Artificial Intelligence… it’s here, it’s there, it’s… (to quote Ted Lasso) every —-ing where!
But what are we actually talking about? What is the breakthrough here and what does that mean for you?
ChatGPT is now the latest tectonic shift in A.I. functionality and truly is that breakthrough. Why? Because OpenAI has achieved the breakthrough in User Experience. They didn’t create it, but they did kind of perfect it. It’s called ad hoc query and the concept has been around since the early 1980s when the relational database boom began (as well as my career, btw). We used to promote ad hoc query at Oracle and it was very real, provided you could speak SQL, or use one of the graphic tools that generated the appropriate SQL.
Fast forward to the next step in creating the perfect UX. 2011 – Apple launched the iPhone 4s with Siri integrated. For the very first time, millions of us could access the perfect mobile user experience. Hit a button, ask a question, get the answer. Again, ad hoc query, but now Mobile and Voice enabled.
The very first time I tried this, I recognized THIS was the future. This was the way business applications would be architected, this was the way we would all shop on eCommerce platforms: intelligent, intuitive, interactive. It’s actually what we do here at EasyAsk and Gartner gave us their ‘Cool Vendor’ award for this… but it took another decade for it to be rediscovered and mainstreamed. ChatGPT did that, so ‘thank you’, OpenAI. Combining an Artificial Intelligence/Natural Language query engine with Large Language Models generating comprehensive content for seemingly endless Q&A: Generative A.I.
Like Siri, then OK Google, ChatGPT has the unenviable task of having to ‘index the universe’. So, a common concern is, “is this answer 100% accurate?”. You’ll notice that Chat now qualifies the answer with “to the best of my understanding” or something close. To be clear, this is not a criticism. The tech is fantastic. It’s just always going to be an issue, what content is the answer based upon? They’ve done an amazing job bringing forth a transformative technology and instantly launched the concept of ‘ad hoc query’ forward. We should all be grateful. It IS the perfect User Experience.
So where do we take this going forward? We, like OpenAI believe in the power of Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language mapped to various business applications and vertical market solutions. The future is very bright to transform the User Experience for Business Intelligence and Analytics, CRM, Medical records, eCommerce and so much more. Congratulations and thank you to OpenAI for paving the road here. I believe it will quickly become a freeway! Off we go.