On Nov. 30, 2022, artificial intelligence company OpenAI released an early version of chatbot ChatGPT to the public. Since then, artificial intelligence (AI) has become an increasingly hot topic. AI brings with it potential for productivity growth, as well as uncertainty and risk for some firms. Finding ways to gauge how firms are reacting to AI can help economists understand its impact on various aspects of the economy, including productivity, firm-level investment and the labor force.
Corporate texts, such as transcripts of earnings calls, provide valuable information about how firms respond to current economic conditions. Economists can analyze earnings calls using a “text as data” approach to obtain real-time insight at the firm level, for example, to measure labor market tightness. In this blog post, we employ similar methods to explore firm-level AI-related chatter, sentiment and perceived risk.
We found a more than fivefold increase in sentences mentioning AI one year after the release of ChatGPT. These sentences were largely positive, with more than 30% being optimistic versus 10% pessimistic; the remaining sentences were neutral. However, firms expressed more uncertainty about AI with the introduction of ChatGPT.