"Platforms are the most successful digital business model. Sam Altman is now using Apple & Co.'s playbook to convert OpenAI into an AI platform. With great ambitions.
All of these companies are based on the West Coast of the United States - and now OpenAI is setting out to repeat that success in the AI age.
In the future, users will be able to develop their own “GPTs” based on ChatGPT, i.e. AI agents that fulfill defined tasks.
"We believe if you give people the tools, they will do amazing things," said founder and CEO Sam Altman at the company's first developer conference.
These GPTs can later be uploaded to the GPT Store and made available to all other users. In the first step, the developers receive a share of the sales, and paid versions will probably also be possible later.
The first examples are “writing coaches” who improve texts based on individual style, math mentors and cooking GPTs to whom you just call out the ingredients from the fridge and then receive a finished recipe.
The “GPT Store” initially sounds like a copy of Apple’s App Store. At Apple the platform is on the hardware (iPhone), at OpenAI it is software (ChatGPT). The mechanisms are also the same.
But Sam Altman doesn't just apply it like in the textbook, he goes a big step further: AI makes it possible for not only professional developers, but virtually all users, to develop their own GPTs.
"You can actually program a GPT with voice just by talking to it," Altman said.
Although OpenAI reserves the right to check the GPTs before publishing them in the store, “programming” by voice could drastically lower the barrier to entry on the supply side. Halving API prices, increasing speed (GPT-4 Turbo) and more security (Copyright Shield) fit the strategy of initially scaling the platform via the supply side.
The various AI applications can be easily linked to one another using the “Function Calling” function. And there is great potential here: in the future, AI applications will not have to be constantly retrained (and with great effort), but can build on each other. Instead of using an app, a hotel room can now be booked by voice in seconds or a procurement order can be completed in a fraction of the previous time. Classic apps have just become obsolete - they just don't know it yet. “This platform or marketplace is more versatile compared to the Apple App Store as it offers not only apps but also AI agents and GPTs for various applications,” says AI expert Hamidreza Hosseini.
The function calling function goes one step further and makes it possible to equip conventional applications with LLM or general AI intelligence and to simplify interoperability between apps and AI. “In this way, the OpenAI GPT and bot marketplace with the expanded function calling function could definitely play a complementary role to the existing app stores and gradually allow them to fade into the background as an aggregator,” expects Hosseini.
Platform economics from the textbook
The platform approach behind it is classic: Every good GPT makes the OpenAI platform more valuable on the demand side and increases users' willingness to pay.
The analogy to the iPhone cannot be overlooked: the first version of the iPhone sparked enthusiasm among nerds, but it was far from becoming a mass-market business. For the mass market, the device was simply too expensive for the few apps that Apple had developed on its own. It was only when Steve Jobs introduced the App Store and brought the developers' creativity onto the device that the functions and thus sales success increased explosively. In other words: The change from product to platform has made the iPhone such a mega-success. The product has to be good for such a model, but it is the platform business model that brings success. The model still works splendidly today: Apple delivers the device and is at the same time the manager of interactions between users and app developers, builds additional services and ensures that everyone involved remains (more or less) satisfied on the platform.
The “old stores” are getting into trouble
The fact that OpenAI is now attacking the business model of its "role model" Apple with this approach is not without a certain irony. The decision to establish its own store independent of existing app stores and distribution methods could put it in direct conflict with the operators of the "old stores". Apple and Google have not hesitated to throw app developers - and that is OpenAI in their eyes - out of their stores if they do not adhere to the "rules of the game". At the same time - and now it gets complicated - OpenAI also supplies the developers of the apps for the Apple and Google stores with AI, essentially making their apps smart. As long as Apple and Google cannot provide their developers with better AI tools, they will also benefit from OpenAI - a new situation too for the business model strategists in the Valley who are no longer used to dealing with such a good attacker.
Microsoft boss Nadella is just a passenger?
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was a surprise guest at the developer conference. He and Altman expressed excitement about their partnership. It is “the best in the tech world”. In fact, Microsoft currently appears to be more of a marketing partner for OpenAI ideas that can open the doors to large companies and has the necessary sales team in the field. The fact that OpenAI also wants to enter the Microsoft business was shown by Altman's announcement that it would provide individual customer advice in the future. Those who - like OpenAI - already count 92 percent of the Fortune 500 companies among their customers have not much of catching up to do organizationally at this point." [1]
1. Viele kleine GPTs: Wie Sam Altman OpenAI zur KI-Plattform umbaut. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (online) Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH. Nov 7, 2023. Von Holger Schmidt
Komentarų nėra:
Rašyti komentarą