What's Next For Accounting? - Issue #86
Jason Staats
June 08, 2023
💡A Custom Chatbot That Won’t Hallucinate
I’m at AICPA Engage this week hanging with friends, shooting pods from a bathtub, and talking hair products on the main stage with the editor in chief of Wired magazine.
But I also made a companion chatbot for a talk with Chad Davis. Craig was a bot that referenced source materials we put together for the talk, and importantly was only capable of talking about the source material we provided it with.
What ChatGPT knows is impressive, but the best chatbot uses cases are those that limit a language model to specific context. The legislation PDF chat example we went through last week is one such example. Today GPT-4 is good enough to reliably stick to specific context, and tell you I don’t know when the conversation goes beyond that context.
We’ve talked about a few chatbot services in the past. My current favorite is ChatThing because for $50/mo it will use GPT-4 (most use 3.5), and let you build up to 6 bots with 3 data sources each.
They’re extremely quick to build. Simply connect them to Notion pages, Google Docs, spreadsheets, YouTube videos, webpages, even upload files and the bot will only chat about the provided context. Use the bot on a public page, embed it elsewhere, or connect it to Slack or MS Teams.
A use-case I’m particularly hot on is a bot for internal company documentation. Company policies, employee manuals, past internal meeting transcripts, all the disparate places that information lives. Connect them to a chatbot, and from a single place your team can ask any internal policy questions and be taken directly to the source, rather than searching across a mountain of company documentation.
Even add additional context to the bot to make it smarter. In our talk we buried easter eggs alongside the learning content.
💎This Week's Sponsor
Have a product or job opening to advertise? Reply to this email for more info.
📅 This Week
I wrote an article about why our accounting ledgers are about to do away with bank rules - I’ve got a deep dive on how this will change accounting practices in tomorrow’s daily podcast
This week’s main channel video was an homage to Community’s darkest timeline episode
Canadian treasure Chad Davis launched a weekly newsletter breaking down common firm tech headaches
Today I also talked trial day best-practices with Chad to ensure you aren’t making the wrong hires
😍From The Community
My private peer networking community Realize for firm leaders, now capped at 500 members.
06/20 💻 Demo Day - Copilot with Jason Staats
06/20 🐠 EOS-Ish - Where To Go From Here with Rachel Fisch
06/21 🏫 Hall Pass - Sales System with Brandon Hall
06/21 🎤 Who Runs The World - “Feelin’ good as hell” with Twyla Verhelst
06/26 🕸️ Into The Chadiverse with Chad Davis
07/11 Swiping Right - Engagement Renewal with Kellie Parks
▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▯▯▯▯▯▯▯▯ 313/500 members