Department by Department: Using ChatGPT for Each Area of Your Business
In a recent post we took a look at ChatGPT, the AI-based tool taking the world by storm since late last year. That post assessed its overall potential to impact business operations, and some pitfalls and shortcomings. But what specifically can ChatGPT do – and not do – for each area of your business? Here’s a rundown:
Strategy
Can ChatGPT create your business strategy? In a word, no. Its own disclaimer will tell you that ChatGPT is not capable of independent thinking or decision-making, two prerequisites for solid strategy creation. With the right guidance, though, it can be a valuable tool for strategizing. Market research, customer database analysis, SWOT analysis, review of financial performance … all these components of strategy-making are well within the ChatGPT wheelhouse.
Marketing
Perhaps more than any other area of operations, ChatGPT has found a home in marketing, with 40% of marketers already using it and three-quarters saying they intend to do so. And with good reason, as it’s rapidly turning out to be the Swiss Army Knife of marketing tools. From keyword research to content creation to email automations to web personalization to chat bots, there are few marketing tasks that can’t be streamlined or improved.
Having said that, we wouldn’t turn ChatGPT loose to write our blog posts or other critical content. It’s fun to watch it generate content on screen, and that content may offer a few new ideas or bullet points, but conversationally speaking it’s not quite there … yet.
Finance
In the arena of finance, ChatGPT is a powerful tool in ways both macro and micro. The natural-language input makes complex financial calculations simple and reduces the potential for error. It’s whiz-bang at automating data entry, financial reports and even monitoring systems for compliance issues.
ChatGPT can offer some help for the finance department from the ten-thousand-foot view as well. Given the proper historical data, it should be able to better identify patterns than mere humans can, leading to more accurate financial forecasts.
Human Resources
Simply removing the drudgery of writing your company policies would probably be a good reason to make ChatGPT a part of your HR picture, but now imagine those policies not only written but updated as laws change. That’s powerful. Think of a single entity monitoring all emails and IMs and putting them in context to make sure the right people are looped in on any given conversation. Or one that monitors employee performance against key deliverables and sends up a flag when appropriate.
From the simple stuff like generating job descriptions, to alerting management to potential pay inequities, ChatGPT can be a valuable tool in the hands of HR professionals.
Technology
This is another area where we could consume many pages listing the potential applications of ChatGPT. Much of the early interest in IT departments has been focused on its natural-language ability to improve chatbots for routine support requests, freeing techs to focus on more complex cases.
Tech support, though, is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. ChatGPT is being used to better analyze and prevent malware (the bad news being that hackers are using it also) and is expected to make seismic differences in cybersecurity. And as noted in our other post, some are even using it successfully to debug code, a huge time-saver.
Conclusions
If it’s an automated process, chances are that ChatGPT can help. Which processes are the best candidates will obviously vary from business to business and industry to industry.
We should also note the widespread and legitimate concern that ChatGPT and other tools like it will replace human beings. Our thinking is this: If you tried to drive a nail into a board with your bare fist, it would be painful and unsuccessful … that’s why we have hammers. ChatGPT is a better hammer, a tool to support and improve the work being done by humans across all areas of operations. Used that way, it can streamline tasks, make your business more efficient, and ultimately put it in a better competitive position, worthy goals for any organization.