ChatGPT, the AI-powered chatbot created by OpenAI, is the Internet’s latest obsession. The natural language processing tool is making headlines for its ability to help users do almost anything — from writing code to responding to emails and summarizing years of research.
As a modern Investor Relations Officer (IRO), you are no stranger to AI. You rely on sophisticated software that aggregates large swathes of investor data to help you unearth actionable insights from your IR strategy. But could this latest online chatbot represent a tipping point for your IR strategy?
Engagement Analytics
Forerunners in the investor relations industry already rely on machine learning and AI to deliver state-of-the-art IR tools.
Engagement analytics is one such tool championed by the folks at Q4. These experienced IR specialists created Q4 engagement analytics to analyze vast data sets collected from your platform.
Engagement analytics (EA) is a data analysis method that can map leading indicators and identify investors who are driving that behavior. It automates the collation of data harvested from your expansive IR platform, so you have more time to make analysis-led actions.
ChatGPT & Future of Investor Relations
Commercial use of a generative AI platform is nothing new. On the operations side, AI powers tailor-made software like the engagement analytics mentioned above to auto-populate information, aggregate data, and streamline workflow.
For customer-facing tasks, companies have relied on AI to gather information on customer behavior to create targeted communications for years now. It powers the ubiquitous chatbot messenger service found in the lower right-hand corner of most screens, fielding simple FAQs customers may have about products or services.
What makes ChatGTP different? It’s a refined chatbot that relies on Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF). Its purpose is to harvest information from its training data and deliver this information to end users in an engaging, conversational tone.
If taught for a specific investor relations use case and your company data, it could respond to FAQs regarding IR information, draft event scripts, format spreadsheets, answer questions, and personalize communications.
Are Investors Harnessing ChatGPT for Themselves?
IR teams aren’t the only ones sifting through unprecedented amounts of data. On the other side of capital markets, investors are also inundated with digital information. Company IR sites, Google search results, podcasts, newsletters, and social media platforms just skim the surface of these data sources.
At such large volumes, data collection isn’t the problem for investors; analysis is. Some investors hope to cut corners with tech such as generative AI platforms like ChatGPT to summarize research and streamline financial information.
According to the Brunswick Group’s 2023 Digital Investor Survey, however, it’s too early to understand the impact ChatGPT will have on investor search and research behavior.
Must read: Amazon’s GPT-55X
ChatGPT Does Not Recommend AI for Investment Decisions
ChatGPT is a program capable of putting together meaningful sentences that can sound confident even when it shares complete and utter nonsense like it’s fact. It doesn’t help that the free version has limited knowledge of events after 2021.
Keep this in mind, as someone on the other side of the equation. Ultimately, ChatGPT is like any other AI software; it’s only as good as the data used to train it in completing specific tasks. According to the tool itself, it isn’t ready to capture the nuances inherent in the capital markets space to help investors make informed decisions about their equities.
When it comes to your IR strategy, an open-sourced program doesn’t provide the precision you expect from your tools. You need purpose-built software created by experienced specialists.
