For most of the companies, right now the world is divided between before ChatGPT and after ChatGPT.
“I wasn’t expecting this,” says Michael Beckley, CTO at process automation company Appian.
Beckley was trying to enjoy what was left of her Thanksgiving holiday in the United States last fall when AI startup OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public on November 30.
Beckley, who was already familiar with artificial intelligence and previous versions of OpenAI’s large language models, says he quickly realized that this was a big deal.
“It wasn’t something I expected to be important,” Beckley explains. “And then, over the holidays, it dawned on me. I had a lot of time to work with it. And there was that ‘oh shit’ moment.”
“You immediately realize, as do all of us, that it’s the next iPhone moment. Nothing in the world is ever going to be the same again, the genie isn’t going to go back in the bottle.”
Appian, founded in 1999, earns most of its revenue from companies that use its platform to build their own business applications. In the first quarter of the year, it registered a net loss of 36.8 million dollars on revenues of 135 million, compared to a loss of 23.1 million on revenues of 114 million in the same period of 2022. It is one of the many established tech companies facing major disruption from the sudden popularity of ChatGPT. On June 12, Appian announced its “generative AI strategy” in partnership with OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT.
“It was like saying, ‘Okay, throw your plans in the trash and get to work,'” Beckley explains.
The company is not alone. An analysis by Business Insider of transcripts of earnings conference calls from January to June reveals that senior executives from at least 153 companies mentioned ChatGPT, often at the urging of analysts eager to learn how companies are adopting the technology to increase revenue or save money. Analysts at investment firm Jefferies estimated in a June note that companies using AI are already saving between 21% and 36% in productivity.
Many of the companies that have shown off their new OpenAI integrations are tech companies like Appian. Others have less obvious connections to AI.
The CEO of US online florist 1-800 Flowers, Chris McCann, noted during an earnings call in May that the company had launched “1-800-Flowers Mom Verse,” an app powered by ChatGPT for composing personalized poems and songs for the Mother’s Day.
Boot Barn, a western boot company, has incorporated ChatGPT into its store touchscreens to advise shoppers on their outfit.
“For example, if a customer is shopping for a pair of women’s cowboy boots, they will now be able to ask… for a recommendation of an outfit that would go well with their selection, to go to a country music concert, and that recommendation will be made with a conversational tone and with qualitative reasons why these items would work well together,” CEO Jim Conroy said, also on a May earnings call.
Of all these new integrations, OpenAI is the company that is going to do the best. The company is not listed, is in private hands and does not disclose financial data. In 2022, the startup suffered heavy losses due to the costs of creating and running ChatGPT.
“There is a deafening noise in our ecosystem, which demands the latest roadmap updates,” says Appian’s Beckley. “Because everyone has to report to their executive team, to their clients, to their partners, they all have to have it.”
