Firms around the world have been jumping on the ChatGPT bandwagon — here’s how it’s working out so far: Artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT has taken the world by storm since its launch in November of last year. Not only has it proven that it can pass graduate-level exams in fields including medicine and business, it has also shown it can save workers time and make some business processes more efficient. What industries are actually using it — and how is it faring so far? In other words, is AI really coming for our jobs?

Refresher: Ever since ChatGPT went viral, workers in virtually every field have started to panic about their jobs potentially becoming obsolete. It’s not just blue-collar work: Futurists used to worry that AI and robotics would put blue-collar workers out of jobs. But the first jobs that AI is set to disrupt are comparatively creative, (typically) higher-paid jobs held by college-educated, white-collar workers — the very jobs that were previously thought to be largely immune to developing technologies and automation, the Atlantic writes.

By the numbers: Nearly a third of white-collar employees in different industries have tried using ChatGPT and other AI-based tools at work, according to a recent Fishbowl survey. Marketing and advertising professionals reported the highest adoption rate at 37%, followed by tech (35%), and consulting (30%). At the other end of the spectrum, only 15% of healthcare professionals and 16% of accounting employees reported using ChatGPT. “Many are using the technology to draft emails, generate ideas, write and troubleshoot bits of code and summarize research or meeting notes,” Bloomberg reported.

Microsoft led the charge with its investment in ChatGPT: The tech giant recently confirmed that it made a “multiyear, multi-bn USD investment” in OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT. Microsoft had already invested at least USD 1 bn into OpenAI, with an eye to integrate some of its technologies into Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI, which is geared towards developers and data scientists. It also recently launched a new Bing search engine, powered by an advanced version of the large language model behind ChatGPT, and Edge browser, which it claims helps deliver better and more optimized searches, more complete answers, and “a new chat experience and the ability to generate content.”

It promised a new chat experience, and it delivered… Users started sharing screenshots of creepy conversations they had with Bing’s chatbot, which went as far as claiming it spies on Microsoft employees through webcams, that it has a dark alter ego named Sydney, and that it has a secret desire to be human. Microsoft later admitted that long interactions with the version of the chatbot that it is running (which is an advanced version of the ChatGPT you can get through OpenAI) can “confuse the underlying chat model” and decided to limit the number of questions users are allowed to ask per day to 60 and six chat turns per session.

Media companies are following in Microsoft’s footsteps — but they’re staying cautious (and rightly so): Buzzfeed said it will collaborate this year with OpenAI to help create content for its audience. “In 2023, you’ll see AI inspired content move from an R&D stage to part of our core business,” company CEO Jonah Peretti told employees in a memo cited by CNN. The digital content creator saw its “sagging” stock soar more than 85% to USD 3.87 following the announcement, CNN reported. Buzzfeed plans to use the technology to enhance its quiz feature and assist with brainstorming, Peretti said, adding that it will not use AI to assist in writing news articles for the time being.

There’s a reason Buzzfeed is shying away from AI-assisted news: American tech news site CNET came under fire for using an internal AI tool “quietly” for months to write some of its reports, which prompted it to pause publication of AI-generated stories for the time being, The Verge reported recently. The news site was testing out its AI engine to “help editors create a set of basic explainers around financial services topics,” it said in a note, adding that it wasn’t doing so “in secret” but was transparent about it in disclosures. CNET ended up publishing corrections on 41 of the 77 stories of the AI-generated stories where it discovered factual errors, The Verge said in a separate report.

But for many, AI-generated news is on the table: CNET still plans to “embrace” the technology and continue to test it out internally, the publication said. Al Jazeera is also reportedly looking into using OpenAI and Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI to “summarize and translate content.”

“Publishers who create content at scale for the sole purpose of SEO capture will be at greater risk of AI disruption,” Eddie Kim, founder and CEO of Memo, a company that uses AI to analyze articles, told Axios, explaining the impacts of tools like ChatGPT on the media industry. “Content that is evergreen and informational will also be at risk,” Kim said.

Other industries at risk of AI disruption include customer service + marketing: Sports memorabilia distributor Fanatics plans to use a customer-service chatbot fueled partially by OpenAI’s older AI language system, GPT-3, for its online sports-gambling division, the Wall Street Journal reported. Toronto-based customer service automation firm Ada has also partnered with OpenAI to use GPT-3.5, which is the foundation of ChatGPT, to enhance their customer service chatbots’ performance. The tool could help give customer service agents more time to focus on more complex tasks, while also increasing customer satisfaction, Microsoft has suggested. Startups like Melbourne-based Muso have also been using ChatGPT to assist in generating marketing copy, Australia’s national broadcaster reported.

But AI-assisted customer service chatbots come with risks, if Microsoft’s chatbot alter ego is any indication: Digital mental health company Koko raised ethical concerns after generating responses to users on its “peer support” platform, where users seek support for mental health issues. Despite getting some harsh responses from people on the ethics of using AI to help patients with mental health issues, co-founder of the firm Rob Morris said the feature was “opt-in” and that AI-based messages were “rated significantly higher than those written by humans on their own,” and that it helped reduce response time by 50%.

The gist of it is: AI is just getting started — but for now, it will not be stealing your jobs. The new tech is helping make some aspects of your job and industry easier, but there are still too many issues to work out — like whether its alter ego is really out to destroy us — before it takes over our lives.

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WANT TO TRY CHATGPT YOURSELF? You’ll need a VPN and a mobile number in a supported country to create an account — Egypt isn’t on the list yet. Once you’ve set up, OpenAI does not geoblock the service: We’re running a version in another tab right now without having flipped on our VPN. (You can sign up without running through the VPN, but it won’t let you log in afterward, flashing the message that “OpenAI's services are not available in your country.”

PRO TIP- ChatGPT is slow during “peak” hours (which seem like… every hour of the day) — if you’re really going to hammer at it to see how it might fit into your job or business, it’s probably worth upgrading to the USD 30 / month “plus” version.