How to use generative AI to pull ahead of the competition

By Jessica Salerno-Shumaker, OSCPA senior content manager  

Tools like ChatGPT are causing businesses to rethink their strategies, but leveraging it competitively is what will ultimately make an impact.  

“Generative AI has the power to completely transform the way we do business, the way we learn, how we spend our time and so much more,” said OSCPA President & CEO Scott Wiley, CAE, at the Feb. 15 OSCPA Town Hall.  

Jim Blackwell, the managing director of BDO Digital USA, joined Wiley during the event and said it’s not surprising that many organizations are still hesitant about generative AI, an artificial intelligence that can generate text, images and other information, usually from prompts.  

“I think a great deal of that is because they're just not familiar with it enough,” Blackwell said. “They don’t understand yet how this might help and what it can do for them.”  

There are two primary risks organizations need to consider, Blackwell said. The first is to be wary of making decisions based on a bad response. A bad response would generate from incorrect information put into the prompt, or possibly information out on the internet that the model is sourcing. He suggested to always verify the information you put in and the response received before relying on the answer.   

“The other thing to consider as we start to train AI models with our data, is that we have to ask ourselves if our data is unbiased, complete and holistic?” he said.  

He gave the example of asking an AI model about the perfect candidate to hire and using past candidate data as background. But if all the previous candidates have come from the same region or have similar education then the answer from the AI model will be biased, as it’s looking for a candidate to fit that mold.  

Jeff Loucks, who leads Deloitte’s Center for Technology, Media and Telecommunications, also joined Wiley for the program. Loucks said in 25 years of studying technology adoption he hasn’t seen anything like the environment today, when people expect the pace of meaningful change to happen so quickly. 

He said the way companies will differentiate themselves when it comes to generative AI will be through trying new things and using it for more than analyzing large data sets.  

“We think the real winners with generative AI are going to be the ones who are harnessing creativity at scale, using it to make money in new ways, increasing revenue and uncovering new insights,” Loucks said. “We're encouraging companies to think not just in terms of cost reduction but also accelerating innovation.”  

Register for the next Town Hall on March 14. 

And for additional learning on ChatGPT, attend one of our upcoming ChatGPT Bootcamps for CPAs.