As Microsoft And Google Battle Over AI, Some Partners Are Already All-In On ChatGPT

Other AI Tools

Eiting has also tried other generative AI tools, including Midjourney, which can generate an image based on a user’s query. Although impressed by the tool, Eiting said he feels some work remains on Midjourney’s ability to create images of everyday objects that don’t look “creepy,” he said.

ChatGPT creator OpenAI has a Midjourney competitor called Dall-E, which also works on the generative pre-trained transformer 3 (GPT-3) powering the ChatGPT chatbot program.

Dall-E entered beta in July 2022, and OpenAI removed the waitlist in September.

ChatGPT was released in November. Both have been free to use with limits on the amount of content they can generate for users.

Snyder has played with Dall-E with his children but he has not found a business case for it yet, he told CRN.

Ross told CRN that his fascination with the current crop of generative AI tools came when he tried Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot.

Microsoft made Copilot generally available in July 2022. It uses OpenAI Codex, itself a natural language-to-code system based on GPT-3.

Ross became a self-described “evangelist” for Copilot, described as an AI pair programmer that can suggest code and entire functions in real-time from the editor.

“That was the first piece of technology I’ve used in a long time where I said, ‘Holy crap. This is amazing. This is going to change my life,’” he said.

For coding, Copilot saves Ross time “because I can type out a comment of what I want and it’ll tap complete. And I’ll be able to move really quickly on things that I used to have to Google.”

On Microsoft’s latest quarterly earnings call, held in January, CEO Satya Nadella called GitHub Copilot “the first at-scale AI product built for this era.” The program has surpassed 1 million users to date. He said that GitHub overall has 100 million developer users.

Eiting said that some tools on the market – such as Espressive’s Barista, an AI-based virtual support agent that promises to eliminate 70 percent of help tickets – worry him about potential replacements for engineers and IT help.

Another intriguing AI product on the market for Eiting is AI contract-drafting tools such as Spellbook by document automation and company management tool provider Rally.

Spellbook also uses GPT-3. But accepting the liability from a contract drafted by AI might be too much risk for him to take at this point, Eiting said.

He said he hopes OpenAI, Microsoft and other AI vendors maintain guardrails around the potential to use ChatGPT to produce malicious content and malicious code.

“They are walking a very fine line,” he said. “And I really hope that it continues to be used in a positive way.”