Artificial Intelligence Is Exploding
If you talk to my kids or my wife, you will find that I have many times told them that I was born 100 years too early. For my entire life, I have been regularly astounded at the advances in technology. In 1971, I was the first one in my office to have an electronic calculator that would not only add and subtract, but also would multiply and divide. That was a big deal. I was the first one in my office in the early 1980s to learn how to use the TRS 80 Micro Computer, the only one we had in the office in a common area for all to use. I was the first to use an electronic worksheet. I have always been fascinated by progress!
Fast forward to today and recently news has arrived of the introduction of AI ChatGPT. An early January 2023 survey by Fishbowl resulted in over 4,500 professionals from major companies such as Amazon, Google, and Bank of America using ChatGPT. So what is ChatGPT? Here is a short explanation I found:
ChatGPT is an AI-based tool that helps make content creation faster, easier, and more efficient. It uses natural language processing (NLP) technology to generate optimized content tailored to your website’s needs. By using this tool, you can reduce the time spent researching topics as well as other manual content-creation tasks.
Here are some interesting but not surprising results of the Fishbowl survey:
- Gen Z professionals have the highest adoption rate;
- Twenty percent of women and 30% of men have used AI to help with tasks at work; and
- Marketing and advertising have the highest adoption, with 37% saying they’ve used AI to assist with work-related tasks.
It is not surprising that advertising and marketing are the kings and queens of the early adopters of this technology. ChatGPT can assist in writing copy for those areas. In fact, it might write the totality of copy needed in a particular ad or marketing campaign. My college roommate, while working for an ad agency not long after graduation, came up with the phrase “For all you do, this Bud’s for you.” Pretty genius, huh? The next successful line like that might come from ChatGPT or some similar AI technology.
And ChatGPT has even crept into the valuation arena. In the issue of the Journal of Accountancy for Jan. 30, 2023, Kelly Williams, CPA, Ph.D., an associate professor of accounting at Middle Tennessee State University, wrote an insightful article on how ChatGPT can be used to assist with Excel. While not specific to valuation, much of what she says in the article about using Excel can be applied to valuation analyses.
Keep you eyes on AI. It is expanding like an exploding star. It will impact valuation not just in the performance of a valuation, but also in its impact on the value of a business inherently.
I will be presenting a two-CPE webinar, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Valuation, on March 29 for BVR. I hope you will attend and let me know your thoughts.