In this incisive analysis, we objectively analyse the reality behind OpenAI’s latest revelations on their first ever developer conference on November 6th 2023, probing whether they serve as genuine innovations or mere tactical moves within a highly competitive market. Our goal: to unmask the substantive impact of the main OpenAI’s updates within the marketing domain, beyond the dazzle of announcement day.
1. The GPT4 “turbo”
GPT-4 Turbo has been announced with a context window that handles 128,000 tokens, equivalent to over 300 pages of text. This means that you can now analyze larger chunks of text, whereas before you had to break it down into smaller segments.
Repercussions for marketers
Marketers can now develop more intricate content strategies and consumer analyses without needing to piece together information from multiple prompts or use other tools that already allowed this. This can lead to more informed and data-rich marketing decisions without having to use APIs or multiple tools.
Is this new or revolutionary? No. This is simply an evolution, and honestly, almost late.
2. Assistants API
OpenAI’s Assistants API provides new capabilities for developers to build AI-driven applications, offering features like Code Interpreter and Retrieval, designed to simplify complex tasks.
Repercussions for marketers
Marketers can leverage this to automate analytical tasks, enhance content personalization, and create novel customer experiences without extensive coding, potentially saving time and resources.
A game changer?
While innovative in its integration, for marketers already using AI tools, it’s an incremental advancement, not a revolution. It streamlines existing processes rather than introducing new capabilities. However, its convenience could be a significant boon for those new to utilizing AI in marketing applications.
3. The "copyright shield"
Copyright Shield: OpenAI introduced a “copyright shield” for ChatGPT Enterprise and API users, promising to defend customers from legal actions in copyright infringement cases.
Repercussions for marketers
This offers marketers a “safety net” when using AI-generated content, potentially encouraging the broader use of such content in marketing materials without fearing legal repercussions. Is this actually legally sound, in a world where there is no significant framework for AI in law yet, much less on a global scale? We would have to wait and see what this really means in court. For now, we doubt that big companies or multinationals with robust legal teams would take this very seriously.
A legal breakthrough?
Nope. Just catching up, again. OpenAI is not the first to offer such legal protection. Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have made similar offers to users of their generative AI software. Getty Images, Shutterstock, and Adobe have extended similar financial liability protection for their image-making software.
4. The democratization of custom "bots"
GPT Store: Slated for launch later in the month, the GPT Store will allow users to share and monetize their custom GPT bots.
Repercussions for marketers
This opens a new channel for marketers to create and monetize bespoke AI solutions. It can be transformative for those who innovate in creating GPT bots tailored to specific marketing niches or functions. For brands, this means an easy tool to create interal GPTs (for instance, for brand guidelines bot).
A technological breakthrough?
Now, for those of us who were already automating OpenAI’s (and other AI tools) for marketing purposes (content creation, email campaigns, data analysis), this is not a major breakthrough. This is simply democratizing the idea for individuals not familiar to APIs and automation tools, which is cool. But just like the explosion of NFTs back in the day, making something accessible doesn’t mean quality will emerge from it (remember the tennis player who made an NFT of her arm?).
We were already dealing with an influx of people selling useless things, such as “pre-made prompts you just have to copy/paste,” and now we can be prepared to see millions of “bots” made with little to no knowledge of actual prompt architecture, and using people’s lack of skills in AI to make a few bucks. Hopefully, this won’t last long, and the collective AI skills will grow, at least enough to detect scams.
5. A price reduction mostly important for giant corporations
OpenAI announced a significant price reduction for using GPT-4, reducing costs for input and output tokens.
Repercussions for marketers
Lower costs democratize access to advanced AI tools, allowing for broader experimentation and adoption in various marketing functions, from content creation to customer service. For those of us who were using 100-400 prompts per week, it was already quite affordable. This news is mostly significant for large companies that will notice a difference from processing giant volumes of data.
The quest for the leader position in AI
Overall, there is no big difference when it comes to technology. Most of the announcements were things that were already quite possible, and largely commercialized. The actual breakthrough is not the technology in itself, but the fact that this is a major step of democratization of AI and a major move from OpenAI. Face to fierceless competition, it was more than necessary to step up the way they did.
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