There’s a new name for ChatGPT being used by entrepreneurs: Chad. No longer happy with four syllables being wasted on a term now used so frequently, it’s been shortened to this boy’s name. The implications are wider than they seem at first glance.
To understand why ChatGPT is being shortened is to understand how OpenAI’s large language model is being used by businesses. The user-friendly chat interface of GPT-3 and now -3.5 and -4 is no longer a black box of technology. It has an amicable manner, it’s endlessly helpful. It’s been deemed worthy of personification.
What does Chad actually refer to?
Within entrepreneurs and creators, Chad doesn’t just mean ChatGPT. Chad means Bing Chat. Chad means Bard. ChatGPT, which gained a million customers in its first 5 days and 100 million as of April 2023, is becoming synonymous with artificial intelligence in general. When business owners say they use AI, they’re not opening up their terminal and coding in Python, they probably mean they are interacting with Chad.
A hoover is a vacuum cleaner. Once a brand name, it’s now a verb. Even if your hoover is a Dyson, it’s still a hoover. In ChatGPT’s case, this is the power of first-mover advantage. Open AI’s creation now owns a concept in the minds of its users. It represents the entirety of artificial intelligence to many entrepreneurs.
The role of ChatGPT for business
Giving ChatGPT a name like Chad explains its growing importance for entrepreneurs and their teams. Chad is now an assistant with unlimited patience and capacity, that everyone can access at once. Chad is a diligent member of the team, a co-creator, and an ever-present colleague to bounce ideas around with. It’s like having a VA at your beck and call to Google things for you, or a friendly intern who just wants to improve. It’s what Ask Jeeves could have been, had it only stayed in the game.
Once you see Chad as nothing more than something designed to help you become better at your job, or more efficient at running your business, you don’t worry about it replacing you. It’s unlikely you’ve ever fretted that your assistant will take your place. You don’t shield your VA from information for fear you’ll be made redundant. You don’t consider them as cover for your parental leave or annual break because their role simply doesn’t exist without you. Think of Chad in the same vein.
The only way your assistant would replace you was if you weren’t very good at your job, and then you’d deserve it. The team members who use ChatGPT to spend half the time doing the same work, without productivity repurposing the time they save, won’t win in the long term. Why would they? They now have no advantage over anyone else.
How to use Chad to your advantage
In 2020 more entrepreneurs started working from home and having back-to-back Zoom calls. Everything that was once strange soon becomes normal, and this is just the next thing.
The playing field has changed, and you get to decide what to do with it. The wrong way to act is to be threatened by ChatGPT and the various AI programs now available. To cut corners for your clients and bank the bigger margins. To fire all your team on a whim, without seeing what they can do with supersized tools.
The right way to act is to be curious. Explore, learn, go down rabbit holes. Keep AI tools in mind for every process you do now. What can you now delegate, automate and eliminate in a better way?
Use AI to achieve the same outcomes but with less work. Use AI to do the same work to a bigger scale. Use AI to do more, and see what’s possible for impact and revenue. See the hundreds of tools appearing on a daily basis as an exciting wave of possibility, not a daunting threat of obsolescence.
How Chad is changing the game for entrepreneurs
Before, if every one of your team members wanted an assistant, you’d probably say no. Now, they each have several. The gauntlet has been thrown down and it’s up to them to act. See this as each of your team members needing to effectively re-apply for their role. Take forward the ones who jump at the opportunity and look for ways to be resourceful.
Before, most things that you wanted would take longer and cost more. Now, output is instant if you know what you’re doing. How can your business outproduce everyone around, and achieve its goals faster? If every writer has a buddy with whom to bounce ideas, every artist can conceptualize something and create it in minutes, and every singer can produce song after song, there should be a new wave of prolific producers in every field.
Chad is everyone’s assistant, to be harnessed as required. Chad is ready to work and hungry for instructions. Chad has officially joined your team and is not going away.
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