"Microsoft Corp., Salesforce Inc. and other large enterprise technology firms are adding ChatGPT-like tools to business-software systems, even as many corporate technology chiefs remain wary of deploying unfamiliar chatbot technology known for occasionally producing false, inaccurate or confusing results.
By embedding the technology into their software products, veteran IT vendors are poised to accelerate its adoption across the enterprise market, in part by leveraging longstanding relationships with millions of commercial customers, analysts say.
Established vendors, like Microsoft and Salesforce, understand their customers' commercial needs and goals, said Charles King, president and principal analyst at IT consulting firmPund-IT Inc. "Those are especially important in selling complex offerings that have little, if any, marketplace track record," Mr. King said.
Generative AI, the technology underlying the viral ChatGPT chatbot, runs on algorithmic language models trained on vast amounts of online data. Apps powered by these models are designed to recognize, understand and produce coherent text, images or lines of computer code from user prompts.
Microsoft on Monday unveiled new AI-powered features integrated into several of its core business apps that tap natural-language models and generative AI technology developed by OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT.
The AI-enabled apps are designed to automate repetitive tasks in areas like customer service, sales and marketing, said Charles Lamanna, Microsoft's corporate vice president of business apps and platforms.
"The big opportunity for this next generation AI is that it can interpret images and text, which unlocks this productivity and experience opportunity in business workflows," Mr. Lamanna said. "We think 2023 will be the year that generative AI will become prevalent and a key component of modern office work," he said.
Microsoft said it is investing billions of dollarsinto OpenAI and plans to eventually integrate generative AI across its enterprise software products.
During pilot programs testing the new tools, Mr. Lamanna said issues that came up with corporate users included concerns around data control and security, and ensuring results produced by the AI apps didn't violate the company's ethical guidelines.
To guard against these and other risks, the new tools are trained on data from customers' own systems, he said. At the same time, the apps are "never directly talking to customers or directly taking action, but only providing content that is edited and reviewed by a human," Mr. Lamanna said.
Salesforce took a similar step on Tuesday, announcing plans to integrate OpenAI's generative AI technology across its customer relationship management platform, including Slack, the group-chat app Salesforce acquired in 2021. The new set of AI tools, dubbed Einstein GPT, is currently in the pilot phase, said Clara Shih, chief executive of service cloud at Salesforce.
"It's wise to be cautious, especially when we have so many CIOs and developers coming to us for guidance on how to use generative AI responsibly," Ms. Shih said.
To keep results relevant, she said, the new tools combine public data with customers' own data in Salesforce's cloud. The tools also are designed to include a human in the loop, she said: "For instance, a human editor may fact-check and refine AI-generated marketing copy before it's put to use."
Like Microsoft, Salesforce also is investing heavily in generative AI development. On Tuesday, the company launched a $250 million investing fund targeting generative AI startups.
Yet despite assurances from the enterprise market's biggest players, most corporate tech chiefs are taking a wait-and-see approach to ChatGPT-like generative AI technology, analysts said.
Only 12% of nearly 500 information-technology decision makers recently surveyed by market research firm Enterprise Technology Research said they plan to use OpenAI technology, or allocate further resources after initially assessing it. As many as 44% of respondents said they were aware of OpenAI technology but had no plans to check it out.
Erik Bradley, ETR's chief strategist, said the 41% of companies that said they were evaluating OpenAI technology, or planned to, was a record-high share for any one emerging technology vendor.
He said that reflects a gathering momentum behind the technology -- if only in the earliest stages of evaluation -- since November, when OpenAI launched ChatGPT as a free online chatbot." [1]
If the kids ask where your office job has gone, tell them it's in the cloud. It is not advisable for you to take loans and buy real estate now.
1. Microsoft, Salesforce Adding AI Tools --- Companies plan to meld technology from ChatGPT chatbot maker into some apps
Loten, Angus. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 09 Mar 2023: B.6.
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