The impact of generative AI on business

Daniel Goymer • June 7, 2023

When I was young, I watched an interview with Gordon Moore, the then CEO and founder of Intel. Back in 1971 Intel was making microchips for calculators, expanding their empire by designing a chip that could also be used to power elevators, traffic lights and general systems for the industrial market. This was well before Apple, Microsoft or even the Altair 8800… Intel had everything it needed to be the titan of the PC world, they had the microchips, the memory chips, the experience, and the expertise, they could have dwarfed Apple, IBM and Microsoft. So, what went wrong?

 

An engineer approached Moore and suggested they build a computer for the home, a personal computer. He rebuked him with a question, - tell me what you could do with a computer in the home? - The engineer considered this and the only application he could think of was that it would be useful for housewives to store their recipes on. There died the personal computer at Intel.

 

I repeat this story often whenever someone asks me what the point of this latest gadget is, or that latest technology. It is lack of our imagination that prevents our success; not experience, skill, opportunity or will. So rather than talk about Chat GPT, Bard, and Large Language Models, here are some examples of its use in practice. I challenge you to imagine how this will impact your business.

Let’s start with an easy one,

how can I survive a Zombie Apocalypse?

Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse sounds expensive, we’d best put up our prices,

write me a letter explaining our price increases.

Training is important, I need the team to be prepared,

create me a game to train for a Zombie Apocalypse

I need a cool graphic for this game,

man on a hill with a cricket bat?

Even with all that planning that still managed to get us,

best put out a press release explaining the recent outage.

Other questions you should ask it right now, 'can you summarise these article for me', or 'write key actions from this meeting transcript'. 


It’s far from perfect, but it’s evolving fast, can you imagine where it will be in twelve months? What about in the next five years? If you only use it as a cure for writer’s block, or to help get started on that difficult letter, it will save you time, but it’s true power is still to come.

 

Remember, don’t put anything into these tools that you consider confidential, ensure you have a policy on how it should be used at your business, need help getting started? ask Chat GPT…

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