Thanks to OpenAI, many others tech companies are trying to race on the same track, using similar vehicles, but for different purposes.
When the company introduced ChatGPT, the technology took the world by storm. Soon, as many realized the potential and the ability of the AI, ChatGPT has since touted as the "Google killer."
It even sent a "code red" to Google.
And in yet another blow to Google, after Bing's and Edge's ChatGPT integration, Microsoft announced its plans to also integrate the OpenAI's technology throughout its product lineup.
This, includes creating an integration of Microsoft Viva Sales with ChatGPT.
The result is an AI-powered proprietary software that can generate client-facing sales emails and replies.
The Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT 3.5 can "cull data from customer records and Office email," to then generate a copy of human-like emails.
Users of Viva Sales users can rely on the ChatGPT integration to create things, like producing the first draft emails, to include "personalized text, pricing details and promotions."
The integration works by combining the data Viva Sales gather from Microsoft 365 Graph and connected CRM, like Dynamics 365 or Salesforce, to build suggested replies using GPT-3.5.
Suggested replies start from a prompt, either by Viva Sales or entered by the seller.
According to a research commissioned by Microsoft, managing email consumes more than 66% of a seller’s day.
In an example, a salesperson would load the CRM system, review product information and notes, and spend 15 minutes writing a personalized response.
But by using the conversational but controversial AI, users of Viva Sales with the ChatGPT integration would receive a notification at the top of the email application offering to help craft a response. There are even pre-set options to reply.
This way, the integration is freeing users from doing most of the manual data entry.
The company is so confident about his integration, that CEO Satya Nadella also made a tweet about it:
Viva Sales is the super app for all things sales across Microsoft 365, Teams, and a seller’s CRM. We’re adding new generative AI features to help sellers close deals more quickly. https://t.co/vfJZR1Su7Z
— Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) February 2, 2023
The goal, is to allow users close deals, and help them stay on top of customer emails, by spending only a fraction of the time doing it.
That, is according to Lori Lamkin, corporate vice president, Dynamics 365 sales and marketing at Microsoft, in a blog post.
"We are committed to creating responsible AI by design,” Lamkin wrote. “Our work is guided by a core set of principles: fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability," Lamkin said.
Those principles are put into practice across Microsoft to develop and deploy AI, in order to provide a positive impact on society, she said.
The goal is to advance the company’s framework for the safe deployment of AI technologies for more responsible outcomes.
The news came after OpenAI, the California-based startup co-founded by Elon Musk and funded by Microsoft, announced that it was inviting waitlisted users to subscribe to a professional version ChatGPT.
OpenAI’s AI chatbot has grabbed headlines since its launch at the end of November because its “imitation of human conversation sparked speculation about its potential to supplant professional writers and even threaten the core search business at Alphabet Inc.’s Google,” according to Bloomberg.