– Understanding the capabilities and limitations of the top technologies out there –
OpenAI’s GPT technology
Brian connects his users with selected top technologies available. Basically, generative AI systems allow the users to generate new content. In this section we do very much focus on the text generation. Here you learn more about the technology and how it is used to power Brian – our secure, multifunctional digital assistant for consultants and business professionals.
First, some basic explanations:
– ChatGPT is a chat-based software powered by OpenAI’s GPT technology
– GPT or ‘Generative Pre-Trained Transformer’ is the name of an AI model series powering ChatGPT
– GPT-4 Turbo is (as of January 2024) the latest version of the AI model powering ChatGPT Pro as well as some of Brian’s skills too
– OpenAI is the company (by 49% controlled by Microsoft) developing AI models and solutions such as GPT, Dall-E, Codex and more
The capabilities:
– Contextual understanding of text
– Generation of texts on wide range of topics
– Trained on the knowledge of the internet and millions of books
– Thanks to 175+ billion of parameters, one of the most powerful generative AI models out there
The limitations
Before using the GPT-powered skills of Brian, we want to ensure that you are aware of the current limitations of this technology:
– GPT answers are not necessarily factually correct, so we strongly advise you to double-check them
– GPT answers are not necessarily up to date since the training data ends as of April 2023
– Resolved: Until Mid of April 2023 the GPT reqeuests runned on Microsoft servers in the USA, but from April 14th 2023 on, Brian runs the GPT requests on Microsoft servers in Europe
Brian’s GPT integration
When using GPT capabilities via Brian:
– We don’t share the user’s identity with OpenAI/Microsoft – AskBrian stands in between. We forward the request text only
– We use paid GPT APIs on Microsoft Azure Servers in Europe for better availability, we do not use ChatGPT
– We don’t share any files with OpenAI’s GPT, even if users should provide any
– Microsoft / OpenAI is not a subprocessor of AskBrian as defined by GDPR because the processing of personal data is not intended
– Users who provide consent for the GPT skills also accept the Privacy Policy and Terms of Microsoft
User’s GPT consent
Before using the GPT-powered skills of Brian for the first time, users must provide one-time consent via the regular Brian interaction channels via email, teams or slack:
“I want to experience the GPT skills. I understand that the answers might not be factually correct or actual. I accept the disclaimer at https://www.askbrian.ai/gen-ai”
GPT consent reversal
Users can withdraw their GPT consent by sending a request to support@askbrian.ai. It is sufficient to write something like “I want to withdraw my GPT consent.”
GPT powers ‘Next Level’ skills of Brian and functions after user consent as a fallback source of answers for requests for which Brian was not trained yet.
The GPT-powered skills (as of January 2024) are:
– Draft bullets
– Industry Brief
– Brainstorm
– Formulate
– TLDR
– Definitions
– Ask ‘Anything’ / The Fallback
About the fallback
If a user asks a question and our NLP is less than 70% sure Brian can respond it (that it is a pre-trained skill of Brian) the fallback scenario is triggered. In this scenario the request text (without user identity and without any shared attachments) is forwarded to GPT and answered by it.
Note on handling of emails
First the email body is analysed by our NLP and then the subject line. If in both cases our NLP does not recognize a pre-trained skill, the email body text is used as user query forwarded to GPT. If the subject line includes no text, the email body text (excl. signature etc) is used as user query directly. It is therefore the best to leave the subject line of your emails to Brian blank.
Finally, we would like to elaborate on the differences between ChatGPT and Brian. We would also like to explain what are the differences between using GPT via Brian vs. using ChatGPT directly.
Brian’s capabilities ChatGPT hasn’t
– Brian is a multifunctional digital assistant connected with multiple digital services and data sources being able to provide actual and factual information too
– Brian communicates via Email, Teams and Slack
– Brian can process documents and create new documents combining multiple technologies in one solution
– Brian addresses specific use cases with specific settings and provides more target audience-optimized outputs
– Brian is independent – we are not dependent on Microsoft, Google or any other technology so we can always use the best one
Advantages of using the GPT technology via Brian
1. Privacy: AskBrian stands between the user and Microsoft, the user remains unknown for Microsoft. Also the user queries are not stored and used to retrain the GPT model
2. GDPR compliance: Processing of the GPT-requests happens in Europe – so not even your anonymized requests text leave Europe
3. Specificity: We use fine-tuned GPT model for use cases of knowledge workers and perform part of the prompting for our users (‘Grounding’)
4. Availability: Brian uses the paid Microsoft Azure APIs having less downtimes than the free ChatGPT service
5. Integrations: Brian combines multiple technologies to deliver his answers – e.g. bullets are delivered together with high quality pictures
6. Independence: Should we find a better technology for individual use cases, we will switch. We consider especially the quality of service, data privacy and the price
7. Last, but not least: Brian uses for the most scenarios the advanced GPT-4 Turbo model (compared to ChatGPT running on the less advanced GPT-3.5)