And just like that it’s 2023. It seems that the whole tech world and beyond is buzzing about ChatGPT the AI language model that can generate human-like responses. Not in the least Microsoft who announced a multi-year investment into OpenAI rumoured to be in the billions of dollars. It’s been fun to ask ChatGPT trivial questions like the average flight speed of a laden swallow and deep philosophical questions around the meaning of life. Already it is a helpful addition to my tool box for writing message to clients, removing technical jargon and creating a helpful starting point for a document.

Last week, I attended a webinar provided by our partners, Safe Software, called “Unleashing the Power of OpenAI GPT-3 in FME data integration workflows.” It was inspiring to see early use cases of the OpenAI API, such as enriching datasets. For example, while OpenAI is not a geocoding service, it can manage addresses with missing postcodes, cities, and countries. Or, using FME Server Automations, it can automatically populate customer details in a CRM like Salesforce when a new record is created. While there are some clear limitations, it’s exciting to consider where this technology will be heading next.

However, I’m most interested in how OpenAI could improve how integration platforms are used within organisations. At Seamless, we place a big focus on designing before building and making sure our FME processes are documented so anyone can understand what they do, not just those with FME Desktop and training. This is critical for IT governance, robust change management processes, and avoiding the pitfalls so common to code-based development tools. So, I would love to see OpenAI help us design FME processes by making suggestions about business logic. I would love to see OpenAI generate non-technical, as-built documentation that project managers and sponsors can understand. I’m going to be keeping a close eye on the development of hyperautomation, an emerging approach to helping organisations use AI to identify the business processes that are the highest priority to automate.