Chegg, an American education technology company, experienced a significant drop in its stock price, with shares slumping by over 40% in just one day. The company cited ChatGPT, a language model developed by OpenAI, as one of the contributing factors to the decline.
According to Chegg’s CEO, the company’s stock price was impacted by a recent blog post by ChatGPT that criticized Chegg’s business practices. In the blog post, ChatGPT argued that Chegg’s online tutoring services were too expensive and that the company was not doing enough to make education more accessible to low-income students.
The blog post quickly gained traction on social media, with many users sharing it and expressing their support for ChatGPT’s stance. This, in turn, led to a significant sell-off of Chegg’s stock by investors who were concerned about the negative publicity and potential loss of business.
Chegg’s CEO responded to the blog post and ensuing market reaction by defending the company’s business practices and highlighting its commitment to making education more accessible to all students. However, this did little to stem the decline in the stock price, which continued to fall throughout the day.
The incident highlights the growing influence of artificial intelligence and machine learning models in financial markets. As these technologies become increasingly sophisticated, they are able to analyze and interpret complex data sets in ways that were previously impossible, leading to new insights and predictions about market trends and stock prices.
However, as in the case of Chegg, these insights can also be controversial and lead to unexpected market reactions. As such, it is important for companies to be aware of the potential impact of AI and machine learning models on their business and take steps to address any concerns that may arise.