At Addition we've been using the technology behind ChatGPT for a while. But I vividly remember my first experience interacting with a GPT-3 model and how blown away I was by it. The release of ChatGPT has enabled millions of people to have that same experience and is opening up minds everywhere to the incredible possibilities of generative AI.
One of the most popular use cases for ChatGPT is as a search replacement. Instead of searching for answers, you can simply have a conversation with AI like you would a trusted friend or expert.
The other day, for example, my pipes froze during the Christmas weekend cold snap. After 30 minutes of bouncing between Google and random blogs who’s sole purpose it seemed was to keep me scrolling and serve me more ads, I turned to ChatGPT. The AI seamlessly guided me through the process of identifying the freeze, purchasing heat lamps, thawing the pipes, and restarting my tankless water heater. My pipes didn't burst, and I avoided the stress of finding a plumber willing to deal with my lines on Christmas eve.
Introducing the “Synthetic Brand Ambassador”
Consumer adoption of AI as a search replacement will create new opportunities for brands to engage consumers. One example of this is a concept we will refer to as a "Synthetic Brand Ambassador". You can think of this as a brand-specific version of ChatGPT. But instead of a free-wheeling-general purpose AI whose domain is the entire internet, the AI is trained on the brand’s content to ensure that it’s answers are accurate and in line with the brands products, services, values, goals and objectives. Anywhere a customer needs information or assistance, the Synthetic Brand Ambassador can help, reducing friction and resulting in more satisfied customers.
To demonstrate this, we trained a Synthetic Brand Ambassador on hundreds of blog articles from our friends at the Dollar Shave Club.
Here’s how it works:
We deploy a web scrapper to consume hundreds of blog articles from Dollar Shave Club's website.
We run the content through an AI pipeline that converts the articles into a data format optimized for GPT-3 to consume.
We integrate the data with a GPT-3-powered ChatBot application that we can converse via SMS.
Let’s see how it does:
Let's start by asking questions related to a topic I genuinely need help with: grooming my beard.
Ok, those are pretty good answers. The information checks out, and it’s genuinely useful.
Let's move on to something personal. The sort of thing I might not want to ask a human about; my emerging nose hair problem.
I was genuinely shocked to learn that plucking nose hairs can kill you, so I did a quick search to double-check that GPT-3 wasn't hallucinating. Sure enough, it was accurately generating responses based on this article from Dollar Shave Club's content.
Potential Use Cases
Brand-specific AIs like the one we demonstrate here will become increasingly commonplace in the coming years. They can not only act as brand ambassadors, but also play the role of sales associates and customer support. They can interface with customers through the web, sms, voice, and just about any other medium. One day we will find ourselves conversing with Synthetic Brand Ambassadors in the Metaverse. But what I find most incredible is that the technology required to do this exists today. The only thing remaining in the way is adoption.
Give it a Try
If you are curious and want to try out our Dollar Shave Club Synthetic Brand Ambassador, text “DSC” to +1(929)-227-4827 to start a conversation.
It’s quite good at answering grooming questions – although it sometimes struggles with product-specific questions like pricing and the latest products since we did not train it on product pages for this demo.
Do you have a use case for AI within your organization? Drop us a line to learn about the work we are doing with some of the world’s leading brands and agencies.
It's a python app connected to the Twilio API.
Hi, great article. Out of interest, what software did you use for the sms chatbot?