It is a fair question, and for one project the honest answer is: you can. The difference shows when your work has to last between conversations.
The same answer applies to Claude, Gemini and other chat assistants. Checked 16 September 2026.If any of these is you, keep using the chat. You do not need nicefig.
A single piece of work that starts and ends in a few conversations fits comfortably inside a chat.
"Summarise this call." "Draft a reply." A chat assistant does these very well, and quickly.
If you reliably copy what the chat tells you into your own system, and enjoy doing it, you have solved the problem already.
Three weeks, four clients, forty pieces of work.
The chat answers well, then waits. It does not know this is about the price list you discussed on a call three weeks ago with someone else, unless you find that conversation and paste it back in. You carry the connection in your head.
nicefig checks it against every fig on the board, finds "Add a price list to the website" from three weeks ago, and suggests two steps and a note, with the email as the source. The board carries the connection.
| nicefig | A chat assistant | |
|---|---|---|
| What it keeps | A board of every piece of work for every client, with dates, steps, who you are waiting on, and where each change came from | Your conversations, plus saved facts about you. Projects can group chats and files together |
| When an update arrives | It checks the update against your whole board and puts it on the right piece of work | It answers about what you pasted. Linking it to older work is up to you |
| Your to-do list | Is the board. It stays up to date as work arrives | Is wherever you copy the answer to |
| Before anything changes | Every suggestion waits for your yes, and can be undone | Nothing changes, because there is nothing to change |
| Where work comes from | Paste, files, photos, voice, Fathom, a browser extension, and email this autumn | What you paste or upload. Some plans can search your email, not in every country |
| Rules you set once | "Always copy in the bookings team" becomes a step on every matching fig | Custom instructions shape its answers |
| Knowing what needs you | One number: things to look at. Deadlines that have slipped show in red | You ask it |
| Your clients and colleagues | Add them to a board, for free, to work on it or to read it | Sharing depends on the plan |
A chat answers and forgets. nicefig keeps.
Ask a chat about a document today and it knows nothing about what you agreed three weeks ago with somebody else, so you carry that in your head and supply it every time. nicefig holds it for you.
ChatGPT's memory keeps facts about you and your preferences, and you can see and edit them. It does not keep a list of every piece of work for every client, with dates, steps and the source of each change.
You can, and many people try. It works until the chat is long enough that you are scrolling to find what was agreed, and it still leaves the to-do list somewhere else.
nicefig uses an AI model to read what you put in, as any chat assistant does. We name it on our privacy page. The difference is everything around it: the board, the matching, the history and your approval.
Of course. Many people use a chat assistant to think and write, and nicefig to keep the work. You can copy any fig as context and paste it into a chat.
Paste last week's call, then the email that followed it, and watch it land on the same piece of work.
Ask for a placeChatGPT is a trademark of OpenAI. nicefig is not connected with OpenAI. All comparisons.