GET ChatGPT ON YOUR SIDE

Jobs like social media influencer and cryptocurrency analyst simply didn’t exist 20 years ago. Now, thanks to the introduction of ChatGPT, there’s another new job title waiting in the wings: prompt engineer.

Launched by OpenAI in November 2022, ChatGPT is a powerful conversational artificial intelligence (AI) engine that allows users to input prompts (requests) and get nearly real-time answers that become smarter as the engine learns more. Its launch means that instead of having to get a computer science degree to engage with an AI model, anyone can harness the power of AI — and more than 180 million users have flocked to the tool, with chat.openai.com receiving well over a billion visits a month.

Maybe you’ve embraced ChatGPT readily, becoming an amateur prompt engineer yourself by inputting requests, whether they’re personal (“tell me the most economical cities in Europe that are at least 20 degrees Celsius in April”) or professional (“reword this email so it’s relevant to a client who is 23 years old”). Or perhaps instead of using ChatGPT, you’ve followed from the sidelines, noting concerning criticisms that range from copyright infringement to the potential for job elimination.

Either way, Pandora is out of the box when it comes to conversational AI, and as financial advisors it’s important to assess how this new technology can elevate your practice. Here are two use cases to consider as you evaluate how to — and whether to — incorporate ChatGPT into your practice’s toolkit.

Amp Up Marketing

No, ChatGPT is not going to replace marketers and content creators. However, it can be a powerful tool for idea generation and content generation, whether you’re targeting existing or potential clients. For example, at my company Willful, we asked ChatGPT to generate tagline ideas for a billboard campaign brainstorming session. We were able to get very granular, tasking it to provide suggestions for a billboard next to a daycare versus a billboard next to a funeral home. These were great thought starters for our team.

You can also ask ChatGPT to generate content ideas. For example, you could prompt ChatGPT to share a list of 20 article topics that relate to your core target customer and incorporate key trends, such as inflation or interest rates. ChatGPT can provide bullet points on that topic that a writer can expand on. You could also load in these or your own bullet points and ChatGPT can provide the first draft of an article or video script with a set word count limit.

In addition, ChatGPT is great at repurposing content for other channels. For example, you can copy and paste the text of an article into the tool and ask it to create short social media posts or an email newsletter blurb based on the content.

The results will always be more powerful, and more human, with a writer or editor involved to polish, edit, and fact check. Importantly, a person can incorporate recent information in a way ChatGPT cannot, since its engine only pulls information up to 2021. That said, the tool has the potential to supercharge your marketing with a limited investment of resources.

Simplify Client Communications

ChatGPT can summarize and simplify complex content very quickly. For example, as the CEO of a legal tech company, I can load in a legal document like a will and ask for a summary in plain language. Within seconds, out comes something the average person can truly understand.

This functionality is a gift to advisors who regularly need to explain complex investment vehicles, concepts like inflation, and lengthy contracts and agreements. Keep in mind, too, that the tool can summarize long-form content for you — for example, providing a quick recap of a lengthy report you’ve been putting off reading.

How about adding some personalization to your communications at scale? Simply load in details about different categories of clients, give ChatGPT direction on the topics you want to include, and the tool can create emails that reference the life situation of each group.

The key when sitting in front of ChatGPT’s blank screen is to start with a specific task in mind — otherwise, it can be overwhelming. When writing prompts, remember you might have to try a few different ones before you get an answer you like. And, if you’re confident in your prompt but still don’t like the response, simply ask ChatGPT to regenerate its answer and it will come up with something entirely different.

There are countless other ways to leverage ChatGPT and other AI technologies in your practice — from powering customer service chatbots, to transcribing and summarizing client interviews, to automating administrative tasks like data entry. At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that although firms like JPMorgan Chase are investing in AI-powered investment advisors, human financial advisors like you still play an absolutely essential role.

As ChatGPT itself will tell you, it cannot provide personalized financial advice. So, look at it as a tool to augment your work, not replace you.

ERIN BURY is the CEO at willful.co, an estate planning startup that provides an affordable, convenient, and easy way for Canadians to make a will online. Willful works with financial advisors across Canada to help their clients get a solid estate plan in place.