Cataclysmic Change is upon us!

Progress and innovation over the past 20 years drove changes in consumer patters in ways not anticipated. These companies who reacted were the ones who performed best. (Blockbuster, Woolworths, Kodak etc were slow and suffered the consequences)

The chaos generated via Brexit, Global Instability and Covid 19 further forced change, again in many instances if you didn't adapt you ceased to exist.

The recent introduction of A.I. via Chat GPT-3 is frankly cataclysmic and will impact all companies across all sectors.

Those slow to act will struggle to maintain relevance as GPT-4 begins to bite.

In 2023 alone, Chat GPT has passed the bar exam, passed the medical board exam, & outperformed fund managers. It can read medical x-rays and will push aside doctors in many areas. It has written a song in the style and then sung it in the voice of Michael Jackson. Paul McCartney used AI to recreate John Lennon’s voice to allow an old Beatles song to be published. AI has written a book with images visualised in the style of Salvador Dali and then published it. GPT can, by pulling from customer feedback identified new demand and then designed new products to meet that demand.

German artist Boris Eldagsen's was awarded The Sony World

Photography Award in the creative open category. In a statement on his website, the artist said he applied to the competition as a "cheeky monkey, to find out, if the competitions are prepared for Al images to enter"

"They are not," he concluded.

When you consider that Chat GPT only arrived in Nov 2022 and is improving daily its no surprise that 23% of SME's in the US utilising AI are seeing cost savings of $50k plus with 13% over $100k.?

GPT-3 launched in Nov 22 draws from 175bn items of data.?

GPT-4 in beta trials now draws from 100 trillion.?

If you think that GPT (Generative pre-trained Transformer) will not impact you, your role in a company and/or the business you own then you are na?ve or a fool or both.?

AI has ben disrupting the labour market replacing routine jobs in some sectors?and whist manual labour roles in construction, agriculture, forestry, manufacturing will not see an impact where the ‘meat hits the metal’ A.I. will in the management of these functions identify gains which will impact on the numbers employed.?

Its now the turn of professional sectors to be impacted.

The sectors most affected?today?are :- Accountants, Lawyers, Researchers, Copyrighters, Marketing (across creative, digital, brand, PR), Teaching, Investment, Medical (particularly analysis), Product design (across ALL sectors)?

MIT showed that ChatGPT substantially increased productivity for college-educated professionals performing mid-level professional writing tasks.?Low-skilled workers benefitted the most from the tool as it helped reduce the time they took and more importantly shrunk the difference in quality between their work and more skilled workers output. Thus GPT induced wage compression is here as employers will turn to low skill, low cost employee’s using A.I.

Morgan Stanley, one of the world’s biggest investment management firms, developed its own ChatGPT-based AI tool, but the rate of development in this sector is such that GPT’s capacity to analyse data has already led to stand alone GPT powered apps that can offer a greater degree of investment led analysis than any human investment manager. The ability to predict the future is still beyond GPT which keeps a need for human ‘gut feel’ in a number of sectors.?

The legal profession is particularly vulnerable. GPT is quicker, faster, works 24/7 and is significantly more capable to bring knowledge to bear than any lawyer regardless of experience. Whilst regulation will protect these sectors for a while (meaning a human lawyer will be required to sign off certain documents or attend court), the scenario already exists where you can speak to GPT (via phone or email) and you would not know this is not a human. If you could engage with GPT on your legal issue and your interaction is both of such high quality in terms of interaction, speed, cost and and giving you (the consumer) the outcome you need (home conveyancing, commercial contract, separation or breach of contract advice), you could be persuaded as a consumer to avoid human solicitors and engage with a GPT powered legal entity. As this entity is smart enough to know to work within the confines of your legal system be that Scots, English or American law and recognising GPT has already demonstrated it can pass the legal bar exam this would create a new legal advisory sector. Those of us who have engaged with lawyers know that they do not develop new legal contracts every time, but their billing model charges you as if they did. There is a large UK legal firm that says it has saved clients 75% of legal fees by using AI. Great if you are the client but that a drop of 75% of fee income/turnover for the firm. Ouch!?

This scenario also applies to all consultancy sectors.?

For now ‘us humans’ have some advantage over GPT in that GPT’s limitations are as funny as they are serious. It lacks emotional intelligence (but frankly so do many humans). It may perpetuate bias or racist views in as far as it hasn’t developed any social respect boundaries (but frankly many humans lack this), it doesn’t understand irony as seen in a AI generated diet pill advert where it created an 'add' along the lines of “Don’t settle for being fat and ugly,??use product x and you’ll only be ugly”

A lawyer for a man suing an airline in USA in a personal injury suit used Chat-GPT to prepare a filing, but the GPT app used delivered fake cases that the attorney then presented to the court, prompting the defence to question the cases and the judge to weigh sanctions as the legal community grapples with one of the first cases of AI “hallucinations”.??The cynic in me feels this could be a 'plant' by the legal sector to bring the threat of AI front and centre. Recognising the legal sector is resistant to change and is really the only profession still wedded to letter writing, points to a cultural issue which will slow down snag e when speed of action is needed.

A.I. hallucinations are a real phenomenon and thus when you use GPT you must ‘prompt’ for sources.??

I use the phrase?Cataclysmic change at the start as I believe we have reached a new AI powered industrial revolution. Consumer wants and needs force change in companies, rarely the other way round (with a few exceptions where marketing has driven demand). AI powered GPT is here.??It’s only going to impact the way we do business more and more. Your competitors will discover the benefits eventually and begin to exploit GPT

The question you face is what do you do today to maintain your relevance in the face of this change.

?At the moment A.I. will not kill your company.

A competitor using A.I. will.?

In chaos lies opportunity. Genoa Black during the Oil Price crash in 2014, Brexit in 2016 and during Covid -19 delivered strategies for companies affected by these events. The competitive advantages in understanding where to capitalise on your competitors weaknesses and exploit both efficiencies and market opportunity saw our clients not only survive but grow.