ChatGPT has been getting a lot of attention in the media lately, mainly as a threat to high school and university students ever writing their own essays again. The contention is real for an academic environment, but the options for time poor small business people with a need to endlessly produce readable content are quite compelling. So what is ChatGPT and how does it work (the text in italics is all generated unedited by chatGPT).

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) language model created by OpenAI. It is a powerful natural language processing (NLP) tool that can understand and generate human-like language. ChatGPT is trained on a massive amount of text data and uses deep learning algorithms to learn patterns and relationships in language. As a result, it can perform a wide range of tasks, such as answering questions, summarizing text, generating text, and even holding a conversation. ChatGPT is used in a variety of applications, including chatbots, virtual assistants, and language translation tools.

So far so good. After several years of AI being touted as the next big thing but being somewhat harder to pin down when it comes to simple applications for low-tech business users, it is exciting to see the technology really becoming a mainstream option. We know ChatGPT writes a passable essay, but how does ChatGPT help small businesses? What content will ChatGPT generate when I ask it to answer that very question - see below:

ChatGPT can help small businesses in a variety of ways, including:

1. Customer service: ChatGPT can assist in responding to customer inquiries, providing support, and answering frequently asked questions. This can help small businesses save time and resources while improving customer satisfaction.
2. Marketing: ChatGPT can provide personalized marketing recommendations based on a small business's target audience, industry, and goals. It can also help small businesses create engaging content for social media, email marketing, and other channels.
3. Sales: ChatGPT can assist with lead generation, lead qualification, and even with closing sales. It can help small businesses understand their customers' needs and preferences and recommend products or services that meet those needs.
4. Operations: ChatGPT can help small businesses streamline their operations by providing suggestions on how to optimize workflows, improve efficiency, and reduce costs.
5. Data analysis: ChatGPT can help small businesses analyze their data to identify trends, opportunities, and areas for improvement. This can help small businesses make informed decisions and improve their bottom line.

Overall, ChatGPT can help small businesses improve their efficiency, customer satisfaction, and revenue, while saving time and money.

A comprehensive and compelling answer from chatGPT, generated in less than 30 seconds. Impressive. I asked it to explain how it can specifically help small businesses.

Small businesses can get started using ChatGPT in a few different ways, depending on their needs and resources. Here are a few options:

1. Use a pre-built chatbot platform: There are several pre-built chatbot platforms available that use ChatGPT as their underlying AI technology. These platforms allow small businesses to quickly and easily create a chatbot without any coding experience. Some examples of pre-built chatbot platforms include Chatfuel, Tars, and ManyChat.
2. Hire a developer: Small businesses can hire a developer who is familiar with ChatGPT to create a custom chatbot for their specific needs. This option may be more expensive but can result in a more tailored and advanced chatbot.
3. Use a chatbot-building tool: There are several chatbot-building tools available that allow small businesses to create a chatbot using a drag-and-drop interface. These tools often integrate with ChatGPT, making it easy to add AI capabilities to a chatbot. Some examples of chatbot-building tools include BotStar, Flow XO, and MobileMonkey.
4. Use a chatbot template: Some pre-built chatbot platforms and chatbot-building tools offer pre-made templates that small businesses can use as a starting point for their chatbot. These templates often include basic functionality and can be customized to fit a small business's specific needs.

Overall, getting started with ChatGPT involves selecting the right approach based on a small business's resources, needs, and goals. Once a small business has chosen a path forward, it can begin building and deploying its chatbot with the help of available resources and tutorials.

It's enough to make a digital doctor nervous at this level of super fast content creation, but it is exciting for the time that could be saved creating content, or at most basic creating base content that can be nuanced with the business's brand voice and product/service specifics. Ironically, all of the spelling and grammar mistakes when writing this blog weren't generated by the chatbot, but by the human, which says a little something about the level of human language built into chatGPT. Or the deficits of Doctor Digital's English book learning.

ChatGPT is currently free to sign up for, with a paid subscription model being launched round about now. The caveats from the developer team is that the bot is still learning from all of the input millions of users are giving it, and will from time to time produce content that is inaccurate, and possibly offensive, but all efforts are being made to keep it inclusive and friendly. It won't chat with you about anything illegal either, just incase you were asking for a friend. Can it help your business to produce content, documents or connect with customers? Might be time to have a chat and see.

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