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Will Caiger-Smith

As if you hadn’t already heard enough about ChatGPT, bond issuers are now including it in their offering docs.

The latest example is UK hotel chain Travelodge, which is in the market this week with a euro and sterling-denominated refinancing deal. In the risk factors section of its OM, the company discusses the possibility of fluctuations in digital marketing costs and notes the potential impact of ChatGPT:

“Costs for bidding on online search terms or online advertising may increase in the future, with an adverse impact on our expenses. In addition, the advent of new technologies, such as ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched in November 2022, may change the way our customers search for hotels or interact with us via digital channels.”


That’s a very measured and diplomatic way of saying what many commentators have been yelling from the rooftops lately, which is that recent advances in artificial intelligence have the potential to radically alter the world as we know it.

ChatGPT took the world by storm in late 2022 when it was released to the public; its latest iteration, which dropped earlier this year, blew minds once again. In an approach that evokes past debates over who is responsible for content on social media platforms, Sam Altman, the CEO of the chatbot’s creator OpenAI, simultaneously lauds its potential to revolutionize society and frets about how it could destroy it.

Visions of a Matrix-like tech dystopia may or may not be justifiable, but it’s clear that companies are beginning to take AI seriously enough to insert it into their public filings. Here’s e-learning company Skillsoft in its latest 10-K, highlighting the threat it poses to basically its entire business model:


“Large language model programs such as OpenAI's ChatGPT have the potential to decrease the cost of producing content significantly and may decrease the willingness of buyers to purchase learning solutions altogether.”


It’s early days, but it seems likely that more issuers will be name-dropping ChatGPT in the months and years to come. You can find such mentions using 9fin’s document search function.

Some caveats: first of all, this is not the first time that a dramatic change in online technology has disrupted companies and/or entire industries.

Some readers may be old enough to remember eDreams Odigeo, the Spanish travel booking unicorn that went public to great fanfare in 2014 and then tanked after changes in Google’s algorithm impacted its search-engine marketing costs; others may remember the media industry’s disastrous ‘pivot to video’, driven by Facebook data that was later called into question.

Secondly, plenty of past technological revolutions have fallen flat. Crypto is a notable example; the metaverse an even more recent one (although we should probably caveat our caveat, and note that there is always a chance that these projects ultimately succeed!).

Basically, just because companies are including ChatGPT in their filings, doesn’t mean they’re running for the bunkers and preparing for the end of the world.

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