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Chat GPT launched only months ago and yet gets 25 million daily visits. The chatbot – known for its ability to answer complex questions in a conversational way – was developed by OpenAI and has quickly been hailed as the next step in artificial intelligence capabilities.
Years earlier, voice assistants were dubbed the future of AI, with creators claiming that they would one day book plane tickets and ridesharing journeys for us. The reality, though, is that voice assistants have performed basic functions, answering rudimentary questions through automated responses. With the rise of ChatGPT, however, voice assistants can respond to more complicated user needs in a more accurate way, and in a more conversational style.
ChatGPT has huge potential to help voice assistants deliver value at scale. And, because it’s a learning model, the more widely it’s applied, the better it’ll become. Here’s how tech’s newest star is optimizing voice assistants.
Streamline business operations, smartly
Businesses today face greater pressure to conduct operations efficiently and in a cost-effective manner. With ChatGPT, their voice assistants can carry out a number of tasks that enhance the user experience, scale training, and streamline internal processes. It’s why intive is currently collaborating with corporate and governmental organizations to make services available with ChatGPT.
For example, ChatGPT knows 39 languages and can translate documents and resources in a short amount of time – ideal for companies that need to correspond with teams in different locations. The tech can additionally convert documents into other formats, and transcribe video and audio recordings, meaning significant time saving and less room for human error. ChatGPT can equally summarize news articles that are important to businesses in research stages or companies doing market and competitor analysis.
Elsewhere, ChatGPT is useful in training scenarios, as it can formulate existing course content into interactive quizzes that are delivered via voice assistants. This functionality is crucial to share expertise on a wide basis, particularly for recruiting, onboarding, compliance, professional development, and coaching. Not to mention, more engaging content likely improves employees’ knowledge base and keeps companies up-to-date with mandatory trainings.
ChatGPT has already been adopted by the likes of Meta, Canva, and Shopify’s voice assistants to answer customer queries. The software can create call scripts for customer service agents, send human-sounding email replies to users, and write articles around FAQs and product onboarding and policies. In fact, the customer service sector is one of the areas where ChatGPT is set to have the biggest impact, as its speed and accuracy can mean fewer customer tickets and greater customer satisfaction – which translates to heightened ROI for businesses.
A focus on human-sounding conversations
A significant characteristic of voice assistants using ChatGPT is the focus on natural-sounding conversations. Whereas assistants like Siri and Alexa provide information and complete tasks on request, ChatGPT enables assistants to hold a back-and-forth dialogue. What’s more, the responses are more in-depth and more dynamic, so users receive detailed messages in an organic manner.
Part of the reason why ChatGPT has such human-like communication is because it was trained on large swaths of data written by people – it therefore mimics real ways of talking. And, because ChatGPT is built on a machine learning model, it can remember past conversations. It then uses these historical chats to inform how it responds in the future. Neither Siri nor Alexa retain information from previous instructions or requests they’ve held.
ChatGPT’s human-like communication has fueled claims about the tech’s role in the mental health space. When applied to voice assistants that conduct initial screening assessments, it can read early signs of stress and anxiety, and suggest next steps in care. Considering that a 2021 study found that people struggling with loneliness and social isolation were satisfied with support interactions they had with a chatbot – and would even recommend the chatbot to others – ChatGPT could be a powerful resource in mental health. That said, many people have reservations about using ChatGPT for wellness, especially after one mental health tech company included it in an experiment with users and faced backlash for “simulating empathy”.
Challenges to overcome with ChatGPT
Although ChatGPT isn’t open source, it can easily integrate with other tech players’ AI via APIs – as a result, there’s big scope for tools and resources that leverage the benefits of ChatGPT. Still, there are kinks to iron out in the tech.
ChatGPT will at some point need regulation to prevent misinformation and fraudulent behavior. Players are already trying to create those standards, but there is a risk that the tech could proliferate too much before they are instilled. Meanwhile, concerns have been raised about the accuracy of ChatGPT – reports have said that answers from the software can be misleading or not completely factual. It’s why the NYC department of education blocked ChatGPT use in its schools. Of course, the accuracy of the tech will improve the more it is applied, but users still need to maintain a degree of caution.
ChatGPT needs to improve its accessibility efforts, too. Currently, it relies on a text interface, where people have to manually type out their question. For people with visual impairments or limited mobility, ChatGPT is exclusionary. Moving forward, the software could include voice activation and other accessible features, to ensure that everyone can reap its potential.
Voice assistants are just one of the many devices that ChatGPT is helping evolve. And because of the diverse capabilities of voice assistants, there’s plenty of room for businesses and individuals alike to experiment with ChatGPT and discover new value across a range of contexts.
The world waits then, for ChatGPT’s next iteration and next chapter of sophisticated voice assistants.