CEO's Message: AI Will Quickly Transform Our World—Second Quarter 2023
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Want to learn more about AI, sign up to attend the broadcast of Dr. Sri Ramamoorti’s Keynote presentation titled: “Smart Contracts, Emerging Technologies, and Ethical Risks” Thursday, July 13 at 8:10–9:00 a.m. MT at NACVA and the CTI’s 32nd annual Business Valuation & Financial Litigation Super Conference. |
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Prior to his demo, I had told him I was hiring a salesperson for our Member/Client Services department. So, for his first demo, he asked ChatGPT for the following (FYI: ChatGPT has been given no information about me or NACVA):
"Write an offer to a salesperson to accept my offer of a $xx base plus commission. Sell them on the advantages of working for NACVA". Click here to see what ChatGPT spit out in under 20 seconds.
Beautiful, right? Then David asked ChatGPT to “expand on the reasons why NACVA is a great place to work”. In 15 seconds, this popped out.
Needless to say, not only was I blown away, but in disbelief because this is all true. I challenged David to write other communications including a thank you to a group of members who assisted us in a project focus group and with a two-sentence input to ChatGPT, in 10 seconds, it produced this wonderful and, honestly, heartfelt letter (full disclosure: David spent two minutes editing).
ChatGPT is versatile as well. As an initial test of ChatGPT, ValuSource's lead programmer asked it to write some formulas for Excel giving it a short description of what he wanted and hoping ChatGPT could save him time. In seconds, it spit out a detailed explanation including the exact Excel formulas needed to achieve what the programmer needed, sending chills up his spine because it was spot on. He now relies on ChatGPT for assistance with complex programming issues (including writing code), technical brainstorming, and answering very complex technical questions. David's marketing team now also uses ChatGPT on a regular basis to both edit and create content and David is quickly working to incorporate ChatGPT into every department at ValuSource.
If you do not think AI will transform our world, you are seriously wrong. And for those who do not jump on this train, you will be “left in the dust”. David has become a regular user of ChatGPT, primarily attracted to its time-saving features. However, he quickly realized that it offers far more than that. To him, ChatGPT is like having a brilliant and tireless assistant with an expansive knowledge base. In creating a recent promotional piece, in three sentences he asked ChatGPT to list the advantages of using valuation software and what business valuators can do with the time they save. Here is what ChatGPT gave him in 30 seconds.
Reading through this, I am in awe, in great part, because it is completely accurate and it is what I have been trying to tell our members for years. Just never so precisely or succinctly. How in the heck does ChatGPT know all this?
Seeing for myself what ChatGPT can do gives much more weight to what Mark Cubin was recently quoted saying in Fortune magazine, “There will be two types of companies in the future: those who are great at AI and everybody else”. Which one will you be?
The examples I have provided here are only a tiny fraction of what ChatGPT is capable of. ChatGPT excels at answering general knowledge questions, language support and translation, creative writing, brainstorming, research, planning, decision making and much more. In one instance, we asked ChatGPT to rewrite a technical communication so a 12th grader could understand and, low and behold, 15 seconds later, that is exactly what we got. Incredible. ChatGPT is not like Google, you can have a full conversation with ChatGPT, and it understands and responds to the context of your conversation. You can get a free ChatGPT account at https://openai.com and there is an Apple IOS app too (Android app coming soon). To quickly learn ChatGPT, I suggest you start using ChatGPT instead of Google and see the incredible difference in the results you get. David's team is using the paid version, which is $20/month, but the free version is amazing as well. If you find it useful, pay for the full version (ChatGPT 4.0).
I hate dating myself, but I have seen the evolution of all the technology that drives our world in this day and age. When I started my career, my first employer (an education/CPA firm) transitioned from using typewriters to a computer, which, with two workstations, filled a small room. I remember what a big deal it was when fax machines came on the scene. All the technology and its evolution into our society and its businesses has been very exciting to watch. And I have always capitalized on it, with the purpose of not being a guineapig but to be using this tech relatively early in its evolution; leading instead of following. Most tech, in my observation, takes two to three years to refine, which is the perfect time to get on board using it for yourself. AI is different, however; the time to start taking advantage is now. If you wait two years, you could be too late.
P.S.: If you are wondering, I did not use ChatGPT to write my portion of this Message, though I could have.
Thank you,
Chief Executive Officer, NACVA
