Generative AI and Business: A Review and Research Agenda

Generative Artificial Intelligence (Generative AI or GenAI) is an emerging and fast-growing technology with important consequences for workers, businesses, and society. GenAI is a subset of Machine Learning, which is a branch of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that not only analyzes data but also produces human-like output in response to users’ prompts. These creative capabilities distinguish it from former iterations of AI, with distinctive and profound implications. Largely unknown before, GenAI became a household term in the fall of 2022 with the wide release and adoption of ChatGPT. Since then, GenAI has incited discussion and debate in many settings, including education, social media, and engineering. However, much uncertainty and confusion surrounds the topic, even with its widespread adoption. To gain a better understanding of the topic requires a brief overview to clarify some of the most pressing issues pertaining to GenAI and business introducing GenAI and what makes it different from traditional AI, highlighting its ability to produce data besides analyzing it. The generated data or the output that GenAI produces can be categorized as language-based, visual, auditory, and multimodal. Each category has applications in several fields that range from incremental to transformative. Use cases in customer service, sales and marketing, finance, healthcare, education, gaming, and operations are also relevant. Although much has been made of the benefits of using GenAI, there are also important challenges, particularly in terms of a program’s design, technological limitations, and ethical and legal considerations.