OpenAI may be chasing after enterprise users, but some of its executives warn people not to expect the technology to change their businesses quickly.
OpenAI chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said in an interview with CNBC that one of the more overhyped parts of artificial intelligence is that “in one fell swoop, [it] can deliver substantive business change.”
Lightcap said companies have approached OpenAI expecting generative AI to solve many problems, dramatically cut costs, and bring back growth if they’re struggling. He said that while AI could improve more, “there’s never one thing you can do with AI that solves that problem in full” and that the technology is still in its infancy. He added that AI is still in the experimental phase, where it has yet to become part of critical tools and applications.
OpenAI has launched an enterprise version of its popular ChatGPT platform, promising to provide better guardrails for companies that want to protect proprietary and sensitive data and offer more fine-tuning options for the model. Lightcap said the company is still working through a long waitlist for ChatGPT Enterprise.
Consumers and enterprises saw potential in generative AI, especially after tech evangelists hailed the technology as a way to make work easier. Concerns around accidental data leaks pushed developers like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Amazon to launch enterprise-focused versions of generative AI models.
Some employees in companies that embraced AI early have complained that the first iterations of AI models haven’t exactly made lives easier. A new report from The Information pointed to grumblings from within Morgan Stanley that the chatbot the bank built with OpenAI is not used by its intended audience of wealth managers because people prefer to call a person for information instead.
Lightcap skirted questions about OpenAI’s day-to-day after the eventful past weeks the company had.
