Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that uses models and algorithms to produce content. Instead of traditional AI systems that might simply analyze or process data, generative AI can produce new content, including text, images, music, video, software code, or even complex data patterns.
Generative AI builds on technologies like large language models (LLMs) which are trained on large amounts of text and learn to predict the next word in a sentence. These models learn the patterns and structure of the data they're trained on and then generate new data that has similar characteristics when given a text-based prompt.
The recent development of several major generative AI systems is due to advances in transformer-based models in the 2020s. Transformer-based models work by creating outputs based on sequential data like sentences or paragraphs instead of individual data points. The most notable system to come from these advances is OpenAI's ChatGPT, an AI chatbot that can carry out human-like conversations while also producing essays, poetry, and computer programs.
In 2023, companies like Google, Baidu, and Meta launched their own generative AI platforms. There are also other generative AI systems that produce images instead of text like Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and DALL-E.
Generative AI is already being used by businesses in many industries. A Salesforce survey found two-thirds of IT leaders are prioritizing generative AI for their business within the next 18 months, with one-third claiming it as a top priority. Companies can start using generative AI in their workflows by thinking of these programs as co-pilots on various projects.
These systems can:
Be used as a creative assistant to write ad copy or meta descriptions for marketing teams.
Take the form of a chatbot for your customer support agents to help them answer customer questions more quickly.
Help your content creators write product descriptions and CTAs.
Act as an internal chatbot to answer employee questions or automatically create a list of FAQs. While the technology is incredibly promising, generative AI also introduces a number of ethical concerns. Issues around content authenticity, misinformation, and intellectual property all need to be considered as these platforms become more widely used. Read more about how Yext Chat uses generative AI to answer questions about your business in a conversational format using information from Yext Content. Using Yext Content as the data source ensures that your business has complete control over the content used to generate responses and more.
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