyone” setting turns this off. Temporary chats are never used for training. The Business, Enterprise and Edu plans do not train the models by default.
Can I use Verbatim with ChatGPT?
Soon. Your Verbatim projects and monitoring will open inside ChatGPT and Claude. For each task, Verbatim tests models from several labs and uses the one that does it best.
Sources
Facts about ChatGPT checked on 1 October 2026 on its official pages.