How AI will leap forward in 2024

Last year, Sam Altman, CEO of artificial intelligence company OpenAI, was asked what surprises the field would bring in 2024. Online chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT will take a “leap forward that no one expected”, Altman responded.

Sitting beside him, James Manyika, a Google executive, nodded and said, “Plus one to that.”

The AI industry this year is set to be defined by one main characteristic: A remarkably rapid improvement of the technology as advancements build upon one another, enabling AI to generate new kinds of media, mimic human reasoning in new ways and seep into the physical world through a new breed of robot.