Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly advancing from the lab into everyday life, powering countless technology-driven industries and revolutionizing the way we work. AI has boosted productivity, helped solve complex problems, and opened new opportunities to innovate. It has also raised concerns about unintended consequences and harms, prompting discussions about regulations to ensure the safety and benefits of AI.
When most people use the term “AI” today, they’re generally referring to a suite of machine learning-powered technologies that enable computers to perform tasks that were previously the purview of humans. These include natural language processing, a technology that lets machines interpret and understand written text; computer vision, which enables machines to read and perceive images and video; and generative AI tools that can create new content like texts, images, videos and code.
One of the most popular applications of generative AI is in chatbots, where it has made it possible to hold conversations that sound almost human and generate high-quality images, video and music. These tools use deep neural networks and other ML techniques to learn from existing data and then produce similar content in response to simple prompts or instructions. Examples include Google’s Gemini chatbot and a wide array of apps such as the Facebook Messenger Bot, Microsoft’s Copilot, Veo 3, Meta AI and Midjourney.
Another big development is in the ability to post-train smaller, more capable ML models, making them faster and better at specialized tasks. This trend, coupled with hardware costs declining by 30% annually and energy efficiency improving 40% each year, is accelerating the pace of model development.