As web professionals we are witnessing an explosion of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in our workspace. These take the form of core breakthrough research and writing tools such as ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, Microsoft’s upgraded Bing, and visual tools such as Midjourney.
The scramble of activities that has emerged in the digital workspace has taken three major forms. AI technologies have launched foundational interfaces such as ChatGPT and Midjourney, but their use is largely confined to experienced web users. Then there are companies who have been or are still scrambling to add AI to their existing products.
Google and Microsoft lead the pack, but many established software packages such as Constant Contact (email platform), Adobe Firefly (graphics – out late 2023) and Elegant Themes (enhanced WordPress ecosystem – should be out in June or July 2023), have either launched or will soon launch AI content generators within their existing interfaces or product arrays.
Finally, we have opportunistic new product lines built on the back of AI databases. The latter (e.g. – Jasper) are usually more user-friendly, but often charge significant amounts for services that are free elsewhere.
These toolsets serve users with varying levels of digital sophistication. It seems inevitable that email and other routine web tools will soon be AI-enhanced. In addition, web verbal and visual content are only a tiny fraction of the areas that are being impacted by AI. There is a feverish pace of upgrades, updates, reimagined product lines and service offerings that is keeping the computer programming crowd very busy.
In that case, it’s scrambled eggheads, but all very fascinating to watch.