AI Takeover: Coca-Cola And Snap Embrace ChatGPT While Banks Ban It
Generative AI has started deploying rapidly across the world’s largest companies including beverage giant Coca-Cola which just announced plans to integrate tools from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI in an alliance with the consulting firm, Bain & Company.
Snap has announced it’s rolling out its own experimental chatbot “My AI” as part of a subscription product called Snapchat+ which can recommend gift ideas, plan getaway trips, suggest recipes and write haikus based on OpenAI’s GPT technology, the company said in a blog post while warning that the AI is subject to “hallucinations” and can be tricked into saying anything. It also told users not to disclose anything secret or to rely on it for advice.
SnapSay Hi to My AI
AI-written proposals and video meeting digests have been available to Microsoft customers for the past month. And once Google and Microsoft’s chatbots Bard and Sydney emerge from beta more accurate and less emotional than their initial launch, full integration across search, email and office products could be the watershed moment that unlocks major productivity gains.
But just how big a leap in technology it is and where it puts us on the AI roadmap remains to be seen.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Alphabet Chair and Google CEO Eric Schmidt have called this moment in time an “intellectual revolution” the likes of the Enlightenment with the technology poised to generate a new form of consciousness, as it distills billions of items of textual material from the internet, books and other sources into human-like reasoning. But leading AI scientists, like Facebook’s Yann LeCun and former Salesforce’s Richard Socher, have been debunking the hype that generative AI is anywhere near achieving such “consciousness” and that it’s simply a tool to aid humans in gaining efficiencies.
Yet the excitement and fear over the technology’s potential has drawn battle lines with some openly embracing it, and others banning it.
Here’s a look at who’s out in front.
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Global Consulting Firms
Leading the charge to speed adoption through enterprise, OpenAI has forged a partnership with strategic consulting firm Bain & Company to integrate tools like chatbot ChatGPT, image generator DALL-E and text-to-code programming model Codex into their Fortune 500 clients’ marketing, sales, customer service, software development and business operations. Bain has also embedded OpenAI tools into many of its own internal processes, according to its Feb. 21 press release.
Rival consultancy PwC Australia is taking a different approach experimenting with the technology while prohibiting staffers from using ChatGPT on client projects. “Our policies don’t allow our people to use ChatGPT for client usage pending quality standards that we apply to all technology innovation to ensure safeguards. We’re exploring more scalable options for accessing this service and working through the cybersecurity and legal considerations before we use it for business purposes,” Chief Digital Information Officer Jacqui Visch told the Financial Review.
Consumer Goods
The Coca-Cola Company is working with the OpenAI x Bain alliance to integrate ChatGPT and DALL·E into its content creation and brand experiences. “We see opportunities to enhance our marketing through cutting-edge AI, along with exploring ways to improve our business operations and capabilities,” said James Quincey, Chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company, in the Bain announcement.
Meanwhile after experimenting with the technology for its Super Bowl ad, Avocados From Mexico decided to pull the plug on making the commercial with ChatGPT, a spokesperson told me.
Media
Last month, media outlet Buzzfeed struck a $10 million deal with Meta to create content for Facebook and Instagram using OpenAI’s APIs. In a blog post, Buzzfeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti said the company plans to use AI tools to help their creator network write more engaging posts with features like personalized quizzes where readers fill in the blanks to get a romcom written about them in 30 seconds. With 20% of Buzzfeed’s content coming from its creator network generating over a billion views last year, Peretti sees AI boosting the bottom line. “AI opens up a new era of creativity, where creative humans like us play a key role providing the ideas, cultural currency, inspired prompts, IP, and formats that come to life using the newest technologies,” he said.
Medium is also allowing its creator network to use ChatGPT on the platform as long as it’s disclosed, according to a blog post by its Vice President of Content Scott Lamb. CNET which had been creating AI-generated content for months, took a pause last month amid questions over inaccuracies and disclosures, according to The Verge.
Forbes has strictly prohibited its use.
Finance
Heavily-regulated banks and investment houses like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank have all restricted employee access to ChatGPT, according to Bloomberg.
Yet, generative AI has become a darling of venture capital with some of the most visible investors in the space including Bessemer’s Sameer Dholokia, Coatue’s Thomas Laffont and Caryn Marooney, Lightspeed’s Gaurav Gupta, Greylock’s Saam Motamedi, General Catalyst’s Deep Nishar, Bloomberg Beta’s Amber Yang, Sequoia’s Konstantine Buhler, Founders Fund’s Leigh Marie Braswell, Benchmark’s Miles Grimshaw and Kleiner Perkins’ Bucky Moore. Several of which will be speaking at Cerebral Valley’s AI Summit on March 30 in Hayes Valley, San Francisco.
