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Think OpenAI and enterprise collaboration and you would be excused for thinking Microsoft Teams. However, this week OpenAI released its own collaborative tool called ChatGPT Team.
ChatGPT Team is a bit like Microsoft Teams, but, understandably, is more focused on generative AI. Costing $25 per month per user billed annually, or $30 per month per user when billed monthly, it is designed and priced for “teams of all sizes," according to a statement from OpenAI.
What you get looks a bit like ChatGPT Enterprise, except it comes with “a dedicated collaborative workspace for your team and admin tools for team management.”
The pricing in itself is interesting. When the company released the Enterprise edition in August, it left it to organizations to work out customized offerings and customized pricing with the OpenAI sales team.
Keep in mind too that the consumer-focused ChatGPT Plus released in February last year, now costs $20 per user per month following the upgrade to GPT-4 in March.
The new ChatGPT Team comes with the by now expected assurances that it will not use business data to train the model, and that the GPT-4 model will not use organizations' data or conversations for training or development.
So what do you get? According to the statement, ChatGPT Team includes:
- GPT-4 with a 32K context window
- DALL·E 3, GPT-4 with Vision, as well as advanced data analysis.
- A secure workspace for your team.
- Ability to build and share customized GPTs across the workspace or organization.
- A new console for workspace and team management.
Unlike the Enterprise version, it does not include domain verification, analytics or APIs to build solutions and internally shareable chat templates.
“Integrating AI into everyday organizational workflows can make your team more productive,” stated a company blog post.
It’s not the only thing OpenAI announced over the week. It also launched its GPT Store, which it introduced last November during its developer conference. At the time the delayed release was attributed to ongoing improvements, but the timing roughly coincided with the feeding frenzy over the firing and re-instatement of CEO Sam Altman.
The new store will offer GPTs developed by the company’s partners and community and comes with a list of trending GPTs on the community leaderboard.
Accessible through the ChatGPT chatbot, in Q1 the company will also offer a GPT builder revenue program. According to a blog about the release, U.S. builders will be paid based on user engagement with their GPTs. Details about the criteria for payments will be released closer to the launch of the new service.
EU Regulators Look At Microsoft — Again
While the new year started with a bang for OpenAI, Microsoft's year found it in the crosshairs of regulators.
EU regulators announced they were looking into Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI to see if further action is needed under the EU’s strict merger rules. The news came at the same time Microsoft released yet another integration of its AI Copilot assistant, this time in the form of a new AI Copilot assistant key in its Windows PC and laptop keyboards for easier access.
Microsoft started 2023 by pledging a $13 billion investment in OpenAI and ended the year with a seat on the OpenAI board after an abortive boardroom coup against CEO Sam Altman.
And while the Microsoft – OpenAI deal is specifically mentioned in the notice, it looks like other companies could be targeted too. The statement reads:
“The European Commission has launched today two calls for contributions on competition in virtual worlds and generative artificial intelligence (‘AI') and sent requests for information to several large digital players.”
It adds later: “It is looking into some of the agreements that have been concluded between large digital market players and generative AI developers and providers. The European Commission is investigating the impact of these partnerships on market dynamics.”
For the sake of clarity, it describes virtual worlds as “persistent, immersive environments, based on technologies including 3D and extended reality (XR), which make it possible to blend physical and digital worlds in real-time .…”
This is more than just saber rattling, as the EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager, who is driving many of these initiatives, is in California this week to talk with U.S. tech bosses.
According to reports in Reuters, she will speak with Apple CEO Tim Cook, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and its chief legal officer Kent Walker, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
While the outcome is unclear, what is clear is the EU is determined to uphold competition regulation in Europe and that the U.S. and the EU are prepared to talk about these issues.
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Microsoft Extends Data Sovereignty
Microsoft announced an upgrade to its cloud computing service this week, which will allow customers to store all personal data within the EU rather than sending it to the US for storage, which lacks the equivalent national data governance privacy laws.
The EU Data Boundary for Cloud builds on capabilities first launched in January 2023, which allowed customers to process some data within the region. With the latest announcement, customers can now store and process all of their customer data within the EU Data Boundary, including data found in system-generated logs.
This effectively pushes its existing commitments, which have already resulted in a reduction in the amount of data leaving Europe.
Furthermore, as the initiative rolls out, Microsoft will expand the EU Data Boundary solution to include the storage and processing of additional categories of personal data, including data provided when receiving technical support.
Workplace Digital Experience Is Getting Worse
Digital workplace technologies, tools and platforms do not appear to be improving things for those trying to meeting business goals.
According to a survey of 2,000 UK knowledge workers, the entire digital experience is getting worse, not better.
The 2024 Scalable Software Digital Employee Experience Report (free after registration) suggests that knowledge workers work an extra 3.1 weeks per year to overcome the digital limitations of their workplaces.
The report offers a number of striking figures. Almost a fifth (18%) of knowledge workers rated the digital experience provided by their employer as poor, up from 15% in 2021.
One of the biggest culprits behind the issue was digital friction, caused by platform and application crashes as well as notification overload. The combination created the highest level of stress among workers.
Little wonder then that 56% of respondents said poor digital experience left them feeling frustrated, while nearly a third (29%) said it made them consider quitting.
Ultimately, knowledge workers waste a total of 5.55 hours per week due to a lack of the right technology, or technology that does not work.
Time wasted is clearly going to have an impact on productivity, but the report also argues that this feeds into the ongoing debate about working from home and return to the office. One of its conclusions suggests that issues with remote working have less to do with lost productivity than poor digital experiences.
Clearly, any fall-off in productivity is not just confined to technology, or worker frustration with technology, but even if only some of the findings of this report are true, organizations should take a long hard look at their tech stacks and how they're used.
Google Curtails Assistant Features
Finally, Google is removing a number of small features in its Google Assistant due to "underutilization."
Seventeen features in total will be removed as of Jan. 26. The goal is to improve the Assistant experience and “to focus on quality and reliability, ultimately making it easier to use Assistant across devices,” according to the company. Some of the features being removed which may affect people in the workplace include:
- Using voice to send an email, video or audio message (Users will still be able to send text messages and calls).
- Rescheduling an event in Google Calendar using voice (Users can still schedule a new event).
- Using App Launcher in Google Assistant driving mode on Google Maps to read and send messages, make calls and control media.
- Viewing the ambient “Commute to Work” time estimates on Smart Displays.
- Checking travel itineraries by voice.
- Asking for information about contacts (Users can still make calls to contacts).
- Asking to take certain actions by voice, such as send a payment, make a reservation or post to social media.
Today’s announcement comes three month after Google introduced Assistant with Bard, its new generative AI-driven assistant.
Google also announced this week it is cutting over 1000 jobs, some from the division that develops Google Assistant.
According to reports in the New York Times, the company is seeking to lower expenses as it continues its focuses on AI.
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