Big Tech Grapples with ChatGPT’s Challenge

As technology continues to advance, every new invention brings with it the potential for profits and pitfalls. Firms across the Big Tech sector must adjust their business strategies in order to best take advantage of the new opportunities offered by innovation, and ChatGPT is no exception. Let’s take a closer look at the latest artificial intelligence advances and how they’re shaking the market up:

AI Reaches the Masses

In the less than three months since ChatGPT hit the internet, much ink has been spilled in journalistic outlets the world over regarding this new tool and its possible repercussions for many spheres of life. ChatGPT, developed and released by OpenAI, is what is known as a ‘chatbot’, a form of automated service capable of conducting conversations. However, in the eyes of many, ChatGPT’s abilities seem to be far wider-reaching than previously extant chatbots.

The massive amount of text with which OpenAI’s developers trained ChatGPT have enabled it to conduct nearly human-like conversations; some even posit that the tool has already reached a human level of intelligence by some measures. With more than 100 million people having already used this new chatbot, tech companies may be thinking of how they can best harness the power of innovation to bolster their bottom lines. (Source:Barron’s)

Alphabet Picks Up the Gauntlet

Top executives at Alphabet (GOOG), Google’s parent company, are unsettled by potential to compete, according to reports. While on the face of it, a chatbot may not seem capable of posing a threat to Alphabet, some are already positing that ChatGPT could be used to perform internet searches, which could cut into the nearly $150 billion Alphabet gains from this activity per year.

Accordingly, Alphabet’s executive suite, past and present, have received a new incentive to invest in artificial intelligence. In December, the New York Times reported that Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page returned to the company’s headquarters, three years after both made the decision to step back from daily involvement in the firm, in order to review next steps.

Despite having announced a cut to its payroll representing more than ten thousand positions last week, it seems that Alphabet is looking to pivot toward AI at full speed. On Monday, February 6th, CEO Sundar Pichai announced via blog post that a counterpart to ChatGPT, to be known as ‘Bard’, would be made available to users in the coming weeks. Bard will reportedly not only function as a chatbot, but also be able to condense information gathered from the internet in order to simplify complex concepts for users. With Alphabet stock having declined more than 25% in value over the past year, the firm could be keen to ensure that it doesn’t lose ground in the internet search arena against ChatGPT.

C3.ai’s Rising Star

A perhaps less well-known name in the American tech industry may also  benefit from artificial intelligence’s application to search engine technology. C3.ai (AI), a California-based software company, has seen a rise in stock price of over 110% since ChatGPT’s launch on November 30, 2022. 

Last week, C3.ai CEO Thomas Siebel announced that the firm will harness the power of both OpenAI’s application as well as software from Alphabet in order to launch new artificial intelligence search tools. This new set of applications, to be released to the public next month, has the potential for a wide range of uses from medicine to the financial industry. Whether C3.ai continues to ride the wave of investor interest in AI remains to be seen.

ChatGPT has taken the global tech industry by storm, and the repercussions of human-like AI have yet to be fully comprehended. How this all will play out on the stock markets is as yet uncertain.