Machine learning models such as ChatGPT are creating a real buzz among tech wizards and investors alike. And with good reason – the technology is set to revolutionise how business works in the coming years.
Artificial intelligence has been a hot topic on social media for the past month, with tech-savvy users raving about ChatGPT, a machine learning language generation model that gained an astounding one million users in less than a week after its public release on November 30, 2022.
ChatGPT, short for Generative Pretrained Transformer, was developed by OpenAI and can interact with users in a human conversation-like format, providing succinct answers to prompts and queries. It can also create code and plagiarism-free written content when required.
This type of software is getting investors very hot under the collar. Investment in generative AI has leapt by 425% in the past couple of years, with $2.1 billion invested in 2022 alone, according to data from PitchBook. This growth will be unstoppable in 2023 following the success of ChatGPT as others look to develop similar technologies.
And when investors get excited, it usually means there’s a lot of money to be made in the coming years. That money will be generated from sales to companies in all industries, which will use the AI in a dazzling variety of ways, revolutionising how businesses work.
How ChatCTP-3 can benefit businesses
Technology such as ChatGPT has applications for pretty much every industry. Here’s a quick snapshot of six sectors set for an AI-inspired shake-up:
- Data analysis: For those looking to perform web scrapes and suchlike, ChatGPT’s coding capabilities are a game changer, making the process much quicker than conventional methods and suggesting libraries that the user might not have been aware of.
- Copywriting and public relations: ChatGPT can be given a set of criteria and produce a well-written, plagiarism-free response based on that, which can then be sent out to the media or published as an article. Likewise, it can generate story ideas and pitches in tailored emails to editors in seconds, rather than the hours it takes manually. Content creators can also use it for applications such as creating video scripts.
- Customer relations: AI like ChatGPT can be used to sift through customer interactions –whether these occurred via phone, email, messaging or social media – and draft new responses based on what it finds. This gives salespeople the ability to craft a perfect response to a customer query or complaint.
- Sales: ChatGPT can be used to perfect sales pitches to prospective customers, which frees up the sales team to make more calls and therefore generate more sales and revenue.
- Teaching: While ChatGPT won’t be able to replace a teacher in a classroom, it can certainly help them to prepare. Education professionals spend nearly 50% of their working hours on things like lesson planning – a process that ChatGPT can perform in seconds.
- Healthcare: Creating medical reports and summaries is a significant element of healthcare professionals’ daily tasks. When prompted correctly, ChatGPT can create outlines and overviews, which the healthcare professional can then edit accordingly – cutting the time needed to do that and enabling them to perform more patient-facing activities.
These are just some examples of how technology such as ChatGPT could benefit businesses in the coming years.
It should be noted that for ChatGPT to be used effectively, users will require several new skills, such as understanding how to prompt the software correctly, how to cross-reference any pertinent information and how to edit and personalise the outputs.
This technology could also help create new jobs. Not only in the companies developing and commercialising this technology, but also for individuals training others to use ChatGPT software effectively. People who specialise in teaching the AI program to learn from customised datasets particular to specific niches and industries will be in high demand, as this will enable novel applications for the software in new areas.
Downsides
Of course, there are potential downsides to this technology. Currently, even though it has billions of parameters, it has its limits, such as:
- The potential for biased output: ChatGPT is trained on a large dataset of human-generated text. This dataset may contain biases reflected in the output generated by the model, which can be particularly concerning if ChatGPT is used to generate content for sensitive topics or assist decision-making.
- Built-in limitations: OpenAI has programmed ChatGPT with certain limitations, prohibiting it from discussing sensitive topics.
- Potentially unrealistic or misleading content: Because GPT is a language-generation model, it cannot fact-check or verify the accuracy of the content it generates. This means it can generate unrealistic or misleading content if given a misleading prompt.
The tech could also threaten some jobs. As mentioned, ChatGPT and its ilk can produce data and content much faster than a human. With pressure on margins and the bottom line being felt by many businesses around the world as the global economy slows, managers are looking to cut costs, and replacing humans with technology has been a strategy for hundreds of years now.
But, as ever in business, when new technology arrives to replace an existing job, workers will find new roles. For instance, content creators can pivot to become content editors instead. While the technology can produce copy to a standard in a fraction of the time a human can, it has limits, as outlined above, which means a human eye is still needed to check everything is accurate. It also lacks the individual style and flair a human writer can input into a text to make it compelling for readers and not sound ‘robotic’.
Conclusion
ChatGPT’s versatility and ability to generate high-quality, human-like text seem set to make it a valuable tool for a wide range of tasks in the coming months and years.
Individuals and enterprises who recognise the potential of ChatGPT while understanding and working around its limitations will quickly realise the immense potential this software offers for streamlining and speeding up processes. This, in turn, will help professionals find a better work-life balance, as the ability to semi-automate mundane, repetitive writing tasks will free up time and allow staff to focus on the primary responsibilities of their roles.
It should also be noted that this is still an emerging technology, and companies such as OpenAI will continue to develop their products and enhance their effectiveness going forward.
Software has revolutionised businesses in myriad ways in the past 35 years, and with machine learning applications such as ChatGPT, this trend is set to continue – and businesses will continue to reap the benefits. The AI game is changing, as ever. Now is the time to look at investing in it to get ahead of rivals.
