Are You Searching For AI Guardrails In The Workplace?
Unlock GenAI’s potential and ground it with the intelligent search for reliable, efficient workplace solutions.
Discover the transformative synergy of Generative AI and intelligent search in the workplace, as explained by Jeff Evernham, vice president of product strategy at Sinequa. Learn how grounding GenAI in accurate, up-to-date information ensures reliable results and empowers efficient decision-making.
Generative AI (GenAI) is transforming how businesses operate. From writing marketing content and helping developers code to delivering customer service, the range of possibilities for businesses is extraordinary. Its popularity has caused organizations and industries to rethink their business processes and the value of human resources, pushing generative AI to what Gartner calls the Peak of Inflated Expectations on the Hype Cycle. Amid all the attention, there are now two questions businesses are asking about leveraging GenAI: how can we teach it about our internal content, and can we be sure it’s safe?
What’s the Hesitation?
Generative AI and LLMs(large language models) like ChatGPT are designed to process and produce text that resembles that of humans. These models understand language and can answer questions in a natural, conversational manner. However, they’re limited by what they’ve been trained on — or, more accurately, what they haven’t been trained on, and that’s the information in your company. LLMs are trained to generate text based on language patterns, and they are proficient, for example, in writing perfect prose and confident, convincing arguments. However, the writing is based on probabilities of words in the language, not on understanding how the world works, so these models can’t be relied on to convey accurate information. This is a crucial linchpin for most business applications.
When applied to business cases with complex and knowledge-intense environments, GenAI and LLMs suffer from four common problems:
- “hallucinations” (confidently presenting fabricated misinformation)
- opaqueness (no ability to give or cite sources)
- obsolescence (no knowledge of events since the model was initially trained)
- ignorance (no knowledge of internal corporate information)
Combined, these vulnerabilities create a perfect storm for falsehood, risk, and even irreparable reputation damage. For instance, the cringe-inducing case of the lawyer who relied on ChatGPT to craft a motion full of made-up case law and was unaware that the chatbot could lead him astray.
See More: How AI in the Workplace Could Shorten Your Workweek
AI Guardrails
As a result of these concerns, the public, experts, industry, and governments are calling for measures and regulations to limit these risks. Progress will undoubtedly be made, but improving the generative AI models themselves won’t eliminate these challenges. Further, the impact on business use is much more significant than private, individual use. A recent Harvard Business Review article described it best:
A business using generative AI technology in an enterprise setting differs from consumers using it for private, individual use. Businesses need to adhere to regulations relevant to their respective industries (E.g., healthcare), and there’s a minefield of legal, financial, and ethical implications if the content generated is inaccurate, inaccessible, or offensive. For example, the risk of harm when a generative AI chatbot gives incorrect steps for cooking a recipe is much lower than when giving a field service worker instructions for repairing a piece of heavy machinery. If not designed and deployed with clear ethical guidelines, generative AI can have unintended consequences and potentially cause real harm.”
Adding Search to Generative AI Eliminates These Risks
For enterprises, a different approach is needed, and in the past few months, a straightforward process has emerged as the answer. Use the power of search to find information that grounds the generative AI in the truth. In other words, let GenAI be the knowledge interface and use search as the knowledge source.
This is done with prompt engineering by including the information from the search in the prompt and asking the GenAI to respond based only on that information. With intelligent search providing the information, the response is constructed from accurate, up-to-date, and traceable information – without hallucinations.
This approach capitalizes on the strengths of each tool: the knowledge comes from the most relevant information found by the search, and the phrasing comes from the GenAI. The result is an intelligent assistant who can answer any question about any information in your enterprise! And it can do it safely – combining GenAI with search provides all the guardrails needed to ensure it’s accurate and unbiased. It also safeguards against security concerns by only working with information the employee can access.
The Future Is Bright
AI has enormous potential to revolutionize the workplace, making it easier for businesses to manage their knowledge, save time, and improve efficiency. However, the future of using these tools relies on implementing the proper safeguards.
If we can’t trust the models to provide accurate results, the tools will never be broadly usable in the enterprise. Search provides precisely what’s missing – grounding the GenAI with search results provides all the guardrails needed to leverage GenAI in the workplace. Combining generative AI with a proven and intelligent search platform ensures results are driven by the latest, most accurate, and most specialized information inside and outside your organization. From there, your team will be able to work efficiently with confidence that their efforts are supported with accurate and reliable information.
Today, almost everything we do in the digital world starts with a search — asking questions and looking for answers. Search is at the core of everything we do. Still, the search included as part of most applications has lagged far behind the quality and efficacy we expect in our daily interactions with the likes of Google, Amazon, and Netflix. Generative AI changes that. Now that computers can speak our language, powering GenAI with search will transform everything about how work gets done, accelerating the next breakthrough, innovative product, and market to expand into. The future is bright with AI-enabled search.
How can GenAI and intelligent search revolutionize your workplace? Why is grounding AI in reliable information crucial for business success? Let us know on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you!
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