The AI Year in Review

A detailed month by month account of important AI announcements and events in 2024

January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

It was a year of AI expansion. While 2023 was a year of AI wonder, 2024 was a year to transform that wonder into something useful. So tech giants OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and others responded by continually releasing a stream of key updates and new products.

Headlines include Tesla is in full self-driving mode, spectacular coverage of the Paris Olympics, data centers go nuclear, AI wins Nobel Prizes, and NASA and SpaceX will use AI to plan missions to Mars.

The AI industry began to pivot from the massive large-language models that had defined the generative AI experience in favor of AI agents, which are smaller and more responsive models designed to perform specific tasks. Look for more specialized AI agents in 2025.

And look as well for more regulatory action. California enacted 16 AI-related laws and the EU passed the AI Act to provide harmonized rules on AI.

 

January 2024

Advancements with AI Assistants, Tesla in full self-driving mode, and the launch of ChatGPT enterprise

Google's introduced Circle to Search, a feature that allows users to search by circling, highlighting, or scribbling on content on their screens. New generative AI features were added to the Chrome browser. Google brought AI capabilities to the Samsung Galaxy S24 series, and made progress in its LaMDA project where the AI assistant became more conversational when compared to previous chatbots.

OpenAI launched GPT Store, which introduces a new level of customization for ChatGPT users by allowing them to fully personalize its functionality.

Arizona State University announced a collaboration with OpenAI to launch ChatGPT Enterprise on campus to enhance research and organizational structures, and improve student knowledge.

Tesla rolled out its Full Self-Driving mode through a major software update. This feature allows Tesla vehicles to drive autonomously from point A to B without human intervention

AI demonstrated its potential in crisis management by helping authorities predict and manage a major avian flu outbreak in Asia. The technology enabled more effective resource allocation and quarantine measures.

 

February 2024

OpenAI introduces Sora, Bard is now Gemini, AI art sells for a million, and NVIDIA reaches $2 trillion milestone

OpenAI introduced Sora, a powerful text-to-video AI model capable of generating photorealistic videos up to 60 seconds long based on text prompts. This development expands the creative possibilities in AI-generated content and marks an advancement in video creation technology.

Google launched Gemini 1.5, their next-generation AI model with improved performance and long-context understanding. The company rebranded Bard as Google Gemini for Workspaces and  released Gemma, a new range of open-weight AI models for developers.

Meta introduced V-JEPA, an open-source Predictive Architecture model that learns from video with the goal of achieving human-like learning processes.

NVIDIA reached a $2 trillion stock market valuation, reflecting the growing demand for AI hardware.

Microsoft partnered with French AI startup Mistral AI to make their models available on the Azure platform.

DeepMind's AI system achieved Go grandmaster status, demonstrating AI's capabilities in complex strategy games.

Ai-Da became the first humanoid robot to sell a piece of artwork at auction. AI God, a rendering of Alan Turing, was estimated to sell for between $120,000 and $180,000, but bidding soared to a final price of $1,084,000 at the historic Sotheby's auction house in London.

 

March 2024

Claude 3 is released, Apple Intelligence spans devices, and AI turns to nuclear power

Anthropic released Claude 3, a family of AI models that directly competes with OpenAI's GPT series. Claude 3 demonstrated impressive capabilities such as "near human" performance levels, outperforming GPT-4 on 10 popular AI benchmarks.

Google Cloud and Cognizant strengthened their strategic partnership when Cognizant committed to training 70,000 associates on Google Cloud's AI technologies. The partnership aimed to accelerate adoption of Google Cloud's Gemini models.

NVIDIA unveiled plans to integrate AI into humanoid robot bodies and launched Chat with RTX, a personal AI chatbot for Windows. NVIDIA's Blackwell chip became the gold standard in GPU microarchitecture for processing large amounts of information. Blackwell enables AI training, research, and computing for Amazon Web Services, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and xAI, among others.

Microsoft's Azure OpenAI Service saw several improvements, including GPT-4o model received updates, including support for structured outputs, new preview API release with enhanced features like batch API support, and increased max output tokens for GPT-4o from 4,096 to 16,384.

Apple Intelligence might not have been the most successful launch (many features lacking), but in terms of making the powers of generative AI as accessible as possible, nothing was as important as Apple Intelligence.

Amazon purchased a nuclear-powered AI data center from Talen, and Microsoft bought the production capacity of Three Mile Island and is working to get Reactor One back online and generating electricity.

 

April 2024

More regulatory interest with the Flash Report, the Rome Call for AI Ethics, and Stargate data center

OpenAI released an updated version of GPT-4 Turbo for premium ChatGPT users, featuring improvements in writing, math, logical reasoning, and coding. The new GPT-4 Turbo model has a more up-to-date knowledge base, trained on data up to December 2023.

Microsoft launched Phi-3 Mini, a compact AI model with 3.8 billion parameters, available on Azure and Hugging Face. Microsoft Research Asia unveiled VASA-1, an AI that generates in real-time realistic talking faces from photos and speech audio.

Apple acquired Datakalab, a Paris-based AI startup specializing in on-device AI processing, as part of its strategy to enhance AI capabilities on devices like iPhones and iPads.

The U.S. House of Representatives released its April 2024 Flash Report on Artificial Intelligence, outlining AI guardrails and updates on AI use within the House.

Cisco Systems joined Microsoft and IBM in signing the Rome Call for AI Ethics, a pledge to ensure AI is developed and used ethically.

Microsoft and OpenAI announced a billion-dollar AI data center project, dubbed Stargate. It is expected to be operational by 2028.

 

May 2024

OpenAI launches Chat GPT-4o, Gemini Flash 1.5, AI Overviews, and Build 2024 conference

OpenAI introduced GPT-4o, a groundbreaking model with enhanced voice and video capabilities, made GPT-4o available for free through the standard version of ChatGPT, with paid users benefiting from increased usage limits, and began training GPT-5, the successor to GPT-4, with expectations of significant improvements.

It wasn't until the release of GPT-4o that generative AI systems truly came into their own. Building on its predecessor's ability to analyze and generate both text and images, GPT-4o provides a more comprehensive contextual understanding compared to GPT-4 alone. This translates to better performance in everything from image captioning and visual analysis, to generating both creative and analytical content like graphs, charts, and images.

At Google I/O 2024, the company emphasized AI integration across its wide range of ervices. They announced Gemini Flash 1.5, a new generative AI model designed for real-time conversations.

Google launched its AI Overview feature in May. AI Overview generates a summary of the information that a user requests at the top of its search results page.

Microsoft showcased extensive AI integration across its product portfolio at Build 2024. Microsoft launched Phi-3 Mini, a compact AI model with 3.8 billion parameters.

IBM announced a new AI strategy focused on AI middleware.

An international gathering of major AI developers and top government officials in Seoul agreed on measures that aim to ensure that AI systems are safely built and deployed. Attendees from 16 different technology companies signed a promise to develop AI technology in ways that limit possible public harms.

U.S.-based Aurora Innovation said it was preparing to launch a series of driverless trucks to transport goods on a major public highway. Company officials said it planned to begin the service in Texas, with 20 tractor-trailers transporting goods between Dallas and Houston.

 

June 2024

Anthropic Artifacts, GPT-4 Turbo, Gemma 2, and an unbelievable McDonalds order

OpenAI released an updated version of GPT-4 Turbo for premium ChatGPT users. OpenAI made the GPT-4 API generally available to all paying API customers.

Anthropic's Artifacts feature provides users with a separate preview window in which to view the AI-crafted text outside of the main conversation.

Google introduced Gemma 2, a new AI model available to researchers and developers. NotebookLM, Google's AI-powered note-taking tool, expanded globally and added support for Slides and improved fact-checking capabilities. Google launched new AI tools for Google Workspace for Education, aiming to enhance learning experiences. Google Translate expanded its translation capability with the addition of 110 new languages.

In one of the funniest AI stories of the year, McDonald's ended its partnership with IBM to develop an AI drive-through order taker after videos appeared on social media showing frustrated customers trying to correct comically inaccurate meals. "Stop! Stop! Stop!" two friends screamed with humorous anguish on a TikTok video as an AI drive-through misunderstands their order, tallying up 240, 250 and then 260 Chicken McNuggets.

In environmental research, a first-of-its-kind global map of ocean infrastructure was created using AI, contributing to a better understanding of marine biodiversity and human activity at sea.

 

July 2024

AI on display at the Paris Olympic Games, Grok 2.0, and the opening of the world's largest supercomputer

Google introduced Gemini 1.5 Flash, an upgraded version of their AI model featuring faster responses and expanded access. NotebookLM, Google's AI-powered note-taking tool, expanded globally and added support for Slides and improved fact-checking capabilities.

OpenAI released GPT-4o mini, a cheaper and faster version of their GPT-4o model, and the Voice Mode feature for ChatGPT. The company launched a Usage API, allowing customers to programmatically query activities and spending across OpenAI APIs.

The Coalition for Secure AI (CoSAI) was introduced, focusing on the secure development and deployment of AI technologies.

OpenAI showcased AI applications in sports broadcasting when it partnered with NBC Universal for the Summer Olympic Games coverage.

xAI launched Grok 2.0, the latest model built right into X. Also, Elon Musk constructed the world's largest supercomputer outside of Memphis, Tennessee. Driven by 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs, the supercluster is tasked with training new versions of xAI's Grok generative AI model.

 

August 2024

Pixel 9, AI training issues, and Gemini for mobile

OpenAI released a new version of GPT-4o in ChatGPT, introduced an update that improved ChatGPT's responsiveness, and continued development of GPT-4o models.

Under the AI Act, the EU AI Office launched consultation on trustworthy general-purpose AI models.

A joint statement by US and European regulatory bodies was issued on AI competition issues.

Investigations began into data collection practices for AI training, a contentious issue with copyright holders.

OpenAI announced testing of SearchGPT, an AI-powered search engine.

Microsoft continued developing personal agents for business activities with their Azure OpenAI Service.

 

September 2024

Advanced Voice Mode, GPT-4o1, and California AI laws

OpenAI released its Advanced Voice Mode to ChatGPT subscribers. This feature eliminated the need for users to type their questions into a prompt window, instead enabling them to converse with the AI as they would another person. Leveraging GPT-4o's human-equivalent response times, Advanced Voice Mode fundamentally changed how people can interact with machine intelligence and helped users unleash the AI's full creative capacity. OpenAI released a Usage API for customers to query activities and spending across OpenAI APIs.

OpenAI launched its new reasoning model called o1, which is designed to spend more time thinking before responding. It outperforms previous models like GPT-4o in areas such as data analysis, science, and multilingual capabilities. It achieved high scores on math competition problems and coding challenges, but it can be slow in generating responses and still prone to errors. It's available in ChatGPT and through OpenAI's API.

Designed for Apple Intelligence from the ground up, Apple announced it was launching several new iPhones equipped with special chips to support AI operations.

Google announced several AI-related updates. It enhanced Gemini 1.5 series with two variants: Gemini 1.5 Pro and Gemini 1.5 Flash, introduced Imagen 3, a new image generation model, launched Audio Overviews feature in NotebookLM, and announced a new satellite constellation for faster wildfire detection using AI. Google Analytics received AI-powered updates including enhanced anomaly detection for identifying sudden changes in event tracking or user behavior and improved trend change detection for long-term insights.

Meta announced plans to create an AI-powered search engine with AI-generated summaries.

California enacted 16 AI bills into law, including AB-2885 which provides a uniform definition for "Artificial Intelligence." California now defines AI as a system that has some sense of autonomy and can generate outputs based on inferences derived from input data. Other laws include Artificial Intelligence Training Data Transparency (AB-2013), California AI Transparency Act (SB-942). Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act (SB-1047), and Automated Decision Systems (AB-2930).

 

October 2024

Amazon buys nuclear reactors, Anthropic agents, and AI researchers win Nobel Prizes

Google announced several AI-related updates, including major AI enhancements to Google Maps, expanded AI features in Search, release of AI Overview to over 100 countries, and enhancements to Google Lens to allow users to voice questions about images.

OpenAI unveiled new features in ChatGPT, including an enhanced search tool for more accurate, context-driven answers.

Security providers increasingly integrated AI into their products: CrowdStrike introduced Charlotte AI, a generative AI tool for security analysts, and Recorded Future launched Recorded Future AI, a platform with a generative AI-based assistant for threat intelligence.

Logik.io secured $25 million in Series B funding for its AI-driven Configure Price Quote (CPQ) technology.

Amazon signed an agreement to acquire miniaturized, self-contained Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) from Energy Northwest.

Anthropic debuted its Computer Use agent. It allows AI to translate natural language instructions into actionable commands, such as moving cursors, typing, and interacting with a computer like a human would.

Tesla demonstrated the latest iteration of its Optimus humanoid robot in front of a stunned audience at its We Robot event in October.

This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to work that could help discover new medicines by using AI to predict and design novel proteins, and John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton won the Nobel Prize in Physics for helping create the building blocks of machine learning. Hinton helped develop a technique in the 1980s known as backpropagation which is instrumental in training machines how to learn by fine-tuning errors until they disappear.

 

November 2024

ChatGPT Search, Copilot Actions, and Claude writing styles

OpenAI continued expansion of its product portfolio, released ChatGPT Search publicly, and focused on developing AI search capabilities.

Google's Gemini-Exp-1114 achieved the top position in the Chatbot Arena leaderboard and tied with OpenAI's GPT-4o in performance rankings, excelling in math, vision tasks, and reasoning. Google completed its November 2024 Core Algorithm Update. The update focused on improving search result quality and aims to prioritize genuinely useful content over search-optimized material.

Claude introduced customizable writing styles, a conversational AI solution that can adopt a variety of response styles, which provides users a new level of personalization in their interactions with the chatbot.

iCapital acquired AltExchange, an AI-powered data management platform for financial advisors.

Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event showcased AI-driven enterprise solutions and demonstrated AI applications across retail, healthcare, and finance sectors. Microsoft also introduced Copilot Actions featuring workplace search engines, AI-fueled themed e-mail composing, and agent-based AI to draw business insights in information stores like SharePoint.

 

December 2024

AI World is launched, 12 Days of OpenAI, and Gemini 2.0

The AI World website is launched to bring the wide world of AI closer to people.

With the Gemini 2.0 launch, Google released their most capable AI model yet, introduced agentic capabilities for developers and others, and launched experimental models including Gemini-exp-1206 and Gemini Advanced. Project Astra improvements include enhanced multilingual dialogue capabilities, tool integration with Google Search, Lens, and Maps, and improved memory retention and conversation personalization.

Google introduced GenCast, a new AI weather prediction model, a breakthrough quantum computing chip named Willow, added new AI features to Android and Pixel devices, and launched Google Agentspace for enterprise productivity. Google identified key AI trends for 2025: improved enterprise security, enhanced enterprise searches, better customer experiences, and simplified complex tasks through AI agents.

During a series of live-stream events, OpenAI presented its inaugural 12 Days of OpenAI media blitz on December 5. Each day they unveiled new features, models, subscription tiers, and capabilities for its growing ChatGPT product ecosystem.

Links

digitaltrends.com/computing/the-10-biggest-ai-announcements-of-2024

blog.google/technology/ai/google-ai-news-recap-2024

cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/a-look-back-at-the-ai-innovations-transforming-the-public-sector

ipwatchdog.com/2024/12/30/year-in-review-2024-sees-significant-legislative-developments-on-ai

learningenglish.voanews.com/a/top-technology-stories-of-2024

forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2024/12/16/6-game-changing-ai-breakthroughs-that-defined-2024

inc.com/kit-eaton/what-happened-in-ai-in-2024-and-what-will-the-new-year-bring

kdnuggets.com/2024-biggest-moments-ai

techrepublic.com/article/ai-news-biggest-stories-2024

techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/feature/The-year-in-AI-Catch-up-on-the-top-AI-news-of-2024

washingtontimes.com/news/2024/dec/30/artificial-intelligence-putting-ai-tools-work-2024

about.fb.com/news/2024/12/our-year-in-review-metas-2024-highlights