Use of ChatGPT in the business environment: A competitive advantage

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In the dynamic Latin American business landscape, the adoption of disruptive technologies has become imperative for those looking to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive environment. In this context, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a key catalyst for innovation, offering unprecedented opportunities to improve efficiency, productivity, and, ultimately, the competitive edge against other similar businesses in the market.

One of the latest innovations in this space is the incorporation of advanced language models, like ChatGPT, which redefines human-machine interaction. This article will examine not only the technical capabilities of ChatGPT but also how these can be skillfully integrated to transform business processes, drive creativity, and optimize decision-making. (Ramge, 2023).

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an advanced natural language processing model developed by OpenAI. It uses deep learning techniques to understand and generate human language in a coherent and relevant manner. Its ability to interact in natural language makes it ideal for a variety of business applications, from customer service to content generation (Open AI, 2022).

How can it be aligned with company objectives?

Companies can use ChatGPT to align with their strategic goals in several ways, while maximizing their profits and offering added value to their customers and potential clients.

• Improving customer service: Implementing ChatGPT on customer service platforms can significantly enhance the quality of service. This advanced language model can provide quick and accurate responses to customer inquiries, improving the overall experience and fostering customer satisfaction. Additionally, it becomes a valuable resource for those companies that do not possess extensive customer service departments.
• Shopify, a Canadian e-commerce company, was one of the first businesses to implement ChatGPT within its Customer Service area. In this case, ChatGPT can respond to a wide range of questions posed by customers, from product inquiries to technical issues with the products. Shopify’s ChatGPT has the ability to know the details of the company and the online stores it owns, allowing the bot to provide customers with advanced and personalized answers to their queries. As a result, Shopify can offer customer service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in many and varied languages. Furthermore, it improved in response speed and the ability to handle a higher volume of queries simultaneously (Charle, 2023).
• Automation of repetitive tasks: ChatGPT offers the ability to automate routine and repetitive tasks within the company. From scheduling meetings to managing emails, this model can free up valuable time for employees by taking over operational activities, allowing these workers to focus their time and efforts on higher-level tasks with greater impact on the company’s actions.
• Mailchimp, which is a marketing automation and email marketing platform, recently integrated with ChatGPT to generate content and marketing campaigns, to create and send personalized emails on a large scale. Its goal is to help users generate ideas and produce content for their target audience, providing a wide range of objectives, message tones, structure, and more, depending on the industry. Since its launch, there has been an increase in email open and conversion rates, improvement in the personalization and relevance of the content sent to customers, and optimization of the time spent on creating email campaigns. (Schwartz, 2023).

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Data analysis and report generation: ChatGPT’s ability to analyze large volumes of data quickly and accurately makes it a valuable tool for data analysis and report generation. By employing this model in the interpretation of complex data, companies can gain meaningful insights to support strategic decision-making.

Microsoft, through Microsoft Power Platform, which is a set of business management tools that includes Power BI, a tool for creating reports and analyzing data, integrated GPT-3, allowing users to create natural language commands for data analysis and report generation by facilitating the creation of queries and the interpretation of data without the need for complex coding. This integration has democratized application development within organizations, enabling non-technical users to build customized solutions and perform complex data analyses. This improves operational efficiency and accelerates data-driven decision-making (Ajao, 2023).

• Development of creative content: ChatGPT can be a valuable tool in the creation of creative content. From writing advertising copy to generating ideas for marketing campaigns, this model can provide suggestions and assist in conceptualization. Its ability to understand the desired tone and style of communication allows businesses to generate engaging content that aligns with their strategic messages.
• Jasper (formerly known as Jarvis) is an artificial intelligence platform designed to assist users in creating content, from blog posts and emails to advertisements and social media content. With the integration of ChatGPT for content generation, it aims to offer various functionalities that enable users to generate content ideas, draft complete texts, and optimize existing content to enhance its readability. The tool is capable of producing content in multiple formats and styles, catering to the specific needs of its users. This has led to Jasper users reporting a significant increase in content production efficiency, reducing the time required to generate drafts and improving content quality through automated suggestions and revisions. This has resulted in an enhancement of online presence for businesses and content creators, as well as optimization of their content marketing strategies (Baxter, 2023).
• Training and internal support: ChatGPT can play an essential role in internal training and employee support. It can provide answers to frequently asked questions, offer guidance on internal policies, and facilitate access to relevant information for professional development. This not only improves operational efficiency but also contributes to ongoing team training, aligning with the company’s development goals.
• Slack, known for its team communication platform, has integrated artificial intelligence capabilities powered by ChatGPT-4 and others to enhance productivity and workflow. Slack offers various integrations that can be programmed to respond to frequently asked questions, automate tasks, and assist in employee training. These bots can be customized to meet the specific training and support needs of a company. With these integrations, Slack has succeeded in improving the efficiency of internal communication, providing instant answers to common questions, and facilitating access to training information and resources. This allows employees to quickly resolve doubts and continue with their work, enhancing overall productivity (Slack, 2023).

What precautions should be taken when using ChatGPT?

While ChatGPT offers numerous benefits, it is crucial to use it with caution, understanding its potential limitations and risks (Mangum, B., 2023), which are outlined below:

• Privacy concerns: Although the language model does not store personal data, the platform you are using to access GPT may record conversations for various purposes, including service improvement. Make sure not to share sensitive business information unless you are confident in the platform’s data handling policies.
• Contextual inaccuracies: Occasionally, GPT generates results that may not be contextually accurate or appropriate. Careful moderation is recommended, especially when using it in interactions with clients.
• Lack of real-time understanding: Despite its impressive ability to generate text, GPT does not comprehend content in the way humans do. It lacks beliefs, opinions, and access to real-time information unless provided during the conversation.
• Overreliance on artificial intelligence: While GPT can assist in various tasks, it should not replace human creativity and critical thinking. It is essential to maintain a balance and not overly rely on the tool.
• Inconsistent performance: The performance of GPT can be variable. Although it often generates highly relevant and useful results, there are times when it may not fully deliver, requiring human intervention and editing.

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How can it be implemented?

The implementation of ChatGPT in a company involves several steps:

• Needs identification: Determining in which areas ChatGPT can add more value. This determination will be based on which areas are more involved or linked to the achievement of the company’s strategic objectives.
• Integration with existing systems: Ensuring that ChatGPT integrates seamlessly with the tools and platforms already in use. This requires a support team with technical knowledge about the use of this technology and its cross-functional integration with all areas of the company, and also having adequate technological infrastructure to support the operation of the new tool.
• Training and customization: It is necessary to train the model on specific company data to improve its accuracy and relevance within the company’s processes. It is also necessary to have an effective training plan since being a recent and increasingly popular technology, not everyone has the necessary basic knowledge to interact with the tool. By providing the necessary training to those involved, the company ensures that it gets the most out of using ChatCPT within the processes. This series of training sessions should be accompanied by a change in organizational culture, focusing on strengthening and fulfilling the company’s strategic tasks, leaving the most operational ones to the tool.
• Deployment and monitoring: Finally, deploying ChatGPT in a controlled environment and constantly monitoring its performance is key to making necessary adjustments so that the tool understands and comprehends the company’s context better over time. Additionally, adequate monitoring can prevent potential failures or inherent risks in the operation of the tool.

Expected Results

Companies can expect to see various benefits when implementing ChatGPT, depending on the area of implementation. Results vary and are more specific according to the company’s objectives. However, some cross-cutting results, independent of the implementation area, include the following:

• Improved operational efficiency: Reduction in the time and effort required to perform routine and operational tasks, allowing the company and employees to focus their efforts on tasks directly related to strategic objectives.
• Enhanced customer experience: Increased speed and accuracy in responses to customers, improving their experience with the company. Optimizes the customer-company relationship, aiming for greater agility in interactions and precise responses.
• Data-driven decision-making: Faster and more accurate data analysis to present this information as a key input in organizational decision-making. Allows for real-time data querying and collection and supports tasks of analysis and interpretation of the same.

Conclusion

ChatGPT represents a powerful tool for companies seeking to remain competitive in the digital age. Its ability to improve operational efficiency, enrich the customer experience, and support data-driven decision-making makes it a valuable asset in the modern business ecosystem. Furthermore, it is a tool of utmost importance and potential for small and medium-sized enterprises, as its implementation reduces costs and optimizes time, allowing the company to focus its efforts on activities that generate the most value, while support activities are assisted with ChatGPT.

Article written by: Agora Partnerships, Innovation and Technology Department, Fabián Medina, Sara Sánchez.