As Bananarama and Fun Boy Three once say: “It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it.”

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence language model introduced in November 2022 providing generated conversational responses to question prompts. The model is trained with a blend of reinforcement learning algorithms and human input on over 150 billion parameters. One early academic study found the platform capable of passing the notoriously-complex common core of US professional legal accreditation examinations. Another author managed to produce a reasonably-comprehensive guide to quantitative trading, almost exclusively through ChatGPT output. A range of professions even set themselves to existential pondering as to whether they have suddenly been made redundant.

This DCU led project shows, based on ratings by finance journal reviewers of generated output, that the recently released AI chatbot ChatGPT can assist with finance research. In principle, these results should be replicated across different disciplines. There are clear advantages for idea generation and data identification. The technology, however, is weaker on literature synthesis and developing appropriate testing frameworks. Importantly, the project further demonstrates that the extent of private data and researcher domain expertise input, are key factors in determining the quality of output.