How generative AI fever is keeping big tech companies on their toes

Ever since OpenAI tools like ChatGPT and Dall-E saw the light of the day, the term ‘Generative AI’ - which is a step up from ‘Recommendation AI’ - has been occupying the minds of industry players from the domains of technology, advertising and marketing, amongst others. 

In fact, all major tech players such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, etc. have all expressed their peaking interest in the Generative AI space with plans to either develop their own AI-ML-driven tools and platforms or integrate the pre-existing APIs onto their respective platforms.

As per NASSCOM data, the growth rate for the Artificial Intelligence sector is estimated at about 20-25% and is further expected to contribute an additional $957 billion to the Indian economy by 2035.

In the current time frame, the term Generative AI has been making rounds across the globe in lieu of its various use cases. In fact, there are many players who are currently leveraging the integration of OpenAI’s ChatGPT API onto their respective platforms - like Snap Inc, Instacart, Shopify etc. as well. 

In India, the latest example is that of Koo, a microblogging and social networking service, which has integrated ChatGPT directly into its application to help users in creating draft posts about current events, politics or pop culture.

Prior to ‘Generative AI’, it was the term ‘Metaverse’ which had been making rounds across the globe for the past three years as it was the ‘Big Tech’ which was mainly fuelling conversations. However, the glory of the metaverse was not a long-lasting one as the major tech players had to eventually shift their focus to other avenues owing to the financial crunches.

When BestMediaInfo.com tried to delve deeper into the metaverse’s scope and possibilities, most of the industry players shared the belief that the brands did make hay while the sun shined upon the Web3 ecosystem in the form of publicity for having the ‘first-mover advantage’. 

At the time, various industry leaders also suggested that the platform has still not reached its pinnacle point and that it will still take a couple of years for the metaverse to reach its full potential and deliver the farsighted variables.

Rahul Vengalil

Commenting as to whether the fate of ‘Generative AI’ will be similar to that of the metaverse, Rahul Vengalil, Executive Director, Everest Brand Solutions, stated that while the metaverse is still a ‘big question mark’, Generative AI will get into the action a lot sooner.

In Vengalil’s view, companies will start using Generative AI tools and platforms effectively really soon, unlike the metaverse which is still a testing ground. “It will have a much shorter time span to be actively accepted, if not by companies, then the gig-economy individuals for sure,” he said.

Vivek Bhargava

According to Vivek Bhargava, Co-founder, ProfitWheel, it would be a mistake to compare the Metaverse with Generative AI for two reasons- one being the requirement of a virtual reality device for the Metaverse which made it difficult for the consumers to adopt it, which is not the case for ChatGPT or Bard as they are easy to use which is why the adoption rate has been quite high.

He also went on to add that in his view, Generative AI is going to have far-reaching consequences because it is extremely easy to use and is not dependent on hardware gadgets or bandwidth or devices. 

“I feel that Generative AI is one of the things that grows bigger and bigger, so much so that it will reset the world,” Bhargava said.

Commenting as to why is it only now that the big tech is focussing on Generative AI, Vengalil also stated that the reasons behind this mainly include adoption because the one fear that has transgressed over the years is that ‘AI will eat up jobs’, followed by accuracy, that is backed by relevant use cases or case studies. 

“Personally, I also think that there is a bit of ego clash as well when it comes to machines doing the tasks that a human is supposed to do,” he said.

Upon being questioned if the entry of multiple platforms in the Generative AI domain will lead to a cluttered market, Vengalil replied that when each of these tools and technologies will work on the same set of historical data and content as the benchmark, there will only be a 10-15% differentiation in the output.

“Just using a tool or technology essentially means that the desired output should be equal, however, what is of utmost importance from a differentiation point of view is the role of the handler, which is a human. Therefore, it is all about how effectively a person can actually use the platform or the tools to create the output. The efficiency will come in eventually because it is all based on technology,” he opined. 

In the views of ProfitWheel’s Bhargava, Generative AI is going to be integrated into almost everything that one does in the contemporary world. In fact, he also went on to point out that his very own SaaS platform Consumr.Ai in the current times uses a lot of Generative AI.

“The thing is that if you want Generative AI to work well, you need to give it the right input which is why the ability to ask the right questions and the prompt engineering will be the prime differentiating factors for the organisations and how they use AI. Therefore, the man who knows how to use AI more effectively will win rather than compete with AI,” Bhargava said.

Furthermore, he also went on to add that using these AI tools, in his opinion, is going to be mandatory for companies and the ones who build up their expertise in using AI effectively to achieve business outcomes and desires will be the key.

It is a commonly known fact that for any innovation to actually take place a lot of investment also needs to be made in order to be also able to reap the fruits out of the sheer hard work and dedication that went into the creation of the respected tools and platforms.

Vengalil also touched upon how can Generative AI-driven APIs and tools make money out of their creations and said that the right way, in his opinion, to handle the revenue generation is to make it a SaaS product like Vimeo which generates revenue from content creators, enterprises, etc. depending on the particular packages and various use cases like content generation for advertising, customer care service, CRM, etc.

“If for example, a ChatGPT or a Bard wants to generate revenue, it will definitely not be a free platform like a Google or a Bing because if they are looking at it as a business, it will be available on a premium-kind of the model which will be more similar to Vimeo than a YouTube,” he elaborated.

Sharing his views on the matter, Bhargava also emphasised that most of the tech giants who will be creating and betting big on Generative AI will use a multi-model platform for creating different things for content, images, etc, and whichever AI becomes the core player or probably the best in the space, relatively smaller companies like ProfitWheel will use that particular platform to create business results for brands.

During the course of the interaction, Vengalil also went on to emphasise that when it comes to Generative AI, the positive side mainly includes bringing more effectiveness and efficiency as a lot of mundane exercises can actually be done faster by the usage of AI apart from generating translations and transcreations.

“Especially when it comes to advertising, what will happen is that something which would generally take approximately 10 hours for a copy person to complete, it’ll become easier because there’s a lot of research which the AI itself does and it is basically the overlay or the human experience which has to be layered upon the result to get a great product at the end,” he opined.

Highlighting the cons of tools such as the ChatGPTs and Bards of the world, he also shared the notion that there are major security hazards or challenges like deep fake, fraud, impersonation, etc. that are currently attached to the tools and platforms which run on machine learning but include the creation of original content such as images, music, and text simultaneously.

“If companies are to get on to Generative AI, then human surveillance or supervision is extremely necessary because if the AI tool or platform is left to run on its own, without any human intervention, then it is going to be Pandora’s box from a marketing, advertising, or even automation point of view,” he said.

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