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AI chatbots are already being used to send custom email pitches. It shows how AI like ChatGPT may soon play a significant role in business, with companies like Salesforce and Microsoft beginning to offer tighter integration between the chatbot and their software.

A recent viral Tiktok showed how it’s possible to use ChatGPT integrated with Google Sheets to write ten custom LinkedIn messages to executives asking for a meeting. It identified different potential companies in an industry and their CEOs, and generated different outreach notes for each one, including a unique question to ask.

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“I think we’re at a very interesting inflection point of how we’ll begin to use AI in the future in our day-to-day lives that wasn’t as easily accessible even six months ago, before ChatGPT was more readily available to the public,” said Alex Klufas, a creator who makes videos focused on working in the tech industry.

The video — and previous viral posts displaying similar techniques — clearly struck a nerve, with 2.5 million views, and scores of comments asking how it worked.

Generative AI and tools using large language model (LLM) techniques like ChatGPT have led to a boom as big tech companies and startups alike race to integrate software capable of producing content that resembles something a human would write.

Few LLM-based products are actually making money. Microsoft and Google are working to integrate next-level chatbots into search engines. Companies are working on using these bots to write marketing copy or computer code.

There’s one particularly promising application that could be commercialized in the near future: Using the power of a chatbot to quickly write and automate emails with a little bit of personalization, perhaps for sales, marketing, or personal networking. Microsoft and Salesforce announced new products this week with that exact feature.

Financial analysts at Credit Suisse pointed to email generation several times in a note earlier this month as a concrete and near-term use for the technology. The analysts estimated Microsoft’s recently announced generated AI sales features could help it take market share and potentially add over $768 million in annual revenue.

Products coming to market

On Tuesday, Salesforce announced its LLM product called EinsteinGPT, which uses an OpenAI ChatGPT model. It can automatically write marketing emails — a logical integration because Salesforce’s main product is a web app that keeps track of how often salespeople contact leads.

In a tweet on Tuesday, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff demoed the software, using it to identify two contacts at a company, then automatically generating a one-sentence email trying to arrange a meeting. In the demo, EinsteinGPT softened the cold outreach email after the user told the software to be less formal.

Salesforce hasn’t set a price for the tools yet but said it’s in testing now with pilot customers.

Microsoft announced on Monday that it would integrate generative AI based on ChatGPT into a set of tools for business called CoPilot. One of its primary features is using AI to generate emails.

In a demo video, Microsoft showed the feature integrated into an Outlook mailbox and provided examples of using it to reply to a request for proposal, or to suggest a meeting time with a customer.

In the example, an inbound email wanted to follow up on a potential sales deal, and Microsoft’s feature offered four different draft replies, including one that offered a discount and another that addressed a concern.

Microsoft says that its AI email writer can take important context from the email thread, like the price that was previously discussed, and stick it in the response drafted by AI. In the example provided by Microsoft, the user takes the AI draft and edits it before sending it.

Microsoft’s feature is currently in beta testing, but will be released to customers of Microsoft’s Viva Sales feature on March 15, the company said on Monday.

Some startups have even trained their sights on developing customized AIs that can respond to messages the same way that their owner would, by analyzing a user’s previous email and text interactions and integrating it into a personalized AI model.

“The benefit is people who would want to communicate with you where you don’t have time to get back to them, where you don’t have time to offer your mind,” said Suman Kanuganti, founder of personal.ai, a chatbot currently in beta mode. “In those scenarios, you can choose to either have your AI help you in co-pilot mode or offer [automatic] responses to them in autopilot mode.”

Shortcomings

Some worry that the ability to generate email text could be abused to spam people and that chatbots could be used to phish for people’s private passwords.

“We could see mass targeted messages and spam indistinguishable from dedicated email,” JPMorgan analysts wrote in a note this month that examined the AI industry.

ChatGPT is also prone to “hallucinating,” or making stuff up. It merely predicts what the next word or part of a phrase should be based on statistics, and doesn’t know whether it’s correct or not.

Microsoft said in its announcement that it would use data from its software to ground the replies in facts, and has a thumbs-down button so users can tell the bot that a response was unhelpful. That helps train the model to avoid the same mistake in the future. A Salesforce executive previously told CNBC that it was moving as quickly as it could without compromising a responsible, ethical approach.

But the limits of ChatGPT were clearly visible in the viral TikTok video. While some recommendations were correct, several of the CEOs ChatGPT recommended for outreach were either former CEOs or are not currently an executive at the company. While the text for the cold outreach looked appropriate, it would still likely require a human to make sure everything was actually right.

“I think anyone using this technology, as nascent as it is, has to do that due diligence,” Kluflas said. She didn’t end up sending the notes generated by ChatGPT because she’s not currently looking for a job.

But she’s still excited about using ChatGPT to help her make TikToks and other content for social media. Her latest application is to use ChatGPT to produce TikTok captions packed with the keywords that make her videos easier to find online.

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Stocks end November with mixed results despite a strong Thanksgiving week rally

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Palantir has worst month in two years as AI stocks sell off

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Palantir has worst month in two years as AI stocks sell off

CEO of Palantir Technologies Alex Karp attends the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., July 15, 2025.

Nathan Howard | Reuters

It’s been a tough November for Palantir.

Shares of the software analytics provider dropped 16% for their worst month since August 2023 as investors dumped AI stocks due to valuation fears. Meanwhile, famed investor Michael Burry doubled down on the artificial intelligence trade and bet against the company.

Palantir started November off on a high note.

The Denver-based company topped Wall Street’s third-quarter earnings and revenue expectations. Palantir also posted its second-straight $1 billion revenue quarter, but high valuation concerns contributed to a post-print selloff.

In a note to clients, Jefferies analysts called Palantir’s valuation “extreme” and argued investors would find better risk-reward in AI names such as Microsoft and Snowflake. Analysts at RBC Capital Markets raised concerns about the company’s “increasingly concentrated growth profile,” while Deutsche Bank called the valuation “very difficult to wrap our heads around.”

Adding fuel to the post-earnings selloff was the revelation that Burry is betting against Palantir and AI chipmaker Nvidia. Burry, who is widely known for predicting the housing crisis that occurred in 2008 and the portrayal of him in the film “The Big Short,” later accused hyperscalers of artificially boosting earnings.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp vocally hit the front lines, appearing twice in one week on CNBC, where he accused Burry of “market manipulation” and called the investor’s actions “egregious.”

“The idea that chips and ontology is what you want to short is bats— crazy,” Karp told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Despite the vicious selloff, Palantir has notched some deal wins this month. That included a multiyear contract with consulting firm PwC to speed up AI adoption in the U.K. and a deal with aircraft engine maintenance company FTAI.

But those announcements did little to shake off valuation worries that have haunted all AI-tied companies in November.

Across the board, investors have viciously ditched the high-priced group, citing fears of stretched valuations and a bubble.

In November, Nvidia pulled back more than 12%, while Microsoft and Amazon dropped about 5% each. Quantum computing names such as Rigetti Computing and D-Wave Quantum have shed more than a third of their value.

Apple and Alphabet were the only Magnificent 7 stocks to end the month with gains.

Sill, questions linger over Palantir’s valuation, and those worries aren’t a new concern.

Even after its steep price drop, the company’s stock trades at 233 times forward earnings. By comparison, Nvidia and Alphabet traded at about 38 times and 30 times, respectively, at Friday’s close.

Karp, who has long defended the company, didn’t miss an opportunity to clap back at his critics, arguing in a letter to shareholders that the company is making it feasible for everyday investors to attain rates of return once “limited to the most successful venture capitalists in Palo Alto.”

“Please turn on the conventional television and see how unhappy those that didn’t invest in us are,” Karp said during an earnings call. “Enjoy, get some popcorn. They’re crying. We are every day making this company better, and we’re doing it for this nation, for allied countries.”

Palantir declined to comment for this story.

WATCH: Palantir CEO Alex Karp: We’ve printed venture results for the average American

Palantir CEO Alex Karp: We've printed venture results for the average American

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CME disruption, Black Friday, the K-beauty boom and more in Morning Squawk

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CME disruption, Black Friday, the K-beauty boom and more in Morning Squawk

CME Group sign at NYMEX in New York.

Adam Jeffery | CNBC

This is CNBC’s Morning Squawk newsletter. Subscribe here to receive future editions in your inbox.

Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:

1. Down and out

Stock futures trading was halted this morning after a data center “cooling issue” took down several Chicago Mercantile Exchange services. Individual stocks were still trading before the bell, while the CME said futures indexes and options trading would open fully at 8:30 a.m. Follow live markets updates here.

The stock market has rebounded during the holiday-shortened trading week. But the three major indexes are still on pace to end November’s trading month — which ends with today’s closing bell — in the red. The Dow and S&P 500 are poised to snap six-month winning streaks, while the Nasdaq Composite is on track to see its first negative month in eight.

Today’s trading session ends early at 1 p.m. ET.

2. Shopping and dropping

A Black Friday sale sign is displayed in a shop window at an outlet mall in Carlsbad, California, U.S., Nov. 25, 2025.

Mike Blake | Reuters

Black Friday was once considered the biggest in-person shopping day of the year, drawing huge crowds to stores in search of bargains. But while millions are still expected to partake in the occasion, it’s not what it used to be.

Here’s what to know:

  • In the past six years, online sales have outpaced brick-and-mortar spending on Black Friday. Data shows in-person foot traffic has been mostly flat over the last few years, as well.
  • No matter where they make their purchases, shoppers are also skeptical that they’re getting the best deals.
  • As CNBC’s Gabrielle Fonrouge reports, the shift has meant a change in strategy for many of the retail industry’s biggest names. Some have started offering their holiday sales earlier in the season, while others are spacing out their promotions.
  • Deloitte reported that the average consumer will shell out $622 between Nov. 27 and Dec. 1, a decrease of 4% from last year.
  • Even as the day of deals loses its allure, AT&T found that Gen Z participates the most, while their older counterparts do their shopping closer to Christmas.

3. AI comeback

Cfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images

Alphabet has been a notable exception to the recent tech downturn. Shares of the Google parent have surged more than 13% this month as Wall Street sees the company as an AI leader.

Alphabet began the month by announcing its latest tensor processing units, or TPUs, called Ironwood. Last week, the company launched its latest AI model, Gemini 3, which caught positive attention from Silicon Valley heavyweights.

Shares of the stock are now up close to 70% this year, making it the best-performer within megacap tech. But experts told CNBC’s Jennifer Elias that Alphabet’s lead in the competitive AI market is marginal and could be hard to hold onto.

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4. Tech’s tug of wars

Alibaba announced plans to release a pair of smart glasses powered by its AI models. The Quark AI Glasses are Alibaba’s first foray into the smart glasses product category.

Alibaba

The Alphabet-Nvidia AI race isn’t the only tech rivalry that has heated up in recent days.

Alibaba‘s AI-powered smart glasses went on sale yesterday. With its new wearable tech offering, the Chinese tech company is going up against major players — namely Meta, which unveiled its smart glasses with Ray Ban in September.

Meanwhile, Counterpoint Research found Apple is poised to ship more smartphones than Samsung this year for the first time in 14 years. Apple is also poised to boast a larger market share, driven by strong iPhone 17 sales.

5. From Seoul to Los Angeles

Carly Xie looks over facial mask items at the Face Shop, which specializes in Korean cosmetics, in San Francisco, April 15, 2015.

Avila Gonzalez | San Francisco Chronicle | Hearst Newspapers | Getty Images

American shoppers are increasingly looking to South Korea for their cosmetics. NielsenIQ found U.S. sales of so-called “K-beauty” products are slated to surge more than 37% this year to above $2 billion.

Retailers ranging from beauty product hubs Ulta and Sephora to big-box chains Walmart and Costco are jumping on the trend. On top of that, Olive Young — aka the “Sephora of Seoul” — is opening its first U.S. store in Los Angeles next year.

The Daily Dividend

Here are some stories worth circling back to over the weekend:

CNBC’s Chloe Taylor, Gabrielle Fonrouge, Laya Neelakandan, Jessica Dickler, Sarah Min, Sean Conlon, Jennifer Elias, Arjun Kharpal and Luke Fountain contributed to this report. Josephine Rozzelle edited this edition.

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