What does the launch of ChatGPT and advancement in AI mean for brands

ChatGPT has taken the world by storm, and it looks like we are just scratching the surface.

Let’s start with the fact that ChatGPT is a different AI technology and doesn’t have much in common with usual chatbots, except for the word “chat” in their names. It is not a chatbot in the traditional sense, and should not be confused with such.

ChatGPT is a large language model (GPT) trained to have a conversation that can generate human-like text. Simply put, it is AI that speaks human. It is about to open up a world of possibilities for brands, customer service, and conversational commerce. Since its launch at the end of 2022, ChatGPT is estimated to have reached over 100 million users, and its impact on various industries is in the very early stages and will continue to grow exponentially.

Once the technology gets greater adoption, the first change will be how people search and discover information. Instead of getting just a list of not-always-relevant links, a person can get a response that he or she is actually looking for, specify further details through a conversation, and get a personalized experience.

How? ChatGPT can understand natural language input from users and provide them with relevant answers, based on the context of the conversation. It can also generate human-like text responses, making conversations more engaging and intuitive. There are multiple features that make ChatGPT a revolutionary technology, but two stand out:

1. Advanced Natural Language Understanding: ChatGPT has a deep understanding of human language which enables it to process and analyze complex conversational inputs. It paves the way for more meaningful and contextually relevant interactions, bridging the gap between humans and AI.

2. Contextual Memory: Unlike traditional chatbots that often struggle with maintaining context throughout a conversation, ChatGPT has the ability to remember and refer back to previous conversations. This allows it to tailor its responses to the user’s needs and context, and also makes interactions feel more natural for the users.

What does it mean for brands and businesses – and for us all as consumers?

This will alter how people find, interact with, and buy from brands and accelerate a further, even greater shift toward conversational commerce. For businesses, this means easier discovery, greater engagement, and, ultimately, more sales. It also means a much faster shift towards a more personalized, real-time connection with the customer, at all stages of the customer journey because of increased accuracy and efficiency, delivering a more seamless customer experience.

At Viber, we have been aware of this trend for some time now, thanks to insights from our own numbers. In 2022, Viber’s transactional messages got a 73% spike as brands prioritized essential notifications, conversational messages were up by 17% globally, and promotional grew by 11% across geographies. 12 billion messages were exchanged in chatbots last year as businesses embraced round-the-clock support.

External studies support what we are seeing: according to the Hootsuite report from 2023, Chat and Messaging apps are used by 94.8% of users aged 16–64 every day, becoming the number-one channel, above even Social Media, with 94.4%.

Putting it all together, these are the trends that are shaping the future of brand-customer interactions:

• Considering the popularity of chat apps among users, businesses will adapt and prioritize round-the-clock presence through messaging apps.
• ChatGPT and AI in general will accelerate the shift towards better-quality content and interactions.
• Conversational commerce and real-time connections with customers will improve and will turn into natural conversations, even if run by AI.
• Further advancement in AI will continue to shape the future of customer experience and engagement, and businesses that embrace this technology will be the ones leading the way.
• And most importantly – all of this will happen extremely fast.

With messaging apps being the number one channel for daily use, they are at the forefront of this shift. Through the integration of chatbots, rich messaging capabilities, comprehensive analytics tools, and AI in a variety of ways, chat apps can help businesses create better brand experiences, drive engagement and conversion. After all, conversations are at the core of the messaging apps, and if there’s one thing the popularity of ChatGPT proves — it’s that people prefer to get things done through conversations.

Words by Cristina Constandache, chief revenue officer at Rakuten Viber