A study by MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group reveals that AI has huge benefits for both our work and personal lives.
CEOs must stay up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies to remain competitive in today’s business world. Artificial intelligence (AI), specifically chatbots powered by AI, is rapidly transforming the way CEOs work, as you may have heard. And, if there was one tool that reins supreme, it would be ChatGPT.
Since its release in November 2022, ChatGPT has taken the business world by storm. Despite the fearmongering and the fact that it must be verified for accuracy, it is very useful. In fact, two Economics Ph.D. students at MIT published an analysis of ChatGPT’s effect on white-collar productivity. And, the results, were impressive, to say the least.
Two groups of 444 white-collar workers were studied. The first used ChatGPT, while the second did not. In these functional areas, a group of evaluators assigned each participant 20-30 minute assignments that they considered representative of the functional areas.
The team looked at the speed of results, the quality of results, and the actual role ChatGPT played in replacing, augmenting, or confusing work.
While the ChatGPT-using group completed tasks 37% faster (17 minutes compared to 27 minutes) with somewhat similar grades, the quality of the ChatGPT group improved significantly as they repeated their tasks. As a result, ChatGPT improved work speed without sacrificing quality, and made it easier to “improve work quickly.”
With that in mind, here’s how successful people turn to ChatGPT for a productivity boost.
1. General assistance.
“I’ve shaved off an hour of my day thanks to ChatGPT,” Vishen Lakhiani, author, CEO, and founder of the e-learning provider Mindvalley, told Fortune. The A.I. tool impacted every aspect of his business within two weeks, he says.
Like Iron Man’s virtual butler J.A.R.V.I.S, most CEOs Fortune spoke with encourage their workers to use ChatGPT as a daily assistant.
As a matter of fact, it has made such a difference to productivity at Lakhiani’s firm that prompt engineering has become the “number one thing” he looks for in job applicants.
“Although ChatGPT and its rivals are far from perfect, their ability to enhance productivity in knowledge work is plainly evident,” adds Nigel Vaz, CEO of Publicis Sapient.
But, that’s just scratching the surface. Using ChatGPT as a virtual assistant can help you do the following:
- Scheduling appointments or meetings. Calendar, for example, has been using machine learning to suggest times for appointments. But Chat GPT also helps you find open slots in your calendar for a dental appointment or a team meeting.
- Organizing travel. Using relevant information, such as budget and length of stay, ChatGPT could create text to organize travel plans based on this information. Expedia even believes that people will find it useful for planning their trips.
- Researching information. If you are looking for resources to research an article, a YouTube video, or just for personal inquiries, Chat GPT can assist.
- Creating content. Chat GPT can create an outline for a research paper or suggest blog post topics related to healthy eating habits.
- Providing recommendations. Using ChatGPT, you can make fewer decisions each day. You can, for instance, request books regarding productivity or recipes that meet your needs.
2. Write speeches and emails.
Every email should take between 30 and 40 seconds to write. So, if you write 100 emails daily, that’s eating up an hour. As such, it’s no surprise that CEOs are using it as a writing assistance.
During the 2023 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of online learning provider Coursera, told CNN that ChatGPT is his “writing assistant and thought partner.” It assists him in crafting emails and speeches “in a friendly, upbeat, authoritative tone with mixed cadence.”
“Anybody who doesn’t use this will shortly be at a severe disadvantage. Like, shortly. Like, very soon,” Maggioncalda adds. “I’m just thinking about my cognitive ability with this tool. Versus before, it’s a lot higher, and my efficiency and productivity is way higher.”
3. Create a personalized workout plan.
Regular exercise clears your head and boosts your motivation, studies show.
That may explain why wealthy people tend to work out. According to Tom Corley, author of Change Your Habits, Change Your Life, 76 percent of the rich exercise daily for at least 30 minutes. Each day, take part in aerobic exercises, such as walking, biking, or jogging.
But did you know that ChatGPT can be used to create a personalized workout plan for you? It’s true. You can create a safe and effective workout plan using the tool based on a variety of prompts, from running plans to strength training plans.
4. Make marketing more efficient.
Regardless of whether your company has a marketing department, CEOs understand that balancing operational efficiency with customer experience is a must. In fact, Whit Bouck, board member, Managing Director at Insight Partners, and former CMO, states, “Efficient growth is the name of the game in the year ahead.”
According to Bouck, marketing leaders must be able to find ways to drive continued growth with smaller budgets and possibly fewer employees as a result of ongoing economic and geopolitical uncertainty.
Fortunately, implementing intelligent technologies can improve operational efficiency and customer experience. Here are the top 11 uses.
5. Improve customer service and engagement.
With ChatGPT, CEOs can provide customers with personalized recommendations, address their concerns, and answer their questions. Ultimately, this can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
With AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, customer service can be handled without devoting resources to monitoring customer messages.
- Analyze customer messages automatically. Using advanced technologies, AI tools interpret incoming messages from customers based on their tone and purpose. In addition to detecting keywords such as ‘complaint,’ AI will assess the message’s entire context.
- Actions can be triggered based on urgency tags. In order to sort through tons of customers and lead conversations, you can use artificial intelligence. Words indicating urgency can be recognized by AI models.
6. Create pitch decks. 
In general, a pitch deck gives a brief overview of the business plan, products, and services offered by your company. While vital, pitch decks can be time-consuming.
A basic, borderline acceptable deck can probably be completed in 8-12 hours. However, you’re probably going to spend weeks, if not months, to create. With the help of AI, anyone outside the company can put them together much easier.
An example is Larry Lundstrom, who earns some extra money using OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Depending on their length and complexity, he can create two to three pitch decks each week.
7. Handle accounting.
Automating tedious tasks, improving accuracy and efficiency, and uncovering hidden trends are all possible with artificial intelligence. Here are some ways that AI can help you reduce time and resources for your accounting tasks that many startup or small business CEOs may have to handle:
- Tasks that are repetitive. There are several repetitive tasks that accountants have to perform, such as recording data, categorizing transactions, reconciling accounts, entering and correlating data from receipts, invoices, and transactions, analyzing employee expense reports, and tracking price changes. These tasks can be completed by AI much more accurately than by humans.
- Automating some complex processes, such as payroll. In the future, AI will likely have a significant impact on payroll. Artificial intelligence can analyze data, learn from failures, and solve problems strategically, unlike automation, which is based on cause and effect.
- Generating summaries. ChatGPT can create summaries of financial reports. A company’s performance can be summarized in a flash with financial metrics highlighted.
- Analyzing a company’s financial performance. ChatGPT simplifies and makes access to key financial information easier by using specific financial questions.
8. Manage inventory and supply chains more efficiently.
Thanks to AIOps, or Artificial Intelligence in Operations, businesses are already undergoing a successful digital transformation.
An example of this is inventory management, which utilizes machine learning to improve efficiency and productivity. Using an AI tool, you can upload images and it will detect defects or categorize and label them. You can even connect this tool to your existing tool stack or online shop to automatically assign labels.
9. Boost employee engagement.
When an employee leaves, the average loss can be thousands of dollars. Studies have shown that replacing a salaried employee costs an average of six to nine months’ salary. If an employee makes $60,000 per year, recruiting and training expenses are between $30,000 and $45,000.
To avoid these financial and time costs, you can use ChatGPT to retain your team by keeping them engaged.
- Improving communication. By answering employees’ questions, providing feedback, and sharing important updates, ChatGPT can help improve communication within your organization.
- Providing a platform for knowledge sharing. ChatGPT makes it easier for employees to access company knowledge and resources, allowing them to make informed choices.
- Providing customized training. ChatGPT can customize training programs for employees so they’re properly trained.
- Project management can be streamlined. Using ChatGPT, you can track project progress, assign tasks, and identify potential hurdles.
- Work-life balance should be promoted. With ChatGPT, employees can take breaks, practice mindfulness, and even engage in fun team-building activities to promote work-life balance.
Courtesy of Entrepreneur.com by Network Contributor John Rampton