In spite of all the jokes about it becoming self-aware and turning against humanity, artificial intelligence has now hit the mainstream.

What was once relegated to the realms of science fiction flicks like I, Robot, and 2001: A Space Odyssey is now freely available to the public in the form of ChatGPT.

And although it’s far from perfect, ChatGPT has become wildly popular and is poised to disrupt practically every industry on Earth.

According to statistics from SEO.ai, more than one million people used ChatGPT in its first five days alone, and estimates show that in January of this year, it had 100 million monthly users.

Needless to say, this thing is a pretty big deal.

But at this point, many of you are probably wondering, “What the heck is ChatGPT?”

Or maybe you’ve heard of it, and you’re wondering how it can be applied to your business.

Whatever the case, if you’re still asking yourself, “What is ChatGPT?” and wondering how this tool can benefit your business, then you should definitely keep reading.

Because in this article, I’m going to explain what ChatGPT is and look at what it can do to benefit your business.

What Is ChatGPT?

Launched on November 30, 2022, and developed by OpenAI, ChatGPT, which is also known as GPT-3, is an artificial intelligence (AI) language model.

It’s basically like a chatbot on steroids, which allows you to interact with it in a conversational way by instructing it to answer your questions, engage in dialogue with you, or carry out tasks.

According to ChatGPT itself, the AI “uses deep learning techniques, particularly transformer-based neural networks, to generate human-like responses to natural language prompts.”

But how does it do all this stuff?

Well, ChatGPT was trained using 570 gigabytes of text from various Internet databases, including books, articles, and even Wikipedia.

Based on today’s standards, that might not seem like a lot, but to put things in perspective, this translates to more than 300 billion words.

After being fed all this text, the AI was then put through an extensive testing stage, where it was asked a massive number of questions, and whenever it gave the wrong answer, the correct answer would then be fed back into it so it would remember it for the next time someone asked that question.

This was done until ChatGPT was able to respond based on probability, meaning it could guess what the next word in a sentence should be, kind of like a souped-up version of autocorrect.

Currently, it’s free to use, but OpenAI has also started offering an upgraded version exclusively to users in the U.S. called ChatGPT Plus, which provides greater availability, speed, and access to new features.

What ChatGPT Can Do for Your Business

As you can probably already imagine, ChatGPT has practically infinite applications and can be used to boost productivity in pretty much any industry.

Whether it’s coming up with ideas, planning your business objectives, automating tasks, or something else entirely, there’s literally no end to what ChatGPT can do for your business.

With that in mind, below I’ve listed some of the best ways to benefit your business using ChatGPT.

Ideation

When you work in the worlds of marketing and branding, as I do, you’re constantly having to come up with ideas, and sometimes it can get pretty exhausting.

But if you need something to help you get your creative juices flowing again or help you come up with ideas when you’re drawing a blank, then ChatGPT can help.

I’ve only had access to this tool for a few weeks, and in that short amount of time, ideation is the number one thing I’ve used it for.

For instance, we publish a bi-weekly article and newsletter, and sometimes it’s kind of tough to come up with ideas, especially since we’ve published more than 600 articles.

But regardless of what kind of business you own, ChatGPT can help you come up with ideas for just about anything, including things like finding efficiencies so you can streamline your business.

Here’s what ChatGPT had to say when I asked it how I can make my business more efficient:

As you can see, ChatGPT has an uncanny ability to understand language, which is shown by these helpful responses on how to make my business more efficient, and its references to posting on social media, email marketing, and data analysis.

So, if you’re struggling to come up with ideas, no matter what industry you’re in, or what you’re trying to figure out, ChatGPT can help.

Planning

When you’re trying to build your business, planning is everything.

If you just do things willy-nilly, you’re not likely to get good results, but if you go in with a plan, then your chances of success are much, much better.

Truth be told, some people spend years learning how to build a business, and this stuff can be tough to wrap your head around, especially if you’re new to this sort of thing.

But if you’re not sure where to start, or you need some help determining how to move forward, ChatGPT is an absolutely invaluable tool.

For example, as you can see from the image below, I asked ChatGPT to give me three things to consider when planning my business objectives for the coming year, and here’s the response it gave me:

Now, if you haven’t been in business as long as I have, then it might not be as obvious that ChatGPT really knows what it’s talking about on this one.

But as someone who’s been a business owner for more than 20 years, I can tell you that this is actually pretty sound advice.

So, if you’re trying to define the objectives of your business, but you have no idea where to start, then ChatGPT could provide the frame of reference you need to set those goals with confidence.

Market Research

For me, as someone who’s worked in marketing for decades, this is one of the most exciting applications of ChatGPT.

I could scarcely believe this myself when I first heard about it, but it is possible to have ChatGPT roleplay for you, so you can simulate market research by asking it to play different characters.

However, this sort of thing requires a somewhat greater understanding of ChatGPT, both in terms of what it’s actually capable of doing, and how to provide the proper input to get the kind of responses you’re looking for.

It’s actually not that tough, though. Here’s what I did to test it out:

As you can see, the first step in this process is to ask ChatGPT to play a specific role for you. Here, I simply asked if it could “play the role of a business owner looking for marketing services.”

Funny enough, after agreeing to roleplay with me, the second sentence in its response appears to indicate that it thinks I’m looking for marketing services (again, this thing is far from perfect).

But even still, when I asked it about the issues it faced when looking for marketing services (remember, it’s playing the role of a business owner here), it fully understood that I wanted it to roleplay, and it responded accordingly.

So, if you’re trying to do market research for your business, but you don’t have the money to hire a focus group or commission a survey, then ChatGPT can give you the next best thing by playing the role of your ideal customers and allowing you to simulate conversations with them.

Automation

Arguably, the most disruptive application of ChatGPT is its ability to automate.

This is bound to change the world of business forever, as business owners can delegate time-consuming tasks to AI models like ChatGPT, freeing up their staff to spend more time on creative and strategic endeavours.

As a business owner, this should be particularly exciting, as automation can allow you to cut overhead costs and streamline your business, where you may not have had that opportunity before.

That being said, ChatGPT can be used for many different forms of automation, including things like:

• Customer Service: ChatGPT can be used to create customer service chatbots, helping businesses to save time and money while offering faster service for customers.
• Appointment Scheduling: Chat GPT can be used to automate tasks related to appointment scheduling, allowing business owners to take this task off of administrative employees’ plates.
• Lead Generation: ChatGPT can be used to help you generate leads by interacting with people who visit your website, helping you to define your target markets and qualify potential leads by asking them questions about their needs and desires.
• Data Analysis: Chat GPT can be used for data analysis in several different ways. It can be trained to separate data into specific categories, automatically generate reports based on that data, or even draft summaries of its analyses.

Are you using ChatGPT for your business yet? We’ve been using this tool more and more for our client work, enabling us to be even more spot on when coming up with relevant copy for them and their target audiences. Contact us today to find out more about what we can do for you.

To your business success,
Susan Friesen

About the Author, Susan Friesen

Located in the lower mainland of B.C., Susan Friesen is a visionary brand strategist, entrepreneur, and founder of British Columbia’s premiere boutique web development and digital marketing agency, eVision Media.

With over 20 years of experience in the industry, she is an expert in helping businesses establish their online presence and create a strong brand identity.

Her passion for empowering entrepreneurs and small business owners to succeed in the digital world has earned her a reputation as a leading authority in the branding and marketing industry.

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