As we look ahead to an exciting new year of AI innovation, with everybody predicting rapid growth in generative AI, here are some things Forbes’ Bernard Marr is telling us to look out for and track.
Augmented working
“More thoughtful consideration of how humans can work hand-in-hand with AI to augment our technical abilities while freeing up our time to apply our creative and interpersonal skills to jobs that machines still can’t manage. Rather than simply adding chatbots to everything, this will be the way smart businesses begin to generate real value from AI in the coming year”.
Real-time automated decision-making
” … those with more mature AI strategies will move toward end-to-end automation of entire business processes. This is likely to take place across logistics, customer support and marketing, where algorithms will make decisions such as how to manage inventory or how to respond to customer inquiries with minimal human intervention. This will lead to greater efficiency and the ability to react more quickly to changing customer habits or market conditions”.
Responsible AI
“In 2025 there will be a growing awareness of the importance of developing and deploying AI in a way that’s ethical, secure, transparent, reliable and respectful of intellectual property rights. Though some of this will be driven by legislation, there’s also a growing awareness of the harm that can be caused by the irresponsible use of AI. Many of us are now aware of the dangers of AI bias and hallucination and understand that mitigating this takes concerted effort. Businesses that choose to ignore this or cut corners in 2025 can expect bad publicity, heat from regulators and short thrift from their customers”.
Generative Video
“Think ChatGPT but for moving images. OpenAI demonstrated proof-of-concept with its Sora model this year, and 2025 could be the year it starts to become available. While I doubt anyone will be creating movies from prompts that will give Disney a run for their money just yet, it’s a fascinating glimpse at where generative AI is heading, and what it could be capable of in the near future”.
Next-generation voice assistants
A new “interruptable” advanced voice mode for ChatGPT, capable of holding a remarkably human-like conversation, plus integration of Google’s Gemini chatbot into mobile devices, replacing the now-dated “Hey Google” functionality. “In 2025, I think we will see these capabilities appearing in an ever-growing number of devices, enabling more natural and useful voice-to-voice communication“.
For the rest of this list, which includes Bernard’s thoughts on AI legislation and regulation, autonomous AI agents, navigating a post-truth world, quantum AI, AI in cybersecurity and defence and sustainable AI, see Bernard’s full Forbes article from September 2024.