What ChatGPT’s new features mean for your business
Yesterday was the first OpenAI developer day in San Francisco, where CEO Sam Altman took to the stage to recount what OpenAI had done so far, and share improvements and new features, focusing on their flagship tool ChatGPT. The implications of his announcements were huge for millions of businesses globally. You’ll want to know what they mean for yours.
Altman reminded the audience that on 30th November 2022 they shipped ChatGPT as a “low key research preview.” He described that launch as going, “pretty well,” and went on to say that GPT4 is, “still the most capable model in the world,” as well as tell the audience that ChatGPT has two million developers, 100 million weekly active users, and the tool is used by 92% of Fortune 500 companies. Their strategy is product-led rather than marketing-led. “People just find it useful and tell their friends,” he explained, and “we love hearing the stories of how people are using the technology.”
Altman announced monumental improvements and new features that OpenAI will roll out within the next few months. Here’s what they could mean for your business.
OpenAI’s developer conference: implications for entrepreneurs
Among various new releases and updates including better world knowledge, enhanced customization, higher rate limits, reduced cost and more robust copyright shields, were some game-changing functionalities that will directly impact entrepreneurs and their businesses. Here are the top four.
Write code without a developer
“OpenAI just made English a coding language,” said prompt entrepreneur Kyle Balmer. “Its new Assistants API will mean any business can deploy their own no code tools using natural language.” The power of this is huge. Entrepreneurs have a lot of ideas. Being able to turn ideas into products by describing them in natural language will mean the time between concept and MVP can be reduced to hours, if not minutes, and the cost wiped out completely.
“These assistants can integrate with other OpenAI models and tools,” added tech and AI educator Paul Couvert, who described the announcement as, “a small revolution for businesses” that can now build tailor-made tools and automate the processing and use of their data.
Compute more data for less cost
“The update to ChatGPT’s context window, now supporting up to 128k tokens, represents a substantial improvement to its capabilities,” said AI educator Alvaro Cintas, who explained that a token is roughly equivalent to four characters in English. “With this upgrade, ChatGPT can now compute about 300 pages of text at once, which significantly increases its processing power.”
This upgrade will mean deeper analysis and research, leading to better business insights. That includes, “detailed analysis of large documents such as market research reports or technical manuals.” It will also make for better content creation with ChatGPT, as the extended context “allows for greater coherence over the entire piece, ensuring all sections are well-aligned and contextually relevant.” ChatGPT’s brain can hold more information, so yours doesn’t have to.
Deploy customizable GPT chatbots
“This will revolutionize the digital landscape,” said AI educator Dan Fitzpatrick, who helps schools strategically integrate AI. “Altman’s on-stage demonstration signals an impending shake-up in conventional education. It’s clear that our current educational structures are unprepared for such transformative technology.” Schools, like businesses, will need to think quickly to figure out how to incorporate these releases into their work.
Education aside, the potential for businesses is huge. OpenAI won’t be the first or the last company to build custom GPTs, and now entrepreneurs have options as to how they distribute their content to grow their brand. “They must either evolve or risk obsolescence,” said Fitzpatrick about schools, a sentiment that also applies to businesses.
Consolidation of tools
While it may seem like an insignificant part of the event’s announcements, Altman’s explanation that soon you “won’t have to click around the dropdown menu, it will all work together. ChatGPT will know what to use and when you need it,” is actually huge. OpenAI isn’t building a bunch of separate tools that you can pick up and incorporate as your workflow dictates. Instead, it’s becoming an all-encompassing tool. Presumably in its vision, entrepreneurs will log on to ChatGPT and run their entire business from within its platform, incorporating assistants, GPTs, plugins, internet access, image generators and integrating with every other platform they use. This is big.
The ability to use all features without switching chats is known as “All Tools.” It doesn’t stand for “All tools are screwed,” but it probably should. The prognosis for other AI tool companies is bleak, and that many of them will disappear. You will soon be able to, for example, upload an image prompt ChatGPT to modify it using natural language. Where does that leave Photoshop and graphic designers? Existing platforms face a choice: close their doors, niche down, or compete with OpenAI.
What ChatGPT’s new features mean for entrepreneurs
As with all disruptive technology, there will be winners and losers. The winners are the entrepreneurs who use it to create more output and make more impact with less time and money. The ones who can learn a new platform, figure out the opportunities, and get to work on maximizing the results.
The losers are those who don’t adapt, get overtaken, or can’t find a way to differentiate their offering from what now exists. The challenge is clear and the mission is yours. How will you use this?
