When PwC's Bret Greenstein is on a work call with someone in, say, Oklahoma, he might tap a custom GPT he built to grab local weather or sports scores to help liven up small talk. He sometimes bats around ideas with a specialized "research assistant" bot, to which he regularly feeds data. And as he spoke with Tech Brew, Microsoft Copilot dutifully took notes for the consultancy's PR rep. "These are little day-to-day things, but they make you so fast in what you're doing," said Greenstein, a generative AI leader at the firm. "I can take a snapshot of my calendar and just ask me for all conflicts. And it tells me what the meetings were about." Few companies outside of Silicon Valley have seemed to embrace the latest generation of AI with quite as much zeal as PwC and other consultancies. Last April, the company pledged to spend $1 billion to grow its generative AI offerings over three years. As of this week, it has widened its deal with OpenAI to make PwC's US and UK firms the first reseller of ChatGPT Enterprise and the largest user of the product by number of licenses, according to an announcement. Bot flippers: The partnership will let PwC offer ChatGPT Enterprise along with tailored solutions for industries and tasks ranging from software development to handling purchase orders or summarizing leases, according to Greenstein. Data can then be plugged in to customize them further, he said. "Our enterprise clients are very focused on outcomes," Greenstein said. "They want to know, 'If I do this, how much better will this process be? How much faster will it be? How much more efficient will it be?' And so the easier we can make that for them, the better." So where are these "outcomes" happening most? Keep reading here.—PK |