In the crowded digital marketplace, standing out is challenging. Enter AI-powered marketing, a revolutionary upgrade transforming brands into digital powerhouses.

Hyper-Personalized Campaigns: Beyond Basic Personalization

Gone are the days of generic marketing. Today’s gold standard is AI-driven hyper-personalization. This approach uses customer data analysis to create deeply resonant, individualized marketing campaigns. With AI’s ability to segment audiences based on intricate criteria, including purchasing history and browsing behavior, your messages can hit the mark every time.

Enhanced Customer Journey Mapping

AI’s capabilities extend to mapping the entire customer journey. By predicting needs and preferences at each stage, AI aids in crafting narratives that guide customers from discovery to purchase, integrating your brand into their personal stories.

SEO Wizardry: Mastering Search Engine Dynamics

With ever-changing algorithms, SEO is a complex puzzle. AI serves as a sophisticated navigator, deciphering these changes through machine learning. It aids in keyword optimization, understanding search intent, and aligning content with search trends.

Predictive SEO

AI tools offer predictive SEO, anticipating search engine and user behavior changes. This proactive stance ensures your brand’s prominent visibility in search results, capturing the right audience at the right time.

Social Media Mastery: Crafting a Digital Narrative

AI transforms social media strategies from uncertain to precise. By analyzing vast social data, AI provides insights into resonating content.

Content Optimization

AI analyzes performance data to recommend effective content types. This data-driven approach refines your social media content strategy.

Engagement Analysis

AI examines user interaction nuances, understanding engagement patterns. It helps tailor interactions for maximum impact, including adjusting posting schedules and messaging for increased relevance.

Conclusion: Navigating the AI-Driven Marketing Landscape

AI-powered marketing is essential for thriving in the digital age, offering precision and personalization beyond traditional methods. For small businesses, it’s a chance to leverage AI for impactful, data-driven strategies.

As we embrace the AI revolution, the future of marketing is not just bright but intelligently radiant. With AI as your digital ally, your brand is equipped for a successful journey, making every marketing effort and customer interaction count.

In the ever-evolving landscape of modern commerce, small business owners find themselves at a crossroads of opportunity and obsolescence. Enter Artificial Intelligence (AI) – once the exclusive domain of tech behemoths, it now stands as the great equalizer, offering small businesses a competitive edge previously unthinkable. The emergence of AI as a wingman for small businesses is not just a fleeting trend but a fundamental shift in how entrepreneurs can leverage technology to revolutionize their operations.

The 24/7 Customer Service Hero: Chatbots

In the digital storefront, customer service is the heartbeat of business survival and success. Chatbots emerge as the indefatigable heroes of this domain. Envision a customer service agent that never clocks out an entity that requires no sleep or sustenance yet delivers consistently and instantaneously. These AI-driven chat interfaces embody the essence of your brand’s voice, capable of handling a barrage of customer queries with a speed that outpaces the swiftest of typists. They are the embodiment of efficiency – ensuring that customer satisfaction is not just met but exceeded around the clock.

Unearthing Market Treasures: Data Dive

AI’s prowess in pattern recognition has catapulted data analytics into a realm once considered the stuff of science fiction. Small business owners armed with AI tools can sift through vast swathes of data to extract actionable insights. These algorithms act as modern-day oracles, predicting market trends, discerning customer behaviors, and offering sales forecasts with remarkable accuracy. Equipped with: this knowledge, small businesses, can navigate the market with the foresight and precision of an experienced captain steering through foggy seas.

Personalization at Scale: Customize Like a Boss

The age-old business mantra of the customer is king is given new potency with AI’s personalization capabilities. Tailoring the customer experience is no longer a luxury but a necessity. AI enables small businesses to offer bespoke experiences to consumers, making them feel like the sole focus of their attention. It’s personalization executed with such finesse that customers are left marveling at the thoughtfulness and individual attention, fostering loyalty and establishing deep-rooted brand connections.

Offloading the Mundane: Task Slayers

Repetitive tasks are the bane of creativity and innovation. AI steps in as the ultimate task slayer, automating routine chores that once consumed disproportionate amounts of time. From scheduling appointments to managing inventory, AI liberates entrepreneurs from the drudgery of administrative duties, freeing them to refocus on the creative and strategic endeavors that propel business growth.

Mastering Social Media: Social Savants

Social media – the pulsing vein of modern marketing – demands astuteness and agility. AI emerges as the savant of social media, capable of demystifying platform algorithms to optimize content delivery. It knows the optimal times to post, the types of content that resonate with audiences, and the strategies that convert passive scrollers into engaged customers. By automating your social media presence, AI transforms your brand into an online sensation, cultivating a digital community of brand ambassadors.

The Verdict: Embracing AI

For a small business owner, AI is not about an overnight overhaul but strategic integration. The goal is to start small, allowing AI to shoulder incremental aspects of your business, learning and scaling as you witness tangible benefits. The transition to AI-enablement does not necessitate a background in technology; it requires a willingness to embrace change and a vision for the future.

In summary, as the digital revolution marches forward, AI stands ready to partner with small businesses, providing them with tools once deemed the province of giants. This partnership promises to elevate the small business landscape, ushering in an era of democratized technology where every entrepreneur can harness the power of AI to write their own David vs. Goliath success story. AI, the once-distant dream, is now the most loyal wingman a small business can enlist in its quest for growth and innovation.

OpenAI has expanded the availability of its ChatGPT app for iOS users in India and 32 other countries — just a week after its launching it in the U.S.

The list of new countries include Algeria, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Estonia, Ghana, India, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lithuania, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Namibia, Nauru, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Qatar, Slovenia, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.

Earlier this week, OpenAI expanded the ChatGPT app to 11 additional countries after the U.S. Those include European nations such as France, Germany and Ireland as well as New Zealand, Nigeria, South Korea and the U.K.

In the first six days since its initial availability in the U.S. last Thursday (May 18), the ChatGPT mobile app has crossed the mark of half a million downloads, according to the data shared by app intelligence firm data.ai. This achievement makes it one of the highest-performing new apps. The app also outperformed other AI and chatbot apps as well as Microsoft Edge and Bing apps in the U.S. in terms of downloads since its launch, per data.ai.

The ChatGPT app, which is available for free download and excludes ads, lets users interact with the generative AI-based chatbot using their iPhone. It also supports voice input through OpenAI’s speech recognition system Whisper and lets ChatGPT Plus users access advanced features through GPT-4. Further, users can also subscribe to the ChatGPT Plus service, which costs $20 per month in the U.S., directly through the iOS app.

OpenAI has the ChatGPT app only for iOS at the moment. However, the startup, backed by Microsoft and marquee VC firms such as Tiger Global and a16z, also has an Android version in the plans, which it has promised to bring soon to the market.

The expansion of the ChatGPT app comes at a time when OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman is touring several countries to better connect with global policymakers and understand their concerns about AI. The executive met with some European state heads this week. He is also visiting India early next month.

OpenAI says it’s launching a program to award ten $100,000 grants to fund experiments in setting up a democratic process for deciding what rules AI systems should follow — “within the bounds defined by the law.”

The launch of the grant program comes after OpenAI’s calls for an international regulatory body for AI akin to that governing nuclear power. In its proposal for such a body, OpenAI co-founders Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever argued that the pace of innovation in AI is so fast that we can’t expect existing authorities to adequately rein in the tech — a sentiment today’s announcement captures as well.

Concretely, OpenAI says it’s seeking to fund individuals, teams and organizations to develop proof-of-concepts for a “democratic process” that could answer questions about guardrails for AI. The company wants to learn from these experiments, it says, and use them as the basis for a more global — and more ambitious — process going forward.

“While these initial experiments are not (at least for now) intended to be binding for decisions, we hope that they explore decision relevant questions and build novel democratic tools that can more directly inform decisions in the future,” the company wrote in a blog post published today. “This grant represents a step to establish democratic processes for overseeing … superintelligence.”

With the grants, furnished by OpenAI’s nonprofit organization, OpenAI hopes to establish a process reflecting the Platonic ideal of democracy: a “broadly representative” group of people exchanging opinions, engaging in “deliberate” discussions, and ultimately deciding on an outcome via a transparent decision-making process. Ideally, OpenAI says, the process will help to answer questions like “Under what conditions should AI systems condemn or criticize public figures, given different opinions across groups regarding those figures?” and “How should disputed views be represented in AI outputs?”

“The primary objective of this grant is to foster innovation in processes — we need improved democratic methods to govern AI behavior,” OpenAI writes. “We believe that decisions about how AI behaves should be shaped by diverse perspectives reflecting the public interest.”

In the announcement post, OpenAI implies that the grant program is entirely divorced from its commercial interests. But that’s a bit of a tough pill to swallow, given Altman’s recent criticisms of proposed AI regulation in the EU. The timing seems conspicuous, too, following Altman’s appearance in front of the U.S. Senate Congressional Committee last week, where he advocated for a very specific flavor of AI regulation that would have a minimal effect on OpenAI’s technology as it exists today.

Still, even if the program ends up being self-serving, it’s an interesting direction to take AI policymaking (albeit duplicative of the EU’s efforts in some obvious ways). I, for one, am curious to see what sort of ideas for “democratic processes” emerge — and which applicants OpenAI ends up choosing.

Folks can apply to the OpenAI grant program starting today — the deadline is June 24 at 9 p.m. PDT. Once the application period closes, OpenAI will select ten successful recipients. Recipients will have to showcase a concept involving at least 500 participants, publish a public report on their findings by October 20 and open source the code behind their work.

Organizations must quickly adapt their application security strategies to address new threats fueled by AI.

They include:

• More sophisticated bot traffic.
• More believable phishing attacks.
• The rise of legitimate AI agents accessing customers’ online accounts on behalf of users.

By understanding the implications of AI on identity access management (IAM) and taking proactive measures, businesses can stay ahead of the AI curve and protect their digital assets. Here are the top three actions organizations preparing their application security for a post-AI world need to consider in their security strategies:

Defend against reverse engineering

Any app that exposes AI capabilities client-side is at risk of particularly sophisticated bot attacks looking to “skim” or spam those API endpoints — and we’re already seeing examples of reverse engineering AI-powered sites to get free AI computing.

Consider the example of GPT4Free, a GitHub project dedicated to reverse engineering sites to piggyback on GPT resources. It accumulated an astonishing 15,000+ stars in just a few days in a blatant public example of reverse engineering.

To prevent reverse engineering, organizations should invest in advanced fraud and bot mitigation tools. Standard anti-bot methods like CAPTCHA, rate limiting and JA3 (a form of TLS fingerprinting) can be valuable in defeating ordinary bots, but these standard methods are easily defeated by more complex bot problems like those facing AI endpoints. Protecting against reverse engineering requires more sophisticated tooling like custom CAPTCHAs or tamper-resistant JavaScript and device fingerprinting tools.

The ChatGPT app is a free app without any ads. People who are already familiar with ChatGPT will feel right at home as it’s basically just a way to interact with the chatbot — nothing more, nothing less.

Here’s the full list of countries where the ChatGPT is now available: Albania, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Jamaica, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, South Korea, the U.K. and the U.S. Once again, the app is only available on iOS for now. In its original announcement, OpenAI also promised that an Android app was “coming soon.”

When you open the app, you can start typing text in a text box at the bottom of the screen. It works just like sending a message in any messenger app. While you can dictate text using Apple’s built-in speech recognition feature, you can also leverage OpenAI’s open source speech recognition system Whisper for voice input.

After you hit the send button, OpenAI processes your request and returns an AI-generated answer. You can follow up with more information or ask for a different answer. The app supports code blocks and users can copy and paste answers.

By default, ChatGPT saves your chat history and uses it for model training. When this feature is enabled, you will also be able to find your conversations on desktop. It’s worth noting that there’s no way to disable data sharing without disabling chat history too.

If you are a ChatGPT Plus subscriber, you will be able to access GPT-4’s capabilities through the mobile app. Users should also notice faster response times. ChatGPT Plus costs $20 per month on desktop and is also available as an in-app purchase in your local currency (€22.99 per month in Europe, £19.99 in the U.K., etc.).

The timing of this expansion, which includes several European countries, is interesting as OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman is meeting European heads of states this week, such as France’s Emmanuel Macron, Spain’s Pedro Sánchez and the U.K.’s Rishi Sunak. Altman has expressed criticisms toward rushed AI regulatory policy. And now, ChatGPT will be much more accessible in Europe as people will be able to say “just download the app.”

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm. It’s able to write essays, code and more given short text prompts, hyper-charging productivity. But it also has a more…nefarious side.

In any case, AI tools are not going away — and indeed has expanded dramatically since its launch just a few months ago. Major brands are experimenting with it, using the AI to generate ad and marketing copy, for example. 

And OpenAI is heavily investing in it. ChatGPT was recently super-charged by GPT-4, the latest language-writing model from OpenAI’s labs. Paying ChatGPT users have access to GPT-4, which can write more naturally and fluently than the model that previously powered ChatGPT. In addition to GPT-4, OpenAI recently connected ChatGPT to the internet with plugins available in alpha to users and developers on the waitlist.

Here’s a timeline of ChatGPT product updates and releases, starting with the latest, to be updated regularly. We also answer the most common FAQs (see below).

Timeline of the most recent ChatGPT updates

May 18, 2023

OpenAI launches a ChatGPT app for iOS

ChatGPT is officially going mobile. The new ChatGPT app will be free to use, free from ads and will allow for voice input, the company says, but will initially be limited to U.S. users at launch.

When using the mobile version of ChatGPT, the app will sync your history across devices — meaning it will know what you’ve previously searched for via its web interface, and make that accessible to you. The app is also integrated with Whisper, OpenAI’s open source speech recognition system, to allow for voice input.

May 3, 2023

Hackers are using ChatGPT lures to spread malware on Facebook

Meta said in a report on May 3 that malware posing as ChatGPT was on the rise across its platforms.The company said that since March 2023, its security teams have uncovered 10 malware families using ChatGPT (and similar themes) to deliver malicious software to users’ devices.

“In one case, we’ve seen threat actors create malicious browser extensions available in official web stores that claim to offer ChatGPT-based tools,” said Meta security engineers Duc H. Nguyen and Ryan Victory in a blog post. “They would then promote these malicious extensions on social media and through sponsored search results to trick people into downloading malware.”

April 28, 2023

ChatGPT parent company OpenAI closes $300M share sale at $27B-29B valuation

VC firms including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive and K2 Global are picking up new shares, according to documents seen by TechCrunch. A source tells us Founders Fund is also investing. Altogether the VCs have put in just over $300 million at a valuation of $27 billion to $29 billion. This is separate to a big investment from Microsoft announced earlier this year, a person familiar with the development told TechCrunch, which closed in January. The size of Microsoft’s investment is believed to be around $10 billion, a figure we confirmed with our source.

April 25, 2023

OpenAI previews new subscription tier, ChatGPT Business

Called ChatGPT Business, OpenAI describes the forthcoming offering as “for professionals who need more control over their data as well as enterprises seeking to manage their end users.”

“ChatGPT Business will follow our API’s data usage policies, which means that end users’ data won’t be used to train our models by default,” OpenAI wrote in a blog post. “We plan to make ChatGPT Business available in the coming months.”

April 24, 2023

OpenAI wants to trademark “GPT”

OpenAI applied for a trademark for “GPT,” which stands for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer,” last December. Last month, the company petitioned the USPTO to speed up the process, citing the “myriad infringements and counterfeit apps” beginning to spring into existence.

Unfortunately for OpenAI, its petition was dismissed last week. According to the agency, OpenAI’s attorneys neglected to pay an associated fee as well as provide “appropriate documentary evidence supporting the justification of special action.”

That means a decision could take up to five more months.

April 22, 2023

Auto-GPT is Silicon Valley’s latest quest to automate everything 

Auto-GPT is an open source app created by game developer Toran Bruce Richards that uses OpenAI’s latest text-generating models, GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, to interact with software and services online, allowing it to “autonomously” perform tasks.

Depending on what objective the tool’s provided, Auto-GPT can behave in very… unexpected ways. One Reddit user claims that, given a budget of $100 to spend within a server instance, Auto-GPT made a wiki page on cats, exploited a flaw in the instance to gain admin-level access and took over the Python environment in which it was running — and then “killed” itself.

April 18, 2023

FTC warns that AI technology like ChatGPT could ‘turbocharge’ fraud 

FTC chair Lina Khan and fellow commissioners warned House representatives of the potential for modern AI technologies, like ChatGPT, to be used to “turbocharge” fraud in a congressional hearing.

“AI presents a whole set of opportunities, but also presents a whole set of risks,” Khan told the House representatives. “And I think we’ve already seen ways in which it could be used to turbocharge fraud and scams. We’ve been putting market participants on notice that instances in which AI tools are effectively being designed to deceive people can place them on the hook for FTC action,” she stated.

April 17, 2023

Superchat’s new AI chatbot lets you message historical and fictional characters via ChatGPT

The company behind the popular iPhone customization app Brass, sticker maker StickerHub and others is out today with a new AI chat app called SuperChat, which allows iOS users to chat with virtual characters powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT. However, what makes the app different from the default ChatGPT experience or the dozens of generic AI chat apps now available are the characters offered which you can use to engage with SuperChat’s AI features.

April 12, 2023

Italy gives OpenAI to-do list for lifting ChatGPT suspension order

Italy’s data protection watchdog has laid out what OpenAI needs to do for it to lift an order against ChatGPT issued at the end of last month — when it said it suspected the AI chatbot service was in breach of the EU’s GSPR and ordered the U.S.-based company to stop processing locals’ data.

The DPA has given OpenAI a deadline — of April 30 — to get the regulator’s compliance demands done. (The local radio, TV and internet awareness campaign has a slightly more generous timeline of May 15 to be actioned.)

April 12, 2023

Researchers discover a way to make ChatGPT consistently toxic

A study co-authored by scientists at the Allen Institute for AI shows that assigning ChatGPT a “persona” — for example, “a bad person,” “a horrible person” or “a nasty person” — through the ChatGPT API increases its toxicity sixfold. Even more concerning, the co-authors found having ChatGPT pose as certain historical figures, gendered people and members of political parties also increased its toxicity — with journalists, men and Republicans in particular causing the machine learning model to say more offensive things than it normally would.

The research was conducted using the latest version of ChatGPT, but not the model currently in preview based on OpenAI’s GPT-4.

April 4, 2023

Y Combinator-backed startups are trying to build ‘ChatGPT for X’

YC Demo Day’s Winter 2023 batch features no fewer than four startups that claim to be building “ChatGPT for X.” They’re all chasing after a customer service software market that’ll be worth $58.1 billion by 2023, assuming the rather optimistic prediction from Acumen Research comes true.

Here are the YC-backed startups that caught our eye:

• Yuma, whose customer demographic is primarily Shopify merchants, provides ChatGPT-like AI systems that integrate with help desk software, suggesting drafts of replies to customer tickets.
• Baselit, which uses one of OpenAI’s text-understanding models to allow businesses to embed chatbot-style analytics for their customers.
• Lasso customers send descriptions or videos of the processes they’d like to automate and the company combines ChatGPT-like interface with robotic process automation (RPA) and a Chrome extension to build out those automations.
• BerriAI, whose platform is designed to help developers spin up ChatGPT apps for their organization data through various data connectors.

April 1, 2023

Italy orders ChatGPT to be blocked

OpenAI has started geoblocking access to its generative AI chatbot, ChatGPT, in Italy.

Italy’s data protection authority has just put out a timely reminder that some countries do have laws that already apply to cutting edge AI: it has ordered OpenAI to stop processing people’s data locally with immediate effect. The Italian DPA said it’s concerned that the ChatGPT maker is breaching the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and is opening an investigation.

March 29, 2023

1,100+ signatories signed an open letter asking all ‘AI labs to immediately pause for 6 months’

The letter’s signatories include Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak and Tristan Harris of the Center for Humane Technology, among others. The letter calls on “all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.”

The letter reads:

Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitive at general tasks,[3] and we must ask ourselves: Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization? Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders. Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.

March 23, 2023

OpenAI connects ChatGPT to the internet

OpenAI launched plugins for ChatGPT, extending the bots functionality by granting it access to third-party knowledge sources and databases, including the web. Available in alpha to ChatGPT users and developers on the waitlist, OpenAI says that it’ll initially prioritize a small number of developers and subscribers to its premium ChatGPT Plus plan before rolling out larger-scale and API access.

March 14, 2023

OpenAI launches GPT-4, available through ChatGPT Plus

GPT-4 is a powerful image- and text-understanding AI model from OpenAI. Released March 14, GPT-4 is available for paying ChatGPT Plus users and through a public API. Developers can sign up on a waitlist to access the API.

March 9, 2023

ChatGPT is available in Azure OpenAI service

ChatGPT is generally available through the Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft’s fully managed, corporate-focused offering. Customers, who must already be “Microsoft managed customers and partners,” can apply here for special access.

March 1, 2023

OpenAI launches an API for ChatGPT

OpenAI makes another move toward monetization by launching a paid API for ChatGPT. Instacart, Snap (Snapchat’s parent company) and Quizlet are among its initial customers.

February 7, 2023

Microsoft launches the new Bing, with ChatGPT built in

At a press event in Redmond, Washington, Microsoft announced its long-rumored integration of OpenAI’s GPT-4 model into Bing, providing a ChatGPT-like experience within the search engine. The announcement spurred a 10x increase in new downloads for Bing globally, indicating a sizable consumer demand for new AI experiences.

Other companies beyond Microsoft joined in on the AI craze by implementing ChatGPT, including OkCupid, Kaito, Snapchat and Discord — putting the pressure on Big Tech’s AI initiatives, like Google.

February 1, 2023

OpenAI launches ChatGPT Plus, starting at $20 per month

After ChatGPT took the internet by storm, OpenAI launched a new pilot subscription plan for ChatGPT called ChatGPT Plus, aiming to monetize the technology starting at $20 per month.

December 8, 2022

ShareGPT lets you easily share your ChatGPT conversations

A week after ChatGPT was released into the wild, two developers — Steven Tey and Dom Eccleston — made a Chrome extension called ShareGPT to make it easier to capture and share the AI’s answers with the world.

November 30, 2022

ChatGPT first launched to the public as OpenAI quietly released GPT-3.5

GPT-3.5 broke cover with ChatGPT, a fine-tuned version of GPT-3.5 that’s essentially a general-purpose chatbot. ChatGPT can engage with a range of topics, including programming, TV scripts and scientific concepts.

Writers everywhere rolled their eyes at the new technology, much like artists did with OpenAI’s DALL-E model, but the latest chat-style iteration seemingly broadened its appeal and audience.

FAQs:

What is ChatGPT? How does it work?

ChatGPT is a general-purpose chatbot that uses artificial intelligence to generate text after a user enters a prompt, developed by tech startup OpenAI. The chatbot uses GPT-4, a large language model that uses deep learning to produce human-like text.

When did ChatGPT get released?

November 30, 2022 is when ChatGPT was released for public use.

What is the latest version of ChatGPT?

Both the free version of ChatGPT and the paid ChatGPT Plus are regularly updated with new GPT models. The most recent model is GPT-4.

Can I use ChatGPT for free?

There is a free version of ChatGPT that only requires a sign-in in addition to the paid version, ChatGPT Plus.

Who uses ChatGPT?

Anyone can use ChatGPT! More and more tech companies and search engines are utilizing the chatbot to automate text or quickly answer user questions/concerns.

What companies use ChatGPT?

Multiple enterprises utilize ChatGPT, although others may limit the use of the AI-powered tool.

Most recently, Microsoft announced at it’s 2023 Build conference that it is integrating it ChatGPT-based Bing experience into Windows 11. A Brooklyn-based 3D display startup Looking Glass utilizes ChatGPT to produce holograms you can communicate with by using ChatGPT.  And nonprofit organization Solana officially integrated the chatbot into its network with a ChatGPT plug-in geared toward end users to help onboard into the web3 space.

What does GPT mean in ChatGPT?

GPT stands for Generative Pre-Trained Transformer.

What’s the difference between ChatGPT and Bard?

Much like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Bard is a chatbot that will answer questions in natural language. Google announced at its 2023 I/O event that it will soon be adding multimodal content to Bard, meaning that it can deliver answers in more than just text, responses can give you rich visuals as well. Rich visuals mean pictures for now, but later can include maps, charts and other items.

ChatGPT’s generative AI has had a longer lifespan and thus has been “learning” for a longer period of time than Bard.

What is the difference between ChatGPT and a chatbot?

A chatbot can be any software/system that holds dialogue with you/a person but doesn’t necessarily have to be AI-powered. For example, there are chatbots that are rules-based in the sense that they’ll give canned responses to questions.

ChatGPT is AI-powered and utilizes LLM technology to generate text after a prompt.

Can ChatGPT write essays?

Yes.

Can ChatGPT commit libel?

Due to the nature of how these models work, they don’t know or care whether something is true, only that it looks true. That’s a problem when you’re using it to do your homework, sure, but when it accuses you of a crime you didn’t commit, that may well at this point be libel.

We will see how handling troubling statements produced by ChatGPT will play out over the next few months as tech and legal experts attempt to tackle the fastest moving target in the industry.

Does ChatGPT have an app?

Yes, there is now a free ChatGPT app that is currently limited to U.S. iOS users at launch. OpenAi says an android version is “coming soon.”

What is the ChatGPT character limit?

It’s not documented anywhere that ChatGPT has a character limit. However, users have noted that there are some character limitations after around 500 words.

Does ChatGPT have an API?

Yes, it was released March 1, 2023.

What are some sample everyday uses for ChatGPT?

Everyday examples include programing, scripts, email replies, listicles, blog ideas, summarization, etc.

What are some advanced uses for ChatGPT?

Advanced use examples include debugging code, programming languages, scientific concepts, complex problem solving, etc.

How good is ChatGPT at writing code?

It depends on the nature of the program. While ChatGPT can write workable Python code, it can’t necessarily program an entire app’s worth of code. That’s because ChatGPT lacks context awareness — in other words, the generated code isn’t always appropriate for the specific context in which it’s being used.

Can you save a ChatGPT chat?

Yes. OpenAI allows users to save chats in the ChatGPT interface, stored in the sidebar of the screen. There are no built-in sharing features yet.

Are there alternatives to ChatGPT?

Yes. There are multiple AI-powered chatbot competitors such as Together, Google’s Bard and Anthropic’s Claude, and developers are creating open source alternatives. But the latter are harder — if not impossible — to run today.

How does ChatGPT handle data privacy?

OpenAI has said that individuals in “certain jurisdictions” (such as the EU) can object to the processing of their personal information by its AI models by filling out this form. This includes the ability to make requests for deletion of AI-generated references about you. Although OpenAI notes it may not grant every request since it must balance privacy requests against freedom of expression “in accordance with applicable laws”.

The web form for making a deletion of data about you request is entitled “OpenAI Personal Data Removal Request”.

In its privacy policy, the ChatGPT maker makes a passing acknowledgement of the objection requirements attached to relying on “legitimate interest” (LI), pointing users towards more information about requesting an opt out — when it writes: “See here for instructions on how you can opt out of our use of your information to train our models.”

What controversies have surrounded ChatGPT?

Recently, Discord announced that it had integrated OpenAI’s technology into its bot named Clyde where two users tricked Clyde into providing them with instructions for making the illegal drug methamphetamine (meth) and the incendiary mixture napalm.

An Australian mayor has publicly announced he may sue OpenAI for defamation due to ChatGPT’s false claims that he had served time in prison for bribery. This would be the first defamation lawsuit against the text-generating service.

CNET found itself in the midst of controversy after Futurism reported the publication was publishing articles under a mysterious byline completely generated by AI. The private equity company that owns CNET, Red Ventures, was accused of using ChatGPT for SEO farming, even if the information was incorrect.

Several major school systems and colleges, including New York City Public Schools, have banned ChatGPT from their networks and devices. They claim that the AI impedes the learning process by promoting plagiarism and misinformation, a claim that not every educator agrees with.

There have also been cases of ChatGPT accusing individuals of false crimes.

Where can I find examples of ChatGPT prompts?

Several marketplaces host and provide ChatGPT prompts, either for free or for a nominal fee. One is PromptBase. Another is ChatX. More launch every day.

Can ChatGPT be detected?

Poorly. Several tools claim to detect ChatGPT-generated text, but in our tests, they’re inconsistent at best.

Are ChatGPT chats public?

No. But OpenAI recently disclosed a bug, since fixed, that exposed the titles of some users’ conversations to other people on the service.

Who owns the copyright on ChatGPT-created content or media?

The user who requested the input from ChatGPT is the copyright owner.

What lawsuits are there surrounding ChatGPT?

None specifically targeting ChatGPT. But OpenAI is involved in at least one lawsuit that has implications for AI systems trained on publicly available data, which would touch on ChatGPT.

Are there issues regarding plagiarism with ChatGPT?

Yes. Text-generating AI models like ChatGPT have a tendency to regurgitate content from their training data.

AI chatbots have become a game-changer. As digital assistants, they can help generate content, streamline service and processes, enhance experiences, drive growth, answer questions, and so much more. To unlock their full potential, it’s crucial to understand the craft of prompting, speaking to the AI chatbots in a way that they give the results that we want. And our guide to writing prompts for AI is here to teach you how to do just that.

Writing prompts for AI

What are AI prompts?

A prompt is an input, a text command or a question provided to an AI model, with the aim of generating a desired output like content or answer. It is like asking a question or giving the AI a command to get the desired answer or outcome.  Prompting is providing a cue to an AI language model, and it’s essential for obtaining high-quality responses from generative AI models like ChatGPT, Google Bard and Bing AI.

The better the prompt, the better the results.

So, what makes a good prompt? Effective prompts that are clear, specific, and tailored to the task at hand can improve the accuracy and relevance of the agenerated responses. Think about what you want the AI to accomplish and give it a prompt that will get you there. While it may take some extra effort to craft effective prompts, the high-quality responses that you’ll receive make it worthwhile.

Related: AI prompts for small business owners

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5 steps for writing effective AI prompts

This guide is designed to help you learn the craft of prompting, enabling you to get the most out of these AI chatbots.

1. Understand the basics

A prompt is a message or question that you provide to the chatbot to generate a response. The purpose of a prompt is to provide a specific direction or goal for the chatbot to work towards, allowing it to produce more relevant and accurate responses.

In the context of chatbots, prompts serve as the input to the system, while the response generated by the chatbot is the output. By providing a clear and concise prompt, you can influence the output generated by the chatbot and obtain the information or response that you’re looking for.

Related: How solopreneurs can lean on generative AI to scale their business

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2. Know your chatbot

When it comes to working with chatbots, it’s important to understand the differences between popular systems like ChatGPT, Google Bard and Bing AI. Each system has its own unique strengths and weaknesses, and understanding these differences can help you craft more effective prompts and obtain better results.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT is known for its ability to generate natural-sounding responses, making it a great option for tasks like customer support or chat-based interactions. The system is trained on a massive dataset of human language, allowing it to produce responses that are fluent and contextually relevant. However, it can sometimes struggle with tasks that require a more creative or specific approach.

Related: Getting started with ChatGPT — A beginner’s guide to creating with AI

Google Bard

Google Bard is designed to produce creative and engaging content. The system is trained on a large dataset of poetry and prose, allowing it to generate responses that are poetic, humorous, or emotionally evocative. This makes it a great option for tasks like content creation or social media management. However, it can sometimes produce responses that are overly verbose or irrelevant to the task at hand.

Bing AI

Bing AI is designed to produce more concise and specific responses, making it a great option for tasks that require a high degree of accuracy or specificity. The system is optimized for tasks like question-answering or fact-checking, and it excels at producing responses that are brief and to the point. However, it can sometimes struggle with tasks that require more complex or nuanced responses.

Each chatbot also has its own unique syntax and instructions, which can affect the way you craft your prompts. For example, ChatGPT may require you to provide a specific context or topic in your prompt, while Google Bard may require more creative or conversational prompts. Understanding the specific requirements of each chatbot can help you craft more effective prompts and obtain better results.

Any chatbot and model can produce inaccurate or unintended results. Make sure that you check your work.

By understanding the unique strengths and weaknesses of each system and crafting effective prompts accordingly, you can improve your outcomes and achieve your goals with greater speed and efficiency. Try them out and see which fits your needs best!

Related: The essential small business guide to generative AI

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3. Craft effective prompts

Crafting effective prompts is key to getting high-quality results from chatbots like ChatGPT, Google Bard and Bing AI. Here are some tips and strategies to help you create better prompts:

• Talk to it like it’s intelligent. When talking to the chatbot, treat it as if you’re conversating with an intelligent human, using natural language and coherent questions to obtain more accurate and useful responses.
• Be clear and specific. Clear and specific prompts are crucial for guiding the chatbot to generate relevant and accurate responses. For example, if you’re using a chatbot for customer support, a clear and specific prompt might be: “Please describe the issue you’re experiencing in detail.”
• Use context and set the stage. Providing context can help the chatbot understand the purpose of the prompt and generate more relevant responses. For example, if you’re using a chatbot for product recommendations, a prompt like “What are your favorite products?” may not be as effective as “Can you recommend a product that’s similar to [specific product name]?”
• Make it personal and specific. Include your name, product, or company name, background information, topic, highlights, tone, format (like a list or blog), and length.
• Define the role and expertise. Tell the AI to assume the identity of a profession (like a copywriter, marketer, developer, coach, professor, or HR).
• Set the style. Choose a style such as academic, instructive, journalistic, critical, creative, conversational, or professional.
• Set the tone. Opt for a tone like confident, witty, or dramatic.
• Use the right format and tone. Tailoring your prompt’s format and tone to match your goal is essential for getting the desired response. For example, if you’re using a chatbot for professional purposes, maintaining a formal tone might be more effective: “Kindly suggest some strategies to increase website traffic for a small business.” On the other hand, if you’re seeking creative ideas, adopting a more casual tone could yield better results: “Hey, what are some fun ways to promote a small business on social media?”
• Experiment with question phrasing. Rephrasing questions and testing multiple variations can help you find the best possible prompt. For example, instead of asking “How can we improve our product?” you might try “What features would you like to see added to our product?” or “What are your biggest pain points when using our product?”

Poorly written prompt example: “Tell me about marketing.”

Strong prompt example: “Act as a master marketer, and in a professional tone, explain three essential digital marketing strategies that a small business should implement to increase their online visibility and drive sales. Please write a 200-word explanation with 3 bullet points following.”

Prompt template:

• Role: Specify the role you want the chatbot to assume, such as a business strategist, educator, or marketing expert.
• Objective: Indicate the intent of the content to be generated, e.g., blog article, social media update, product overview, FAQ, or ask a question.
• Details: Include relevant information like the business, brand, or product name.
• Background: Offer a concise background of the business or brand, highlighting its primary product or service offerings, target customers, and unique selling propositions.
• Content subject: Define the central topic or theme of the content to be generated.
• Context and objectives: Supply context, particular goals for the role, and company details to help the chatbot grasp your expectations, e.g., “As a specialist in ecommerce and collaborating with ‘Business Y’, a top online marketplace, offer advice for enhancing the user experience of their website.”
• Writing style: Indicate the preferred style for the content, e.g., formal, casual, convincing, educational, etc.
• Structure: Mention any specific format or organization, e.g., bullet points, paragraphs, Q&A, etc.
• Supplementary details: Incorporate any other pertinent information or context that may support The chatbot in producing the content, such as particular examples or directions.
• Voice: Indicate if you’d like it to be in a certain style like Shakespeare.

Pro tip: After creating your text, run the prompt: Act as a plagiarism checker and analyze this text for potential plagiarism, then suggest rewrites or modifications to ensure originality, and retain similar format, tone and length: [paste generated text]. Once the text is output, re-read and revise it to ensure that it speaks to your needs.

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4. Improve your AI prompts

Ready to build on what we’ve discussed so far? Here are some further steps to take to improve on your prompt writing:

• Offer the AI step-by-step instructions. Breaking down complex queries into simpler steps can help you get better results and more accurate responses.
• Identify main ideas: Find the most important parts of your question.

Example: A business owner wants to improve their online presence to drive sales. Main ideas: online presence, drive sales.

• Simplify your question. Turn your complex question into simpler, specific questions about each main idea.

Example: What makes a strong online presence? How does a better online presence drive sales?

• Ask the chatbot. Enter the simple questions one by one for more focused answers.
• Utilize prompt chains. Break down complex queries into a series of connected, simpler questions to obtain better results and more accurate responses.
• Write shorter questions. Break down your complex question into smaller specific questions and order them in a logical order. Ask the chatbot these simpler questions one by one, using the answers to build a comprehensive response.
  Example: Improving Customer Service Complex question: “How can I improve customer service at my online store?”

Prompt chain:

• What are the common pain points customers face when shopping online?
  [allow to answer, then type in the next]
• What tools or processes can be implemented to address these pain points?
  [allow to answer, then type in the next]
• How can the store proactively communicate with customers to improve their shopping experience?

Pro tip: One way to achieve longer text is a simple prompt chain. After text is generated, type in “tell me more…”

Here are some further prompt descriptions that can enhance the chatbot’s output:

• Linguistic and cultural context: Indicate the language and cultural background related to the discussion or subject, assisting the chatbot in producing more precise and pertinent responses.
• Emotion and sentiment: Point out the desired emotional tone or sentiment you want to express in your conversation or subject, such as joy, sorrow, frustration, or astonishment.
• Imagery and sensory details: Offer visual or sensory details to aid the chatbot in creating more vivid and captivating responses, like describing a setting or an item.
• Actionable steps: Incorporate a call to action in your prompt, prompting the chatbot to create responses that inspire or convince the reader to act.
• Brand character and identity: Determine the brand character and identity you wish to portray in your conversation or subject, like approachable, authoritative, or lighthearted.
• Sector or niche-specific terminology: Supply sector or niche-specific terminology, helping the chatbot to produce responses customized for a particular audience or subject.
• Historical or cultural allusions: Add historical or cultural allusions to assist the chatbot in creating responses that are both pertinent and informative.
• Humor or amusement factor: Specify if you’d like the chatbot to produce responses with a humorous or entertaining aspect to engage readers.

Intermediate prompt writing tip

Use this prompt to quickly and effectively “tune” your prompts. Copy and paste or type this before starting a chat:

I’d like you to act as my prompt assistant. Your mission is to help me create the most effective prompt for my requirements, which will be used by you, The chatbot. To achieve this, we’ll follow these steps:

• Your initial response should be to inquire about the topic of the prompt. I’ll provide my input, and we’ll refine it through subsequent iterations by going through the following steps.
• Based on my input, you’ll produce 3 sections: a) refined prompt (supply an improved version of the prompt that is clear, concise, and easy for you to understand), b) recommendations (suggest what details could be added to the prompt for improvement), and c) inquiries (ask relevant questions related to any extra information needed from me to enhance the prompt).
• We’ll continue this iterative process, with me giving more information and you updating the Refined Prompt section until it’s perfect.

Keep refining until you’re satisfied, then simply copy and paste the improved prompt into a new chat. Witness the transformation!

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5. Practice advanced prompt engineering

From here, you can further level up your prompt writing skills with these more-advanced tips:

• System message prompts: Use system messages to set context and guide chatbots for more accurate answers.
• Set the context: Describe the conversation’s purpose, background information and main goal.

Example: [System message] You are an AI assistant helping a business owner improve their online presence to drive sales.

• Guide the chatbot: Remind the chatbot of its purpose when dealing with complex questions.

Example: [System message] Remember, we’re focusing on strategies for businesses to enhance their online presence and drive sales.

• Temperature parameters: Adjust the temperature to control the type of answers chatbots give.
  • For focused answers: Set a low temperature (e.g., 0.2-0.5) when you need specific information or a direct answer.
  • Example: What are the top 3 strategies for businesses to improve their online presence?
    • For creative answers: Set a high temperature (e.g., 0.8-1.0) when looking for brainstorming ideas or multiple solutions.

Troubleshooting common issues

Common issues when using chatbots include receiving irrelevant, incomplete, or overly verbose responses. To improve response quality:

• Reframe your question: Make it more specific or rephrase it to avoid ambiguity. Example: Instead of “How to increase sales?”, ask “What are effective strategies for a small business to increase sales online?”
• Break down complex queries: Divide your question into smaller, simpler parts to get more focused answers.

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Suggested uses for generative AI

Here is a list of some ideas of the various tasks that chatbots can be used for. This list is not comprehensive, it is ultimately as long as your imagination!

1. Idea generation and brainstorming:
   • Generate new ideas
   • Combine existing concepts
   • Get inspired by other creators
   • Explore online forums or communities
   • Reverse-engineer popular content
2. Content creation and optimization:
   • Write compelling ad copy
   • Craft engaging email content
   • Develop creative ad concepts
   • Utilize social media
   • Optimize SEO
   • Improve ad visuals
   • Consider localization
3. Editing and proofreading:
   • Read for clarity
   • Rearrange sentences
   • Enhance word choice
   • Check grammar and spelling
   • Simplify complex sentences
   • Ensure consistency
   • Summarization
   • Suggest revisions and additions
4. Research and analysis:
   • Analyze ad performance
   • Analyze demographic data
   • Understand pain points
   • Research industry trends
   • Research relevant keywords
5. Audience targeting and campaign management:
   • Target specific demographics
   • Create tailored content
   • Leverage influencers
   • Use the appropriate tone
   • Tailor campaigns
   • Plan social media posts
   • A/B test messaging
   • Curate resonating content
6. Organization and planning:
   • Set deadlines
   • Develop a task list
   • Prioritize activities
   • Allocate resources
   • Delegate responsibilities
   • Set milestones
   • Plan for contingencies
7. Feedback and improvement:
   • Ask for feedback
   • Incorporate feedback
   • Monitor progress
   • Test and revise

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Ethics and responsible use

Using AI chatbots responsibly and ethically is important to prevent problems like wrong information, biases and negative effects. Chatbots learn from data that might have biases, so make sure to ask questions that promote fair answers and don’t support stereotypes or false information.

Keep private information safe by not sharing or asking for sensitive details with the chatbot. Be careful when discussing sensitive topics, legal matters or health issues, because chatbots could give incorrect or harmful advice.

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Conclusion

As you practice and refine your prompting skills, remember that continuous learning and adaptation are essential. Chatbots will continue to evolve and improve, and so should your strategies for engaging with them.

Solopreneurs, or those who launch and run their business on their own, can range from part-time freelancers who are slowly growing a passion project to full-time small business owners like photographers, sellers of handmade goods and personal chefs.

Solopreneurs face their own unique set of challenges as small business owners, and as you may have guessed, limited time and resources are at the top of the list. Without employees to help take on some of the work, solopreneurs need to manage their products and inventory, build a strong online presence, develop a sales and marketing strategy, curate social media posts, and draft and send email newsletters. And that’s just before lunch!

However, as generative AI systems like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Bard become more widely accessible, solopreneurs won’t have to wear all those hats on their own.

If you’re a solopreneur, here are five ways you can use generative AI as your first – albeit artificial – employee.

1. Upskill, upskill, upskill

You are one person and can’t possibly be the expert at everything that your business needs. But you can learn. Generative AI systems have access to millions of resources that you can use to help fill in the gaps in your current skillsets.

For example, an electrician might have a sixth sense for wiring a ceiling fan, but may not be a skilled marketer—they could use AI for help with content creation like advertisement text, social media posts, responses to customer inquiries, building a social content calendar and more. Or a graphic designer could use AI to conduct market research and gather insights on industry trends to identify new opportunities and make more informed business decisions.

Think of leveraging AI like you would a business partner. Use it to save time, improve efficiency, and gain a competitive advantage for your business.

Related: How to write a blog post properly using AI

2. Brainstorm new ideas

Not sure what’s the best domain name for your new business? Or have an email subject line, but wish it was a little more catchy? Use AI to brainstorm and bounce around ideas. Here are some fun things to brainstorm with AI to get the juices flowing:

• Business ideas based on your hobbies
• Names for your business
• Hashtags for a social media contest or campaign
• Email subject lines
• Analyze across multiple customer reviews to highlight the key areas you should focus on
• Alternative high-quality logo for your brand

Related: Everything you ever wanted to know about AI (but were afraid to ask)

3. Attract new customers

As a small business owner, you understand that helping potential new customers find you is key to growing your business. Doing this often involves multiple layers of marketing, including Google Ads, social media, strategic copywriting of your website and more. GoDaddy recently created a Small Business Generative AI Prompt Library designed to help you use generative AI platforms for this exact purpose. We have prompts that help you use AI to identify the best SEO keywords for your website, generate compelling social ads, write engaging product descriptions, create social posts that resonate with a specific customer vertical and more.

Before using AI, establish some clear guidelines for the type of content you want the model to produce—this can include anything from tone of voice to vocabulary, length or even specific topics to avoid. Pick from GoDaddy’s prompts or create your own and be sure to use very specific questions to guide the AI’s responses. The more specific your prompts, the more relevant and on-topic the content you’ll get back.

4. Retain your existing customer base

Acquiring new customers costs five times to 10 times more than selling to a current customer. You could also lean on generative AI to help encourage repeat customers as another highly cost-effective way to grow your business. You can use AI to:

• Quickly craft responses to customer reviews
• Draft personalized, automated thank you emails to send once a product is delivered
• Write promotional emails around a specified subject, tone and target audience

As a solopreneur, consider using generative AI to provide around-the-clock customer support—for example, you can build AI into automated chatbots on your website to help handle common customer inquiries, like shipping information, returns and refunds. This will save both you and your customers time and provide a better overall experience.

You can use AI to help you at every stage of your business—whether you’re brainstorming a business name or making next month’s social content calendar. Having a built-in second “set of hands” available 24/7 will help you work more efficiently and ultimately propel your success as a solopreneur. However, as with most emerging innovations, there are guidelines on how to use it safely. Below are some tips for using AI that we recommend:

Do not enter personal or proprietary information into AI: As a general rule, only share content into AI that you wouldn’t mind other people seeing. Never enter your customer’s personal or contact information into AI, and keep any proprietary information or secret recipes off the platform.

Use human editors: Although AI is smart, it can sometimes share inaccurate or biased information and should be used as a first draft, rather than a final draft. There is also no telling if answers have been generated using another company’s intellectual property, which may create risks. You should regularly review the content generated by AI to ensure it aligns with your brand guidelines and business needs, and help you identify any potential biases or inaccuracies.

Always fact-check for accuracy: AI systems are always learning and pull from content all over the web. However, some AI systems were built using digital content up to a certain date, meaning their knowledge is limited and they cannot answer questions related to current events.

Related: The essential small business guide to generative AI