ChatGPT was an 'oh crap' moment for hundreds of CEOs
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- ChatGPT was an 'oh crap' moment for every CEO.
- Analysis of first-half earnings calls show an uptick in analyst questions to CEOs about AI.
- Bosses of everything from travel firms to online florists showed off hastily built ChatGPT plug-ins.
For much of corporate America right now, there's the world before ChatGPT, and the world after.
"I wasn't expecting it," said Michael Beckley, chief technology officer at process automation company Appian.
Beckley was trying to enjoy the remainder of his Thanksgiving holiday when AI startup OpenAI dropped ChatGPT to the public on November 30.
Already familiar with artificial intelligence and with earlier iterations of OpenAI's prior large language models, Beckley said he immediately realized it was a huge deal.
"It was not something I was expecting to matter," Beckley said in a June interview. "And then over holidays, it hit. You had plenty of time to work with it. And you had that 'oh crap' moment.
"You just immediately realized, as we all did, that this is the next iPhone moment. Nothing in the world is going to go back to the way it was, the genie is not going to go back into the bottle."
Appian, founded in 1999, makes most of its money from businesses using its platform to create their own enterprise apps. It reported a $36.8 million net loss on revenues of $135 million for the first quarter of the year, from a loss of $23.1 million on revenue of $114 million during the same period in 2022. It is one of many well-established tech businesses that face major disruption from the sudden popularity of ChatGPT. On June 12, Appian announced its "generative AI strategy" in partnership with ChatGPT's maker OpenAI.
Beckley told Insider: "I was just like, 'Okay, throw out your normal plans and get to work.'"
The firm isn't alone. An Insider analysis of earnings calls transcripts from January to June found top executives across at least 153 companies mentioned ChatGPT, often prompted by analysts keen to understand how firms are adopting the tech to boost revenue or save money. Analysts at investment firm Jefferies estimated in a June note that firms using AI are already making 21%-36% in productivity savings.
Many of those showing off new OpenAI integrations were tech-first businesses like Appian. Others had less obvious connections to AI.
The then-CEO of online florist 1-800 Flowers, Chris McCann, highlighted during a May earnings call how the firm had launched "1-800-Flowers Mom Verse", a ChatGPT-powered app to compose personalized poems and songs for Mother's Day.
Cowboy boots retailer Boot Barn has added ChatGPT to its in-store touchscreens to advise shoppers on their outfit.
"For example, if a customer is shopping for a pair of women's western boots, they will now be able to ask ... for a recommended outfit that would pair well with their selection, to wear a country music concert and that recommendation will be rendered with a conversational tone and in qualitative reasons why these items would look good together," said CEO Jim Conroy, also in a May earnings call.
The company immediately set to do best out of all these new integrations is OpenAI itself. The firm is privately held, and does not reveal financials. In 2022, the startup was reportedly heavily loss-making due to the costs of creating and running ChatGPT.
"It's deafening noise from our ecosystem, demanding the latest updates on the roadmap," said Appian's Beckley. "Because everyone's got to brief their executive team, their customers, their partners, everything's got to have it."