AI in Business: How Understanding ChatGPT Today Prepares You for Tomorrow

Intro

The topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to be everywhere right now and it’s clear that the highly capable technology will have a tremendous impact on how the business world of tomorrow evolves. With the pace of this evolution seeming to increasingly quicken by the day, as a professional, it might be wise to consider a greater embrace and understanding of AI- but where do you even begin? This guide is designed to help with that- it offers a starting point to get you “using AI” (ChatGPT), begins with the basics, builds to more advanced concepts and offers plenty of examples that you can simply copy and paste to try on your own.

As you progress through this guide, you’ll discover how to begin adapting your thinking to be more successful with AI; you’ll also begin to building your command of “AI speak.” For example, if you’re not sure what “adjusting your prompt to give it a couple shots and increase the temperature” means, you will by the end of the guide. You’ll also see that, while some of those words (i.e. temperature) are somewhat specific to ChatGPT, the concepts behind the words are fairly universal in the world of AI (i.e. other AI platforms use the same or similar terms/concepts) and therefore, by learning a few of these key essentials now with ChatGPT, you’ll likely position yourself to have a lower AI learning curve going forward, with a higher AI fluency that you can apply on future technologies to leverage them more effectively.

Pre-Game Quick Notes

Few things to keep in mind when using ChatGPT:

• It was trained on pre-2022 data and has limited knowledge after this point (Open AI has a beta version that allows Chat to access the internet, however, there are other fully released AI tools that give you access to more current information, some of which are discussed at the end of this guide).
• It’s not great with numbers (i.e. math).
• Don’t share confidential/sensitive information and be mindful of organizational policies if applicable.
• Double check for accuracy when using the tool for complex or extremely important tasks.

How do I start?

ChatGPT is short for Chatbot Generative Pre-trained Transformer. It is an advanced AI language model that can understand and generate human-like text based on the input you provide. ChatGPT is offered by OpenAI. At the present time, there are two versions of ChatGPT offered, consider trying the free version- ChatGPT-3.5 first and if you feel like you would like to step up to something a bit more powerful, consider GPT-4, which requires a paid subscription.

To sign up for a ChatGPT account, go here and click “Sign up.”

After you complete the sign up, you’ll see a very basic website page with, what appears to be a search box at the bottom that reads “Send a message.”

This “Send a message” box is how you communicate with ChatGPT. For example, try entering “What is the capital of France?” (no quotes) and then click enter.

ChatGPT should return something like “The capital of France is Paris.”

In the world of AI, that bit of text you just entered (What is the capital of France?) is known as a “Prompt.” As this guide progresses, it will share many prompt examples that you can modify and try out for yourself, but there will be a more limited sharing of responses from ChatGPT to save on space. Output examples will only be shared if needed to better make a particular point.

Basic Prompting

As an AI language model, ChatGPT’s applications range from drafting emails and generating content to providing insights on complex data sets. The key to using ChatGPT effectively lies in understanding its capabilities and learning how to leverage them for your specific needs. Here are a few examples of some basic and useful prompts to get you going:

Describe

Unlike the internet, where you often need to search through pages and pages to find what you need, ChatGPT can cut through the noise and get right to the point. For example, perhaps you just joined a start-up company and have been asked to establish their Human Resources (HR) department. You might ask ChatGPT something like:

Example Prompt: Describe the function of a Human Resources department.

Continue Exactly Where You Left Off

As you begin to enter prompts, some responses might be quite long and as ChatGPT is writing the response it may stop suddenly. When this happens, try the following prompt to get things going again:

Example Prompt: “Continue exactly where you left off”

Summarize

One of ChatGPT’s superpowers is its ability to almost instantly take virtually any large piece of you give it and distill it down to summary form (SECURE Act 2.0, for example). You may run in to challenges depending on the size of the text you’re pasting in and if you reach a limit, ChatGPT will tell you. Also, don’t worry too much about formatting of the text you’re pasting into ChatGPT, it doesn’t really matter if the source of the information is formatted (i.e. has bullet points, images, is in tables, etc.), ChatGPT is smart enough to filter things out as needed to understand what you have entered. For example, say you are thinking about updating an HR Training Manual and would like to create a summary, you might use the following:

Example Prompt: Summarize the following: (copy and paste what you want it to summarize here, i.e. the text from the HR training manual)

ChatGPT is really good at breaking down complex topics into a more digestible form. If, for example, the summary you received is still too complex, you might consider the following popular prompt:

Example Prompt: Summarize the following for a 2nd grader: (copy and paste what you want it to summarize here)

Brainstorm

ChatGPT is also very creative, offering endless ideas or different ways of thinking. For example, perhaps, maybe you’re still working on that HR training manual and want to think through how it might be improved, you could consider a prompt like:

Example prompt: I would like to brainstorm ideas to improve our current HR training manual. Can you provide suggestions on how we can make it more engaging and interactive for our employees?

Write An Email

ChatGPT can be extremely helpful preparing communications. Perhaps you’ve completed your task of updating the HR training manual and would like to send an email out to employees announcing the update, here is the prompt, with the example output:

Example prompt: Compose an email that tells employees that there is a new HR training manual available.

Output from ChatGPT:

Subject: New HR Training Manual Now Available: Enhance Your Professional Skills!

Dear [Employee's Name],

We hope this email finds you in good spirits and high productivity. We are excited to announce the release of our brand new HR Training Manual, carefully designed to provide you with a condensed and comprehensive resource to enhance your professional skills and knowledge.

The HR Training Manual serves as an invaluable tool for both newcomers and seasoned employees, covering a wide range of essential topics in a concise and accessible format. It consolidates the most important information from our previous manuals, incorporating the latest industry best practices and insights. This condensed version allows you to quickly grasp the key concepts, saving you valuable time and enabling you to apply your learnings more effectively in your daily work.

Key Features of the New HR Training Manual:

Clear and Succinct Content: We have distilled the essential information, eliminating unnecessary details and focusing on what truly matters. Each section provides a brief overview, followed by practical tips and guidelines.

Comprehensive Coverage: The manual covers a wide array of HR topics, including but not limited to employee onboarding, performance management, workplace diversity and inclusion, conflict resolution, and professional development.

Quick Reference Guide: The manual serves as a handy reference guide, enabling you to find specific information swiftly whenever you encounter HR-related challenges or need to refresh your knowledge on a particular topic.

User-Friendly Layout: The manual features a user-friendly layout with clear headings and subheadings, making it easy to navigate and locate the information you require promptly.

Accessing the New HR Training Manual:

To access the new HR Training Manual, please visit our company's intranet [provide specific link or instructions]. The manual is available in a downloadable PDF format for your convenience, allowing you to access it at any time, even when you're offline.

We highly encourage all employees to take advantage of this valuable resource and familiarize themselves with its contents. By doing so, you will not only strengthen your HR knowledge but also contribute to the overall success of our organization.

If you have any questions or require further assistance regarding the new HR Training Manual, please don't hesitate to reach out to the HR department. We are more than happy to support you in any way we can.

We believe that continuous learning and development are essential for personal growth and professional success. We hope that the new HR Training Manual will empower you to excel in your roles and contribute to a positive work environment.

Thank you for your attention and commitment to personal and professional growth. Together, let's strive for excellence!

Best regards,

[Your Name]

[Your Position]

[Your Company Name]

Analyze for Style and Tone

You’ve already done this, to some extent, if you tried the “summarize for a 2nd grader” prompt, but think about WHAT you did. You effectively told ChatGPT that you would like to see its output have a particular style and tone (i.e. that of a 2nd grader- you could have also asked it to summarize like a pirate or whatever you like). The AI will respond with whatever style and tone you ask it to respond with. If you would like to see what your own style and tone is, try using the following:

Example prompt: Please analyze the following writing sample for style and tone (copy and paste writing sample here)

Once you have analyzed for your own writing, you have established what is sometimes referred to as a “Prompt Persona” for yourself.

If you find that the output from ChatGPT is not exactly matching your writing style, you could get more advanced with your prompt and actually include a sample of your writing within the prompt, for example:

Example Prompt: I would like you to write an email to employees announcing our new HR training manual. In order to capture my writing style and tone, please refer to the following excerpt from one of my essays: (copy and paste writing sample here)

?As you can see, this begins to get more specific and even connects a few basics together to become a more Advanced Prompt, which we’ll dive into next.

As you begin to create more prompts, keep in mind that each conversation you have with ChatGPT is essentially a line of thinking. So, for example, if you want to switch gears from HR to say, Marine Biology, you may want to start a “New Chat” by clicking the “+ New chat” option in the upper left corner of your screen. You can come back to old chat sessions if you like, you’ll see them listed below the “+ new chat” button.

Advanced Prompting

Sometimes, it helps to think of AI as though you’re sitting across from either the smartest and most capable person in the world- or the opposite of that; what version of the AI you get is entirely up to you. Remember, you bring the AI to life, so the manner in which you do that, directly impacts what you get out (i.e. garbage in, garbage out).

In the basic prompt examples, we were primarily asking ChatGPT to do (and consider) maybe just one thing; for example, “Summarize.” ChatGPT is capable of doing much more than one thing at a time and as just mentioned, the more you give it, the more accurate and capable it becomes for you. This way of thinking is different than what we have come to know when using a search engine, for example. With AI, the more precise you can be and the more information you give it, the better the output will be. So advanced prompting is really just about adding more detail to your prompt so that the AI can do a better job for you (i.e. generate the type of output you’re looking for). ?

Interview Questions Example

Consider the following prompt:

Example Prompt: Provide me with some good questions to ask during an interview.

The output is likely to be fairly good but may not be particularly useful or helpful based on the specific role you’re hiring for. To elevate the prompt, add more specific detail:

Example Prompt: I am a CFO of a mid-sized regional construction company. I am looking for a new project manager and would like someone who is experienced, organized, detail-oriented, nimble, creative, able to roll with the punches and has a strong track record of successfully completing projects on time and on budget. What are 15 questions I can ask candidates during an interview process to evaluate how their capabilities align with what I am looking for in a candidate?

As you can imagine, the second prompt is going to yield far better and useful information than the first prompt. Again, the more you can give it the better. Also note the use of common language like “roll with the punches,” that was intentionally included to show that you can mix terminology and ChatGPT will understand what “roll with the punches means” just as easily as it understands “detail-oriented.”

Temperature

Adjusting the 'temperature' setting in ChatGPT can influence the creativity and randomness of the generated output. A lower temperature (e.g., 0.2) produces more focused and conservative text, while a higher temperature (e.g., 0.8) results in more creative and diverse responses. For example:

Example Prompt: Act as an experienced CFO who has recently approved annual bonuses for employees and will be sending out an email to announce the bonuses. You would like to have an eye-catching subject line for the email, provide 10 examples of subject line options with a temperature of 0.7

The output you get will be more to the creative end of the spectrum than the conservative (i.e. “Bonus” being a more conservative, but effective subject line).

Components like temperature are something you’re likely to see very often as AI technology evolves because it is an easy way to shorthand something- for instance, I could say “temperature 1.0” or I could write out some lengthy description of a creative and diverse person for the AI to consider.?

The Quality Hurdle

As you push farther into ChatGPT, you may reach a common point where “its just not getting there” for you. Perhaps the output is close, but not perfect. It’s good, but not making you go “wow!” This can happen even when you’re being very specific and adding great detail into your prompts.

Language can be a very important first thing to double check, ChatGPT is very literal. For example, if you ask it to look at something and come up with “ideas nobody has ever thought of before,” it will do exactly that- by making things up. The detail is important, as is language and to some extent, structure. With respect to structure, here are some inclusions to consider that can drastically increase the quality of your prompt output.

Define Your Prompt's Purpose and Audience

Clearly identify the purpose of your prompt and the intended audience. This will help you tailor the complexity, tone, and style of your prompt.

Example Prompt: Purpose - To inform other executives about the importance of data analysis. Audience - Business professionals with limited knowledge of data science.

Establish Persona, Knowledge, and Traits

In advanced prompts, specify the persona, knowledge, and traits you want ChatGPT to adopt. This ensures that the AI generates a response that aligns with your desired expertise and perspective.

Example Prompt: [Persona] You are an experienced CFO. [Knowledge] You have an MBA from Harvard and extensive experience in finance, accounting, and business strategy. [Traits] You are skilled in explaining complex concepts in simple terms.

You’ll note that in some cases brackets are used to break up the prompt so the AI knows to consider what follows in a specific way. If you use this approach, just make sure to be consistent:

Define Task and Context

Clearly outline the task you want ChatGPT to perform and provide sufficient context to guide the AI's response.

Example Prompt: [Task] Write a brief explanation of how data analysis can benefit businesses. [Context] The explanation should be concise, easy to understand, and highlight key benefits of data analysis.

Set Constraints and Goals

Establish any constraints and goals for the AI's response to ensure it meets your expectations and requirements.

Example Prompt: [Constraints] Use simple language and avoid technical jargon. [Goal] Encourage other executives to consider implementing data analysis in their decision-making process.

Consider Format

ChatGPT is not just limited to basic text. It can also output information in tables, code, language translations, etc.

Example Prompt: I need the following financial data for the past three fiscal years (FY 2020, FY 2021, and FY 2022) to analyze our company's performance. Please provide the data in a table format.

1. Revenue
2. Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)
3. Gross Profit
4. Operating Expenses
5. Operating Income
6. Net Income
7. Earnings Per Share (EPS)
8. Total Assets
9. Total Liabilities
10. Shareholders' Equity

Please organize the data in a table format with the fiscal years as columns and the financial metrics as rows.

ChatGPT Output:

Note: The data in the table is fictional and is provided as an example. The actual values would depend on the company's financial statements.

Review and Refine

Review your advanced prompt and refine it as necessary. Make sure it is clear, concise, and accurately reflects your intentions. Test your advanced prompt and modify as needed based on the response. Fine-tune your prompt until you achieve the desired results. Just like with learning a new language, it can be helpful to keep notes somewhere on effective prompts you’ve built, lessons learned, tips, tricks, etc.

Shot Prompting (i.e. providing examples)

If the output is still short of the mark, one approach that can be very effective is sometimes referred to as “(n) Shot Prompting,” where (n) refers to the number of examples you give the AI in your prompt, to help it (the AI) better understand what you’re seeking in terms of output:

(n) Shot Prompt Examples:

• “Zero Shot Prompt” = Provide me with some fun games to play at a party
• “1 Shot Prompt” = An example of a fun game is “GAME,” provide me other ideas for some fun games to play at a party
• “2 Shot Prompt” = An example of a fun game is “GAME,” another example of a fun game is “GAME 2,” provide me other ideas for some fun games to play at a party

As you begin adding more variables to focus the AI’s attention, you’re working in the direction of building what some have referred to as a “Mega Prompt.”

Mega Prompting

A “Mega Prompt” is simply a larger prompt that brings many of the Advanced Prompt inclusions shared previously, together into one single prompt. Consider the following as an example of a Mega Prompt:

Example Mega Prompt:

[Your persona] Act as an expert in sustainable business practices with a focus on the fashion industry.

[Your knowledge] You have experience in implementing eco-friendly strategies, evaluating supply chain sustainability, and promoting circular economy principles.

[Your traits] You are persuasive, knowledgeable about the fashion industry, and skilled at communicating complex ideas in an accessible manner.

[Steps to the task goal] First, think about all possible benefits of the task. Then think about all the possible detriments of the task. Then create a strong argumentation of positives outweighing negatives.

[Your task] Write a 500-word article that discusses the environmental impact of the fashion industry and provides actionable recommendations for businesses to adopt more sustainable practices.

[Context and Constraints] Your article is for an audience of fashion business owners who are new to sustainability. Use a formal yet accessible tone, providing real-world examples and highlighting the benefits of sustainable practices.

[Goal] Your goal is to motivate fashion business owners to adopt eco-friendly strategies and contribute to a more sustainable future for the industry.

[Format] Format your response using Markdown. Use headings, subheadings, bullet points, italics, quotation marks, and bold to organize the information.?

Mega Prompts can be a one stop shop for quickly accomplishing large tasks with high precision and impressive output. This is essentially where the term “Prompt Engineering” really comes in to play, where you’re really thinking through the structure of the prompt, how to word things, testing, modifying and eventually arriving at something highly capable that delivers quality output very quickly. A good Mega Prompt can be used over and over with only slight modifications generally to the task, context, goal and format sections.

Progressive Prompting

The concept of a Mega Prompt is an important one to understand, as the variables which make it “mega” (persona, goal, etc.) are useful to enhance any prompt. A Progressive Prompt goes about things in a slightly different way. In short, the idea is to guide and focus the AI’s “full energy” on things step by step, rather than all at once (like with a Mega Prompt). This can often yield superior results when compared to Mega Prompting. Think of it almost like being the captain of a ship, first you want to find the right course, then you set out on your journey. The following is an example of a Progressive Prompt:

Example Prompt 1: As an HR director, what are the key factors to consider when recruiting and building a team for a healthcare company?

• Say that you liked the output. If for some reason you did not like the output, ask yourself why and then ask ChatGPT to modify accordingly, until it has provided you with output you like. This helps you see that it is thinking in the direction you want.

Example Prompt 2: Given the factors you mentioned, how can the startup effectively identify and attract the right talent?

• Again, if you like the output, progress further.

Example Prompt 3: Based on the desired team composition, what types of job descriptions and requirements should be outlined? Provide examples.

• Again, if you like the output, continue to progress.

Example Prompt 4: Considering the recruitment strategies you suggested, estimate the effort involved and your confidence in the success of the recruitment process. What strategies have the best balance?

• Progress or adjust as needed.

Example Prompt 5: Based on the insights gathered, act as an HR director who specializes in healthcare. Recommend a comprehensive recruitment and team-building strategy for the healthcare company, including talent identification, job descriptions, recruitment strategies, and performance metrics. Output your results using markdown including headings, bold, and bullet points.

Here in Example Prompt 5 you essentially deploy more of a Mega Prompt-style prompt since you have confirmed that the AI’s attention is properly focused where you would like it to be. If you find that there is some key piece of information ChatGPT is not considering, you can also use a process called Anchoring to commit something to memory, for example:

Example Prompt: I am going to provide you with our mission statement, refer to this going forward as [Mission Statement], if you understand, respond with “I understand”: (copy and paste Mission Statement here)

ChatGPT should now respond with “I understand.” What you have now done is anchor that Mission Statement into ChatGPT’s memory. Now if, for example, you went back to the earlier email example, you could use a prompt like:

Example Prompt: I would like you to write an email to employees announcing our new HR training manual. As you compose this email, find opportunities to explain and incorporate points from [Mission Statement]

This is just a short sample of some of the more capable advanced prompt strategies for you can begin familiarizing yourself with.

Cross-Platform Utilizations

Many think of AI tools like ChatGPT in singular terms, but as the technology continues to evolve, you should keep in mind that you can take one AI tool which is really good at one task and ask it to generate output that can be inputted into a different AI tool, that is perhaps better with some other task.

For example, if there is a visual component to the task you are looking to complete, like building a presentation, you might ask ChatGPT to generate the text for the presentation, then ask it to provide you with text that you can copy and into a text-to-image AI tool like Dall-E (also from OpenAI). This allows you to quickly and originally generate powerful imagery specifically designed to complement your presentation.

Remember the HR training manual example? What if, instead of asking ChatGPT to summarize the manual, you asked it to take the manual and write a script for someone, so that they could deliver a presentation on the contents of the manual? From here, what might be helpful to happen next? A presentation? A video? All closer and easier to attain than you think, with AI. The starting point in a process like this, is to remember that ChatGPT is an AI language model- it’s good for text-based applications:

• Platforms like Dalle-E can take text and generate images from the text.
• Platforms like Synthesia can take text and turn it into videos.
• Platforms like Beautiful.ai can take text and turn it into a presentation.

As you begin to think along these cross-platform lines, the potential of AI to be positively additive for you, grows even greater.?

And that’s just the beginning. It’s becoming easier and easier to accomplish “cross-platform” tasks on a single platform as more technology is developed. There are also a large number of browser extensions that leverage the capabilities of ChatGPT and other AI to help you complete various tasks. To go a small and final step further, ChatGPT can output code in the programming language Python, which can aid in setting up an Application Programming Interface (API) with ChatGPT to effectively bring the technology into your own website or interface.

Bringing It All Together

The previous “Cross Platform” section really brings this full circle and starts to become more future facing. After having learned the basics in ChatGPT, trying any other platform means that you are taking a next step in your journey to evolve with AI. As you do so, you likely will see many of the same things you saw in ChatGPT (for example, prompts- which you now know how to design/engineer and improve through persona, context, goals, Mega Prompting, Progressive Prompting, etc.) or variations of concepts you learned from ChatGPT:

• Chatsonic is another language model option like ChatGPT, it can produce content with an option to provide examples to improve the output quality. These examples are factored by the AI like how “Shots” are factored by ChatGPT.
• Midjourney (platform used to create the header art for this article) is another popular text-to-image tool like Dall-E, when it produces content it seems to prefer very specific descriptions followed by parameters like “Chaos,” which ranges from 0 to 100, the higher the Chaos you input the more unusual and unexpected the result, like how Temperature works with ChatGPT. ?

As you can see, by taking a little time today to learn a few key essentials in ChatGPT, adapting your thinking and increasing your fluency of “AI speak,” you’ll be begin building a foundation that can significantly help lower your AI learning curve and increase your overall AI fluency to better leverage future technologies as the AI-fueled business world continues to evolve.

Where next? 6 other AI tools to explore:

• Bing – Microsoft’s Bing has incorporated ChatGPT which allows it to access more recent information, it can also be helpful in citing specific sources when doing research.
• Otter.ai – easily convert your voice to text (hint, if you’re experiencing a creative block, try just going all out on an idea dump for 5 minutes, then drop the tect into ChatGPT and ask it to organize your thoughts in a clear and concise manner)
• Writer AI Content Detector – this is just a helpful tool to have for a number of reasons.
• Legal Robot – designed to take complex legal concepts and explain them in more simplistic and commonly understandable terms. ?
• Lumen5 – easily create business, educational or marketing videos.
• Sounddraw – easily create AI-generated music for exactly the application you need.

This information is provided for informational purposes only. The technical information in this article is necessarily brief. No final conclusion on these topics should be drawn without further review and consultation.